Veteran painting contractors share their business wisdom
Every successful painting business owner once started out as an ambitious painter with a dream. Establishing and growing a business takes skill, a bit of luck… and quality advice from a trusted mentor.
We asked veteran painting contractors to share the best advice they ever received when starting their business. Here’s what they said. Continue reading The Best Business Tips I’ve Ever Received
Stumped by social media? You won’t be after reading this advice
When it comes to connecting with your local community, social media can be a game changer. It lets potential customers find you without you having to spend days knocking on doors or cold calling.
But social media isn’t just a box you check—using it well is a craft unto itself, and like any craft, some techniques and methods work better than others. While paid ads and sponsored content can be a quick way to get your name out to prospective clients, the savvy social media user may be able to draw a large audience with just a smartphone and a little trial-and-error. Continue reading 3 Secrets to Organic Social Media Success
Save time and skip the headaches by decluttering your van
The painter’s van is the central hub of your business—your office on the go. That’s why optimizing your van’s loadout is so important. A disorganized or overcrowded van can make it hard to find what you’re looking for when you need it. Painters can be stuck taking multiple trips from the van to the job site and back again just to get everything they need, time that could be better spent painting or with a client. Continue reading How to Fit Everything You Need in One Van
Generate quality leads from social media with these 6 tips
Tell the painters on your team to pull out their phones and get on social media. No, it’s not a distraction or a waste of time on the job. In fact, savvy social media skills can save your business time and help you land more jobs and make more money. Continue reading How to Build Your Social Media Presence
If you haven’t already gone airless, here’s 3 reasons to start
When purchasing a sprayer, you want to make the right decision. After all, buying a sprayer is a significant financial investment.
Many painting contractors have been increasingly choosing airless sprayers. Garrett Bogart, national account specialist at Graco, explains the three main advantages of choosing an airless sprayer, a couple of models he recommends for pros, and some best practices to keep your sprayer functioning at a high level for years to come. Continue reading The Pro’s Guide to Airless Spraying
Bust through homeowner indecision with these icebreakers
For some customers, committing to a specific color can be intimidating. What if it’s not quite right? What if it looks different in real life than how they imagined it in their head? What if this color goes out of style almost as soon as it dries? That fear can lead to paralysis—and may delay the start of your painting project waiting while you wait for a decision.
But you don’t have to wait. By engaging the customer in a conversation about color, you can help them gain the confidence to lock in their color selection and move forward. Best of all, it doesn’t require you to be a color expert; all you have to do is get them talking and pay attention. Continue reading 3 Ways to Start the Color Conversation
6 creative ways tape can add efficiency to your work
Painting pros know a high-quality tape can deliver sharp paint lines. But on painting jobs, painter’s and masking tapes offer many more uses than their names might imply. Over the years, pros in the trades have come up with some tape hacks to boost efficiency, clean work areas and keep painting jobs on track. Continue reading Beyond Taping
Get more paying customers with these four tips
Leads are the lifeblood of any painting business, but acquiring them is easier said than done. Moreover, you want to make sure your estimates actually turn into paying customers, so acquiring targeted, high-quality leads is important to ensure you’re not wasting your time. When you start off with the right customers, you are much more likely to win the job.
Here’s four things you can start doing today to continually generate quality leads for your business, so that you can spend less time on marketing and more time on painting. Continue reading How to Generate More Leads
Improve project efficiency and homeowner satisfaction with premium upgrades
Successful painting contractors agree that a customer-focused sales approach typically results not only in improved customer satisfaction but the opportunity to upgrade to products that can improve project profitability. Continue reading Customer-Focused Interior Upgrade Solutions
Help customers create visual interest with ceiling paint
While your customers are accustomed to carefully choosing the color of paint used on the four walls of a room, the ceiling is often overlooked. As a professional painting contractor, you know that the ceiling—sometimes referred to as “the fifth wall”—is an important component of any painting job.
Turn your five-star work into lead generation with these tips
If you want to generate more leads as a contractor, then one area you should focus on improving is your business’ online presence. One of the simplest ways to do this is by highlighting positive reviews of your company. The more positive reviews you have on places like Google, Yelp, and Facebook Marketplace, the higher your business will appear in searches, leading to more passive lead generation and increased business. And the better your review score, the better quality leads you’ll get.
It’s worth it to try and get more reviews then—but how do you go about getting them? Here’s six easy ways to start generating more five-star reviews for your business.
Pros know that the quality of the coatings they use has a huge effect on the final finish and durability of any paint job. Bottom line: Better ingredients such as pigment, binders and additives mean better performance. And that can translate to happier customers. Continue reading Using Premium Products Helps Paint Pros Save Time, Do Better Work and Make More Money. Here’s Why.
These tools and resources can give your business a competitive advantage
In a crowded painting market, you want to give your business every possible advantage. Standing out from the crowd means consistently reevaluating your business practices, seeking out learning opportunities for you and your crew, and finding the right tools and resources—like the ones found in the Sherwin-Williams PRO+ program—no matter what your business needs are. These are the things that can help you gain an edge over your competitors. Continue reading Set Your Business Apart
7 steps to start showing up when clients Google “painters near me”
If you’re a painting business owner, you have probably heard of the importance of having a website, posting updates online, and even SEO (search engine optimization). But many painters don’t have a Google Business Profile. If that’s you, that mistake may be keeping you out of the top Google search results for your area—and it’s important to show up highly on Google. Continue reading Getting Started with Google Business Profiles
The new Gallery Series™ Waterborne Topcoat offers color choices and boosts productivity.
With more and more homeowners looking to update their living spaces, refinished cabinets can give homeowners the high-end looks they desire without the equally high-end costs of replacing cabinets entirely. This trend can be very profitable for your painting business. However, cabinet refinishing can be labor-intensive and requires a system to be in place for maximum productivity.
Building that system starts with choosing the right product—and the new Gallery Series™ Waterborne Topcoat is the right product for the job. Continue reading Enhance Your Cabinet Refinishing Results
Before you buy, consider these five factors.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of options when selecting an airless spray gun. For many painters, the decision is especially important because the spray gun is what they’ll be holding in their hand for the vast majority of the workday. Continue reading What to Look for When Buying an Airless Spray Gun
As a professional painting contractor, you know that color selection can be one of your customers’ biggest pain points. With so many color options available, it’s easy to see why. So how do you help your customers make informed choices and get your jobs started quickly?
The good news is that you and your customers don’t have to be color experts. You can rely on the experienced color professionals at Sherwin-Williams, who have developed easy-to-use tools and resources to help make the color decision process faster and easier.
Continue reading Help Ease Your Customers’ Color Journey with the 2024 Colormix® Forecast
