What Online Reviews Can Do for You

5 min read

Turn positive word-of-mouth into booming business with these best practices.

To have a healthy business today, you need to have a healthy online presence. And one of the most important parts of your business’ online presence are your online reviews. A good review can help you reach new customers you would have never run into in real life—and a bad review can turn someone away from your business before you’ve ever said a word to them.

Megan Hinz, marketing community manager at Sherwin-Williams, and her team read and reply to every review for every Sherwin-Williams store across Google, Yelp, Facebook, and sherwin-williams.com. They read hundreds of reviews every day. For this article, she talked to us about her team’s best practices for garnering good reviews, responding professionally, and creating a positive impression for potential online customers.

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Uncategorized

The Pro Painter’s Guide to Painting Brick

3 min read

Avoid blistering and peeling with these helpful tips

Brick can present unique challenges for professional painting contractors thanks to its unique properties as a substrate. Blistering, peeling, and the premature weathering of alkaline burn can all result from simple mistakes on the job site.

In this article, Dennis Fiorilli, Director of Product Excellence at Sherwin-Williams, shares a few helpful tips so you can paint brick with confidence and set your painting business apart from the competition.

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ONLINE EXTRAS

Dealing With Difficult Customers

4 min read

Turn micromanaging, indecisive, and demanding clients into glowing recommendations

Difficult customers can come in all shapes and sizes; spend any time as a painting contractor and you’ll run into one eventually. Every contractor can probably recall a customer who made their work so difficult that they started to regret taking the job.

Unfortunately, these situations aren’t only frustrating, but can potentially hurt your business’ reputation if not handled correctly. As such, you need to be prepared for these customers in order to stay successful. And in a competitive marketplace where word-of-mouth is king, retaining customers and generating repeat business can grow your bottom line. In this article, we offer suggestions for how to professionally respond to three of the most common types of difficult customers.

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ONLINE EXTRAS

Four Simple Strategies for Choosing Extraordinary Exterior Colors

4 min read

Help homeowners beat color decision paralysis and start jobs faster

First impressions are important, and for homeowners, their guests’ first impression of their home will be its exterior. It’s no wonder so many homeowners want to freshen up their exterior with a fresh coat of paint—and why many of your potential customers want your opinion on their color selection.

Though you may not feel like the right person to ask about this, successfully helping a homeowner decide on a color can help you to close more leads, get jobs scheduled and started on-time, and position yourself as a color hero to your clients. Sue Wadden, Director of Color Marketing at Sherwin-Williams, offers strategies you can use to help your clients select the perfect exterior look. Continue reading Four Simple Strategies for Choosing Extraordinary Exterior Colors →

BUSINESS BUILDERS

My 5 Biggest Mistakes, and the Lessons I Learned from Them to Improve My Business

5 min read

In this article, PPC contributing writer Terry Begue talks about the biggest mistakes he made when he started his Ohio-based residential painting company, and what he did to correct them and turn his business around.
Continue reading My 5 Biggest Mistakes, and the Lessons I Learned from Them to Improve My Business →

PROFESSIONAL PAINTING CONTRACTOR