Hone your process to land more jobs

Building and winning bids is one of the most important parts of growing your painting business. After all, you’re not the only painter out there. According to a 2021 survey, 46 percent of homeowners received quotes from at least two different painters for their home. Standing out from the crowd means your bids need to impress potential customers with their preparation, their professionalism, and, yes, their price point.

Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, and Shane Fast, owner of Renew Painting of the Carolinas, share their best practices for job estimates in the Sherwin-Williams PRO+ Training Series webinar “Estimating Like a PRO.” While crafting the perfect bid is more of an art than a science, the advice they offer can help you hone your bids and land more jobs.

Determine Your Cost

While most painters are concerned about setting their cost too high, make sure you aren’t underpricing yourself either. When setting a price point, it’s important to consider these factors:

• Know the total cost of labor and resources for the project. In addition to material costs and hourly rates, don’t forget to account for workers comp, general liability, employer taxes, and other required fees, as well as sales tax and equipment rental fees.
• Know your desired profit margin. For most businesses, Moore recommends multiplying the total costs by 2 or 2.5, depending on your market and the rate of growth you’re aiming for.
• Know what similar jobs have cost your team in the past. Job costing (also known as project-based accounting) can help you adjust your estimates to make them more accurate.
• Know your worth. If the price you give is too steep for the customer, then you’re better off not getting the job. With rare exceptions, you never want to lose money on a job or simply “break even” on material and labor costs. You’re building a business, and if you do good work, know your worth.

“Just make sure that your hourly rate lines up with the experience you’re giving the customer,” Moore says. “You can’t go into most Midwestern markets at $70/hour if you’re only offering a $40/hour-level customer service experience.”

To streamline the estimating process, Fast suggests building a database of estimated costs for every type of item you paint, from walls to ceilings to trim to fascia.

The PCA’s Industry Standards and industry advice can be useful standards when coming up with estimates, but the best method is to observe your team and take notes. How long does it take them to do the average ceiling or exterior wall? (Experienced painters-turned-owners should make sure estimates are based on their crew’s ability, not your own personal ability.)

Having these estimates can allow you to offer quick estimates to phone inquiries, allowing you to essentially pre-screen clients. There’s no reason to waste time on meetings with clients whose idea of a “fair” cost is nowhere near your price point. You can then offer the remaining clients a more specific bid after making an in-person visit and seeing the layout for yourself.

Use Project Bids

While it’s possible to do the calculations manually, the easiest way to calculate your total labor and material costs is with the free Project Bids tool in the Sherwin-Williams PRO+ app. Because it can access the Sherwin-Williams product catalog and assign specific products to each area, it makes calculating material costs much easier than doing it manually. Calculate your estimate based off options such as labor hours or square feet, and include tax if required in your area. You can even use a past bid as a template with easy edits for new projects to help you manage all your bids in one place.

Uenderson Caliman Macedo, owner and operator of Caliman Custom Painting in Boca Raton, Florida, says he’s used the app on several jobs and found it very helpful.

“You can do everything right there as you talk to customers,” Macedo says. “You can add notes, calculate your square footage, determine your pricing, and it’ll send it all straight to the customer right there and then. Otherwise I’d have to take all that information home, lay it out and go over everything. And the good thing is you can take a picture of what you’re doing and show your customer step-by-step what is going to be done.”

For those who prefer to spend their time painting rather than doing paperwork, Project Bids is an easy solution. Joe Thisius of Pro-Coats Painting in Newport, Michigan, says the process was extremely easy.

“I literally met with my customer, measured the job, went and sat in my truck, and sent them an estimate within 10 minutes,” says Thisius. “That’s what the customer liked about it, too. It’s great for putting together estimates on your phone. It’s very easy to navigate, and I like a lot of the options, especially the ability to create duplicates. If I wrote out a spec for bedroom number one, I could quickly duplicate it and, boom, just rename it bedroom number two, change the dimensions around as needed, and it’s ready to go for another bedroom. It’s very easy to modify your bids.”

To access the Project Bids tool, sign into the PRO+ app with your PRO+ account. For help signing in or setting up your PRO+ account, contact your local store or representative.

Impress the Customer

It’s a myth that the painter with the lowest price will always win; in fact, 63 percent of homeowners disagreed with that statement when surveyed. So if homeowners aren’t looking for low prices, what are they looking for? Respondents said they made their hiring decisions based on a painter’s reputation, responsiveness during the quote process, professionalism, availability to start, and preferred brand of paint.

“A lot of people can produce a good paint job,” Fast says. “But can we do it in a way that the experience overwhelms the customer to where that great experience is what they remember?”

That means it’s important to demonstrate your value in other ways during the bidding process.

• Emphasize good reviews you’ve received from previous clients, the quality of products you can provide, or past experiences working on similar jobs.
• Make a good first impression by being on-time, bringing professional-looking materials to the meeting, and speaking confidently and professionally.
• Listen to what matters to the customer, take detailed notes, and ask questions that show that you’re paying attention to their needs.
• Educate the customer about factors to consider when looking at other bids—like insurance, number of coats, or use of premium products—that can contribute to different bid valuations. Moore says, “We want to make sure that, as they are comparing our numbers with other contractors, everything is on the same playing field.”

After sending the quote, be sure to follow up with the customer. If your bid is not ultimately selected for the project, feel free to respectfully ask them what their concerns were with hiring you; listen without being defensive, and use that feedback to help future bids become more successful.

If you are selected for the project, make sure to deliver on everything you promised and impress the customer with your quality. After all, nearly half of painters are hired based off referrals from family members or friends. You can’t affect your competitors’ prices, but you can make sure you have a reputation for great work—and word of mouth can be your most powerful asset in the bidding process.

Conclusion

Building better estimates is the foundation for not only expanding your client base, but also building repeat business. Using these best bidding practices will help you meet your client’s needs, ensure your business’ work isn’t undervalued, and land more jobs in a competitive marketplace.

For more information, you can watch the full “Estimating Like a PRO” webinar with Moore and Fast here.