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Haha! Keep him around. Treat him like he treats his workers.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Honest question, did you think this would last forever? That this small business will be there when you are 65? I'm assuming you are young, you could still pick up a skill.

I was hoping the company would grow and expand. Start manufacturing our own products (models, conversion bits, games, etc).

And, did you think that you would be with the company until you are 65?
You do realize that the average person stays with a job for less than ten years right?
I dont mean to be a jerk or seem like one, im just genuinely curious

 Igenstilch wrote:
I was hoping the company would grow and expand. Start manufacturing our own products (models, conversion bits, games, etc).

What made you think that was a realistic hope? Were you aware of BTP's (entirely deserved) terrible reputation and how that would impact any future product ideas? And why would a painting service be a good candidate for expansion into completely unrelated products?

If I had the money, I'd buy this just to tear it down.

hmmm, strange, how can management all sudden become so poor .... there has to be a pinpoint place where it started ticking down, it seems that S. has it figured out... would hate to not see any of those people , BTP has lived on my YouTube for many MANY years.

Guys comeon, leave Igenstitch alone. He's in a terrible situation right now there's no need to attack him just because he works at BTP.

Shawn did all the mistakes here the staff isn't responsible for all the PR disasters and poor management decisions.

 nettraper wrote:
hmmm, strange, how can management all sudden become so poor

It didn't. BTP has always been a company that does mediocre work (and sometimes shamefully bad work), charges too much money for it, and operates with a "no refunds under any circumstances" policy that makes it virtually impossible to fix the problem if BTP sells you a defective product. They've been getting by purely on marketing skill and a customer base that doesn't research reviews of painting services before committing to a purchase (at which point it's too late to back out no matter how badly BTP rips you off).

 Talliostro wrote:
Guys comeon, leave Igenstitch alone. He's in a terrible situation right now there's no need to attack him just because he works at BTP.

Shawn did all the mistakes here the staff isn't responsible for all the PR disasters and poor management decisions.

I am not. It just seems weird to thinKatha one company will employ you until retirement

I work now for 15 years for the same company and I hope to do this until my retirement. Maybe it's an european thing but there is nothing special in trying to achieve an employment until retirement in the same company.

Blue Table Painting- Buy the Company

Price: $440,000.00

Don't actually buy this from the webstore! Contact bluetablepainting@gmail.com This purchase is for the company and all its assets, material and intellectual. You will have no bank or tax debt from the company. The owner will show you how to run everything over the course of two months. You will also gain interest in the studio building itself as a property. All details to be still negotiated.

I wonder what the basis is for the valuation, and whether there is an audited financial statement for revenue and profit.

$440k is a lot of money for a name of dubious reputation.

If only the Kickstarter had brought in the millions that it deserved to.

 Talliostro wrote:
I work now for 15 years for the same company and I hope to do this until my retirement. Maybe it's an european thing but there is nothing special in trying to achieve an employment until retirement in the same company.

Maybe, a lot of people don't work for the same company for their entire life anymore.

I'd say it'd be extremely incredibly rare for a commission painter to work for a company for more than a few years, it's not the sort of work that pays well or has any chance for promotion to want to make a career out of it. If you genuinely love doing it I imagine you'd do it freelance, not under someone who is taking a cut of your profit.

The expectations of staff for future career goals are hardly a subject to try and hold them to account on this thread. If this person came onto the page to say 'yes, I'm worried about my future', the idea that you should sit there and berate them for having poor employment goals is arrogant and asinine. I personally hope they can secure decent jobs elsewhere (hopefully for more money) and wish them and Gately's family well, despite his glaring idiocy in running the company into a ditch.

Am I the only one that thinks this whole thing is a case of an ego being too big? I followed the other thread, I've watched the videos, Ive read the majority of the comments/replys.
I get why BTP is being hated on. What I don't understand and can't because how could I, is what is Sean doing to correct the direction his brand is headed in? Can he get them back on a course that doesn't involve an Iceberg?
I think it's an ego trip he "firmly believes" what he's pushing.
Well, can't push the imperial truth without Space Marines. I don't think he's goth any of those around. What bothers me I guess is that despite their failings they have been around for some time now. If it were me I'd look very hard at what can I stop providing as a service. drop the top 2 or 3 levels of"painting service" why lie. Heck announce it! nothing to loose there. They really need to get back to the basics.
Just don't lie or imply BTP can do more than it really can. If he could find a partner to manage the business and I mean really manage not mess around being nice to everyone, they might get back on tract and start to make some money. I think if it were me I'd put Sean on 90 day leave with only X amount of cash to get him out of sight for a while. I wouldn't even git rid of him people like his videos. But when he came back. Videos are all he'd do. batt reps and nonsense. he's learned to youtube and that's some money coming in. The down side is he'd "get out of jail free" and have too much of a good time doing it.
Would I buy BTP? No. This is just been on my mine for a little while.

Dakka should make a kickstarter and buy BTP

It seems very much that the problems with BTP are from the top down - often involving lack of communication both with the customers and with the painters.

He wanted product rushed out the door, to make the money, to keep the company afloat.

But at the cost of having mediocre to bad paint jobs and charging for higher quality than was actually delivered.

Really, I think that Shawn allowed the company to be swamped by the volume necessary to keep an enterprise of this scale afloat.

I feel awful for the painters that have been caught in the mess. I feel awful for the customers that had bad experiences with BTP.

Hell, I even feel bad for Shawn - but not as much. At the core, this is a mess of his own making. :(

The Auld Grump

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
The expectations of staff for future career goals are hardly a subject to try and hold them to account on this thread. If this person came onto the page to say 'yes, I'm worried about my future', the idea that you should sit there and berate them for having poor employment goals is arrogant and asinine. I personally hope they can secure decent jobs elsewhere (hopefully for more money) and wish them and Gately's family well, despite his glaring idiocy in running the company into a ditch.

Sorry if my comment sounded like berating, I certainly didn't mean it that way. Even if you have a job you hate, potentially losing your source of income can be extremely stressful. I was just weighing in on the discussion of people staying in jobs for a long time. I imagine with the wages and lack of opportunity for advancement, working for a commission service would not be the sort of job people keep for a long time and if they were genuinely passionate about commission painting I'd imagine they'd be wanting to do it freelance. But that aside, losing your income regardless of what it is sucks.

I will be honest... I've never seen how a commission painting company like that survives. You're pretty much always going to have more overheads than freelance commission painters.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
The expectations of staff for future career goals are hardly a subject to try and hold them to account on this thread. If this person came onto the page to say 'yes, I'm worried about my future', the idea that you should sit there and berate them for having poor employment goals is arrogant and asinine. I personally hope they can secure decent jobs elsewhere (hopefully for more money) and wish them and Gately's family well, despite his glaring idiocy in running the company into a ditch.

I hope he can find gainful employment soon. I am just curious, here I was taught you typically do not stay with a job or company for more than acyear.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
The expectations of staff for future career goals are hardly a subject to try and hold them to account on this thread. If this person came onto the page to say 'yes, I'm worried about my future', the idea that you should sit there and berate them for having poor employment goals is arrogant and asinine. I personally hope they can secure decent jobs elsewhere (hopefully for more money) and wish them and Gately's family well, despite his glaring idiocy in running the company into a ditch.

I hope he can find gainful employment soon. I am just curious, here I was taught you typically do not stay with a job or company for more than acyear.

While that is generally true, its not always the case. My dad worked for the same company for 20 years, then he left for a startup and worked for them for 5 years till they went under. Then he moved on to another company where he's been for the last 4 years.

If you want any advancement or pay increases you want to remain with the same company. Constantly hopping companies doesn't reflect positively on your resume.

There was a typo ther, I meant a couple of years, not a year.

 Talliostro wrote:
Guys comeon, leave Igenstitch alone. He's in a terrible situation right now there's no need to attack him just because he works at BTP.

+1. Threatened job security sucks, even when you have enough savings that it won't be devastating and even if it's a job you don't particularly like. There's nothing wrong with hoping (not assuming) that you can keep a job you enjoy for the foreseeable future.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

 Talliostro wrote:
Guys comeon, leave Igenstitch alone. He's in a terrible situation right now there's no need to attack him just because he works at BTP.

+1. Threatened job security sucks, even when you have enough savings that it won't be devastating and even if it's a job you don't particularly like. There's nothing wrong with hoping (not assuming) that you can keep a job you enjoy for the foreseeable future.

Let's also be honesty that he probably has nothing to do with the grievances we all have with BTP. Most people's ire is with Shawn not his employees.

To me Igenstitch's is just another person who has been hurt by Shawn's poor business sense. I wish him the best of luck, and that he might be able to get freelance work if bluetable is liquidated.

It does suck for the employees. I was in a similar situation working at a family owned print shop.

The owner ran the business catering to a couple large clients and ignoring or pushing aside smaller ones to the point we lost a lot of volume of customers.

He would ask for suggestions from everyone on how to bring in more business and any that were suggested he would shoot down and get frustrated with a "I don't do business that way" attitude.

Eventually he laid off a lot of people, me included. Went from 10 full time employees, and 1 part time to 3 Full time and 1 part time.

Ive heard he's even gotten rid of his printing presses and is now just doing copy machine jobs and anything big is outsourcing to china.

It's terrible because usually those little businesses you work in are the most rewarding, but a bad captain will sink a ship.

What's happening is Shaun's fault. Not the hired painters' fault. Let's leave these poor guys alone, who are doing what they can to keep a roof overhead. They've got enough to deal with in the case of Shaun's mismanagement, they don't need aggravation from us online.

Any BTP painters who are on here and in a state of turmoil, I wish you luck.

Shaun, I wish you professional help. Seek the assistance of one Lucy Van Pelt. She only charges a nickle. I'm sure you can find the ability to part with that much loose change.

My own belief is that Shawn did have a successful business model at some stage, because it's been around a fair while. I think what's killed it is constantly seeking the far horizons with things like the valhalla event, clothing line, business gurus and being an 'ideas man' instead of knuckling the feth down and leading by example. Too many big dreams and bs and not enough rolled up sleeves and quality control.

It's also been a rough economic time for the hobby as a whole, as well as some absolutely ridiculous antics as we saw with his inability to handle simple customer service instead of idiot grandstanding and smoke and mirrors bs via miniwargaming etc.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
My own belief is that Shawn did have a successful business model at some stage, because it's been around a fair while.

He did, it was just a business model that relied on having a pool of uninformed customers that would make the initial payment and be committed to paying the final price no matter how bad BTP's work was. That can work for a while, especially with good marketing like BTP had, but eventually their reputation was going to suffer and they'd run out of easy customers. Also, TBH, I wouldn't be surprised if a major factor is paypal extending the dispute window and making it harder for BTP to enforce their "no refunds under any circumstances" by stalling long enough that paypal can't force a refund.

wow, that paints them to be quite horrible.
I've seen first had the lack of consistency in their work.
Maybe 3 or 4 years ago Darth Burn from Paint it Black Studio was paid to repaint a large blood angels army previously painted by BTP. I was very surprised that they were using maybe 3 or 4 different shades of red. Not like blended or highlighted or anything like that but some squads were clearly one color and others another color. I can't even imagine the money spent between both projects. Just way too much.
The bit about waiting out PayPals refund time limit.

In my opinion I love when actual BTP employees current or former post in these threads and shed light on the inner-workings. I wish more of them did.