Veteran Service Brands adds new recruit to its growing army of brand names

This article was originally featured as the cover story of the March 2022 edition of Veterans and Franchising by Franchising Magazine USA.

PAINT CORPS™ is the newest addition to Veteran Service Brands, joining G-FORCE™, MACH ONE™, and FIELD OPS™ in the exclusively veteran-owned family of businesses.

The “rookie” of Veteran Service Brands, PAINT CORPS™, offers interior and exterior painting and high-end cabinet refinishing.

Meanwhile, G-FORCE™ provides pavement marking services, MACH ONE™ installs epoxy floors, and FIELD OPS™ focuses on athletic field marking.

Although PAINT CORPS™ may be the newest member of the Veteran Service Brands family, it’s actually been operating for five years, owner and founder Burgess Perry said during a recent interview with Franchising USA magazine from the franchise’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

The company just recently started franchising and is in the process of finding and onboarding its first franchise owners.

Getting started

An active duty member of the military for 10 years – first as a medic and then a nurse – Perry’s father owned a painting business when the franchise owner was a teenager, which he credits as giving him the idea of starting a painting business.

He retired from the military in 2016 and in March of 2017, he started a local painting company in Tampa, which he called American Veteran Painting.

It started with just him painting and his first customer was his neighbor across the street.

While Perry got the job done on his own, he admitted that it was not done in the most efficient manner. But, that first house gave him a plethora of lessons on both how to paint a house and how to run a business.

As he grew the business, he hired a good team around him and they worked out better systems for painting and scaling the business.

There was just one problem; while the name American Veteran Painting was accurate, it also proved problematic for trademarking purposes.

So, in 2021, the company rebranded to PAINT CORPS™.

Joining the family

Perry joined the Veteran Service Brands family through a connection in his own family. His brother-in-law, Vish Munusami, who lives near him in Tampa, had become the first-ever G-FORCE™ franchisee.

Since Perry and Munusami’s families meet every Friday for dinner, Munusami told Perry about Veteran Service Brands owner Jack Child, who Perry then met.

Perry asked Child what he thought of house painting as a business and it turns out that Child was planning to open a house painting franchise to add to the Veteran Service Brands portfolio. Rather than starting a painting franchise from scratch, after meeting Perry, Child decided to add PAINT CORPS™ to his stable of franchise brands.

“The puzzle pieces fit together just right and we partnered up to make it happen,” Perry recalled.

With their focus on veteran ownership, PAINT CORPS™ is an ideal fit for Veteran Service Brands, as the franchise promises the same camaraderie for veterans as the company’s other brand names.

“Veterans joining the Veteran Service Brands family enjoy instant camaraderie, proven systems in high demand businesses, group discounts, and more,” Child said in a statement.

In demand

Painting has certainly been in-demand over the five years of PAINT CORPS™ existence.

A lot of places in the United States have homeowners associations that mandate homeowners paint their houses and keep them looking good, Perry pointed out. This typically drives up demand, along with people just wanting to perform some general maintenance on their homes.

And then there is cabinet refinishing.

“Cabinet refinishing has kind of been a buzz,” Perry explained. “It’s been a trendy thing for the past three to five years.”

At PAINT CORPS™’ current corporate location, they are booked for six months in advance for cabinet refinishing and they have a similar demand for painting.

The right stuff

Perry said PAINT CORPS™ is looking for veterans who are driven, ambitious, goal-oriented, and take pride in what they do. They should also love working with customers.

Franchisee prospects who fit the profile will undergo one week of training in Tampa. The first part of the week is mostly classroom work to go through the business processes, the software the franchise uses and the day-to-day administrative operations.

The second half of the week is on-the-job training to study actual ongoing projects that are being done by the Tampa location so new franchisees can see the actual painting and cabinet refinishing processes.

PAINT CORPS™ also has an in-house coaching program where all franchisees meet virtually every two weeks for an hour-and-a-half coaching session.

Standing out

The fact that PAINT CORPS™ owners will all be veterans, and primarily employ veterans means customers are going to enjoy the integrity and professionalism that comes with being a veteran of the armed forces, Perry said.

The franchise also offers a free five-year touch up warranty where they will come back and do touch ups to the paint for a five-year period.

“All of our projects are warrantied in that way,” Perry noted.

Perry has already grown to 12 service vehicles and 24 technicians and competes and wins against the big name paint brands. In five years, Perry wants to have 100 locations, along with an excellent team of veteran owners.

Currently, franchise locations are available nationwide.

PAINT CORPS™ has a veteran discount based on years of service, so someone who has served 10 years like Perry would get a bigger discount than someone who has served five years.

Any veterans looking to flex their entrepreneurial muscles in civilian life will enjoy the camaraderie of Veteran Service Brands’ newest recruit, PAINT CORPS™.

Veteran Service Brands:

• G-FORCE™ – Pavement marking
• MACH ONE™ – Epoxy Floors
• FIELD OPS™ – Athletic field markings
• PAINT CORPS™ – Interior & exterior painting & high-end cabinet refinishing

Initial Investments

Start as low as $20,000 for FIELD OPS™ (assuming possession of a suitable pickup truck) and run as high as $150,000 depending upon brand, territory size, truck choice, and equipment package.

Early Bird Discounts on Franchise Fees

Deeply discounted for the first five franchise partners of Veteran Service Brands’ new brand partners.

MACH ONE™ and PAINT CORPS™ normally have a $25,000 Franchise Fee, but offer the first five franchisees a $15,000 discount.

FIELD OPS™ has a $10,000 fee. It offers a 50% discount for the first five franchisees.

Veteran Service Brands is already the largest veteran-only franchise system and aims to triple its size in the next 12-18 months.