Interviewing Customers

Painting contractors often talk about pre-qualifying customers. They typically do this by asking a series of questions during the initial phone call. Their goal is to avoid wasting time looking at jobs they have no chance of getting.

I think this is a bad idea. The premise underlying this tactic is that the customer must give the "right" answers. Anything else disqualifies the customer. But business isn't a game show, and the "wrong" answer really doesn't tell us much.

This does not mean that we shouldn't interview our customers or be selective in who we work for. As Dan Miller writes, "...if you haven’t identified your goals, I can assure you you’re living out someone else’s goals for your life. If you don’t have a red velvet rope, you’ll have customers stealing your valuable time..."

The velvet rope he refers to is that barrier we often see at museums or special events. It restricts entrance to the facility. We do need similar restrictions with our business and our life. We need to limit who we associate with, hire, and work for.

I doubt that you select your friends on the basis of a single random phone call. I doubt you hire painters on that way either. So why select customers that way?

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Bite Sized Pieces

Faced with the task of eating an elephant, one could easily be overwhelmed and give up. After all, who could possibly eat an elephant?

But in truth, eating an elephant isn’t all that hard, if you take the right approach—one bite at a time. Indeed, this is how we eat hamburgers, a bowl of soup, or anything else. The fact that the meal on our plate is much, much larger doesn’t alter the basic approach.

Many aspects of owning a paint contracting company can seem like eating an elephant—planning, developing systems, implementing training programs. Each can be a large task that seems overwhelming. This is true, as Susan Weber puts it on the E Myth Blog, "especially if—up until now—you’ve been focused on the day-to-day work of a Technician."

For someone who is "in the bucket", working on your business is a big step. You will most likely be out of your comfort zone. In addition, finding the time to take on this task might seem impossible. Susan recommends 3 steps: organize, prioritize, and book it. Identify what you need to work on, what is most important, and then schedule time to work on it.

While these are big tasks, they can be accomplished. You can eat the elephant if you take it one bite at a time. For example, developing systems might seem like an endless task. But if you develop one procedure at a time, concentrating on one area of your business at a time, you can gradually and consistently move towards the larger goal.

In short, eating an elephant requires that we focus on one part at a time. We break the task into smaller, bite size pieces. By focusing on these smaller pieces, we can overcome the immensity of the project.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Blog Schedule

Beginning this weekend, I am going to be limiting my blog posts to weekdays. Since I started this blog in January, I have posted at least once per day. The demands of doing so-- particularly finding reasonably fresh ideas-- is becoming a burden.

Everyone needs a little time off now and then. Even bloggers.

Over the past week I have located numorous sites with a lot of great information pertaining to time management, marketing, productivity, and other business skills. These sites will help me generate ideas, and allow you to discover some great sources for personal and business growth.

Brian Doesn’t Know

Over the years I’ve hired dozens and dozens of painters. No matter their experience, their ethnicity, or their gender, one idea seems to ultimately come out of the mouth of virtually every one of them—Brian doesn’t know anything about painting.

My company has painted thousands of homes. Since I land about 1 in 3 jobs I look at, this means I’ve looked at a tremendous number of jobs.

I have had 3 to 5 crews in the field for the past 15 years. While each individual crew only sees the job they do, I have seen 9 to 15 jobs. In other words, I see and experience far, far more than any individual crew or painter. Yet, I know nothing about painting.

This idea seems to arise because I do not have a paint brush in my hand. If I'm not painting, how could I possibly know anything about the subject? But I don't need to poke myself in the eye with a stick to know that it will hurt. There are other ways to learn about something besides actually doing it.

These comments usually arise when I make a suggestion about the project. This is particularly true when my suggestion involves doing some new. My comments are met with blank stares, shakes of the head, and/ or dismissal.

Despite the fact that I know nothing about painting, guess what happens when they have a question or a problem? They are calling me. Which means, while I don’t know anything about painting, I am also supposed to have all of the answers. Kind of ironic, huh?

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Learning to Fish

An old adage states that if you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day. But if you teach him to fish he can eat for a lifetime. The same applies to our paint contracting business.

There are many skills that are invaluable in running a successful business. Knowing our numbers is one example. There are a lot of ways to use numbers. QuickBooks, for example, can generate an almost unlimited number of reports.

Sometimes though, we have data available, but analysis isn’t easily accomplished. For example, I cannot conduct a thorough analysis of my return on investment for advertising through QuickBooks alone—I need data from other sources to make this analysis.

In those situations using an Excel spreadsheet is the easiest and most effective route. Excel can also be good for budgeting and similar types of financial projections. It is very easy to change a variable to see the end results.

This reminds me of a contractor who once asked if anyone had a spreadsheet to analyze “company history”. Many people responded that Excel is easy to learn, and it would behoove him to learn to use it. The contractor launched into a verbal assault on those who refused to satisfy his request.

He was essentially asking for a fish, rather than how to fish. Invariably, if someone had met his request he would have messed up the spreadsheet (this is easy to do). He would have then whined about this. However, if he had spent a few hours learning how to use Excel, he would forever be able to unleash its power. In other words, if he had learned to fish he would be in a much better place.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Magic Bullets

Having been active on various forums for painting contractors for more than 8 years, I continue to be amazed at the number of people who ask for some magic bullet. It doesn’t matter whether the topic is estimating, pricing, marketing, or something else. They show up, introduce themselves, and then proceed to ask: What works best for…?

There is often no serious answer to these questions. What works best depends entirely on what one is trying to accomplish. Are you trying to grow your business, or simply maintain a steady work flow? Are you looking to enter a new market, or increase market share in an area where you have lots of customers?

Further, what works best for residential repaints will not work best for new construction. What works best for a company with 20 painters will not necessarily work best for a one-man operation.

But these questioners imply that every contractor, no matter his goals, his business, his market, etc. should do exactly the same things. While it is true that the same principles apply, the actual implementation of those principles will vary widely.

The applicable principles have been widely shared on the various forums, as well in many other places. It takes very little effort to find those principles. What does take effort is identifying how to apply those principles to a particular business. And this is where these questioners seek the magic bullet.

Rather than exert the effort to understand the principles, they want to be told exactly what action to take. Rather than exert the effort of identifying their goals and the means for achieving them, they want others to provide “the answer”. And sadly, they don’t realize that by looking for a magic bullet, they are really shooting themselves in the foot.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Why the Yellow Pages Doesn’t Work

In virtually any discussion of marketing on any of the forums for painting contractors, someone will pipe in with a comment that yellow pages doesn’t work, that door hangers don’t work, that newspaper ads don’t work, etc. If you read enough of these comments you’d come to the conclusion that nothing works.

Yet, somehow painting contractors are able to generate leads. So something must be working.

There is a lot of truth in the claims that this or that doesn’t work. In and of itself, many types of advertising don’t work, particularly if it is the only type of advertising done by the contractor.

Marketing is a numbers game. It requires multiple avenues. It requires exposing your company to consumers over and over. It requires tracking and modification. It requires patience and perseverance.

Too many contractors look to hit a home run. They want to find that one type of advertising that works every time without fail. If there were such a thing, don’t you think everyone would be doing it? If there were such a thing, do you really think that those who have found it would readily share that information?

The truth is, no method of advertising is going to work every time. No method of advertising will create an endless stream of leads without fail (or at least not in the numbers most contractors need).

More than focusing on an individual form of advertising, contractors should focus on a plan—a mix of advertising that creates exposure through a variety of means. I’ve long lost count of the people who tell us that they saw our signs, saw us in the phone book, and then found our web site when they did a search. It is the constant exposure that works, not any one particular piece of advertising.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Working for Friends and Family

At one time or another virtually every painting contractor will be asked by family or friends (F and F) to do work for them. This can create some potentially serious problems, if the situation is not handled properly.

The first mistake that many contractors make is to treat F and F differently than other customers. For example, the contractor may give a discount, rely on a verbal agreement, or make other concessions. Doing any of these sets the wrong tone, and puts the contractor in a position of weakness.

Relying on a verbal agreement for example, gives F and F complete control over the situation. They hold the money, and can in turn make virtually any demand.

Contractors often believe that F and F would not take advantage of them. This may be true the vast majority of the time. The same is also true of other customers. But the fact that most of our customers are honest and decent does not preclude us from having a written contract. Why should it be different when dealing with F and F?

The fact that we know the customer does not change the fact that we are engaging in a business transaction. The fact that we might go over for dinner, or attend events together, does not change the fact that we are offering our professional services and should be compensated properly.

Doing work for F and F injects a personal element into the equation that is normally missing. That creates the potential for problems that do not typically exist. For example, F and F may know what buttons to push to manipulate us, or might use guilt to get their way.

I am not opposed to working for F and F. But a contractor must exercise even greater care in educating the customer and setting expectations. There is only one thing worse than a customer from hell—a customer from hell who also is a friend.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Are You Experienced?

I think too much emphasis is placed on experience. Both customers and painting contractors sometimes seem to think that the number of years of experience reveal some kind of magical information.

There are many different kinds of experience. Simply stating the number of years of experience doesn’t tell us what kind of experience. Too often, someone with 20 years of experience really has just 1 year of experience, repeated 20 times.

Experience seems to be some kind of validation. For the customer, it appears to create trust. But just because a contractor has 20 years experience painting does not mean he has 20 years experience running a business. The two are quite different.

And what if he has been painting new construction tract homes for 20 years? This is considerably different from custom repaints. The experience of new construction does not necessarily prepare one for repaints.

For the customer, experience does not necessarily translate to a good job or a good experience. There are myriad factors involved in repaints that simply do not arise in new construction— such as protecting furniture and minimizing disruptions to the family.

Experience is a good thing, but it’s not the only thing.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Estimating Made Simple

All of us underbid a painting job once in a while. Maybe we didn’t measure correctly, or that isolated peeling turned out to require removal of extensive areas of paint. No matter the reason, an underpriced job can become a source of great frustration.

Obviously, the best and easiest way to deal with such jobs is to not underbid. This of course, is easier to say than do. But there are steps that we can take to greatly reduce underbidding.

The most effective method is to have an estimating system that allows you to identify all of the variables involved in the job. A good estimating system should provide an easy way to quantify these variables, as well as accurate production rates for each variable.

For example, if you know it takes 30 minutes to paint a door at Mr. Brown’s, that same door should take 30 minutes to paint at Mrs. Smith’s. The estimator simply needs to identify how many doors are involved in Mrs. Smith’s job.

Of course, Mrs. Smith’s doors may not be exactly like Mr. Brown’s. Perhaps they have peeling paint, are heavily mildewed, or have other conditions that need to be addressed. Again, a good estimating system will allow you to easily identify these conditions and provide the production rates necessary to address them.

It takes time to develop production rates for all of the tasks, but the result is worth that effort. The result is an estimating system that is consistently accurate.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

College Painters

Last year I received a call from the owner of one of these college painting franchises. He was looking for some painters to help bail him out of a tight situation. He had several homes to paint, and couldn’t find qualified painters to perform the work.

I met with him to inspect a house and we talked about his situation. It wasn’t pretty. He was in way over his head and knew it. He had promises to fulfill and lacked the means to do so.

This is not unusual. These franchises provide little training or support in terms of production. They are primarily sales and marketing companies. While there is nothing wrong with that, the lack of production abilities places unsuspecting college students in a very difficult position.

I ultimately proposed a way to help this student with his production issues. Unfortunately for him, it was going to cost him virtually every penny of revenue he would receive. Had he taken my offer, he would have lost a significant amount of money. I never heard from him again.

I have heard some of these franchisees say that it was a good experience for them. I don’t doubt this. However, for the vast majority I suspect it is a very bitter lesson in business—if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

An adage tells us that we can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But what does that really mean?

Old dogs are pretty set in their ways. They know when they get fed, where the water bowl is, when they get taken for a walk, etc. They generally aren’t too eager to have their routine disrupted. And if you think dogs are bad, cats are infinitely worse in that regard.

Painting contractors often have to deal with old dogs. They generally take the form of experienced painters, typically much older than the company owner. Not only are they unwilling to learn new “tricks”, they are convinced that they already know everything worth knowing.

Which raises an interesting question: If they are so damn smart, why are they working for someone else? Why aren’t they sitting on a beach in the Bahamas sipping a rum and coke?

The answer of course, is that they really don’t know everything. They are likely good craftsmen, schooled in the “old ways”, and they stubbornly refuse to change.

While they may be excellent with a brush and a roller, there is more to a paint job than putting paint on the walls. There are things like efficiency, meeting the customer’s expectations, and making a profit. And there are things like making the boss happy.

This last is perhaps the least of their concerns. They are going to do it their way, come hell or high water. And if the boss doesn’t like it? Well the boss is just a young pup who can stick it, for all they care.

Old dogs come in many breeds. They can also be old before their time—i.e., the same attitude can strike an individual at any age. The attitude is an aversion to change, an unwillingness to listen to reason, and utter defiance. It is the attitude that they are a victim. And it is an ugly attitude.

Another adage tells us to let sleeping dogs lie. I say we should do the same with any dog that doesn’t want to learn new tricks.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

A Tip on Using Ad Words

I see a lot of contractors are now using Google Ad Words to advertise their services. I think this is a good idea, as Ad Words allows you to target your market. However, I see one mistake made over and over that confounds me.

When I am visiting a contractors forum, such as PaintTalk.com, most of the Google ads I see are for painting contractors. Is it really wise or beneficial for a painting contractor to advertise his services to other painting contractors? I don’t think so.

In and of itself, this isn’t a big issue. Many Google ads are pay per click, so an advertiser doesn’t pay anything unless someone actually clicks on an ad. While I don’t click on a competitor’s ad simply to cost him money, I have seen numerous ads that I thought might be for a competitor of mine. Out of curiosity, I did click on the ad.

You can place specific web sites on a “do not display” list. I think that that is a wise thing to do. Not only will it save a little money, it will also make your marketing more targeted.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Making Use of Rain Days

Rain days are a fact of life for a painting contractor, unless you only do interiors. Rain days can wreck a schedule, play havoc with cash flow, and generally make life difficult.

However, there is one way to find a silver lining in those dark clouds. Use rain days for training.

To effectively use rain days for employee training, it is necessary to have a training program. This does not need to be an elaborate program, but you should have topics and materials prepared ahead of time.

One of the most effective topics for training is production management, i.e., methods and procedures for managing a job site. Even if you are “in the bucket” and work along side your crew, training better production management will enable you to delegate some responsibilities.

There are two key components to effective production management:
•Controlling the Job Site—A customer can quickly take control of a job site by being demanding and/ or unreasonable. Controlling the job site begins the moment the crew arrives, by establishing responsibilities and expectations. It also requires that each team member understand how to deal with customers.
•Job Site Administration—Properly managing the job involves good communications between the job supervisor and the customer, and between the supervisor and the crew. It means anticipating potential problems and addressing them early. It means establishing the proper job sequence.

Having the entire crew on board regarding these issues can save time, reduce problems, and create a better experience for the customer.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

I’m Thinking of a Number

Can you guess it? Are you a mind reader?

Many painting contractors try to pretend like they are mind readers. They show up to an estimate and begin to tell the customer how great they are, what the customer needs done, etc. They spend their time talking, and never bother to find out what the customer wants or desires.

I imagine if I showed up on your door step and immediately began telling you what you need to do to improve your business, you’d think that I am a jerk. And if I did that, I would be.

If I were going to offer advice to you, I would first need to know certain things about your business. I would need to know where you are and where you want to go. If I simply assumed that I know both, my road map could take you to Florida when you really want to go to Vermont.

The same is true of our customers. The basic work may be routine to us. The basic needs may be the same from job to job. But each customer is unique. Each customer has their own specific needs, desires, and expectations. If we do not know these things, we could easily propose a job that is inappropriate.

So, unless you knew what number I was thinking of (2,394) you are not a mind reader. In that case, I suggest that you not assume that you know what your customer wants. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Your sales will improve if you do that simple thing.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Helping Customers with Colors

I frequently have customers who want help in selecting colors. While I shy away from offering too much advice, helping customers select colors is one way to differentiate your company.

This requires some knowledge of color theory. Understanding how colors interact, their psychological impacts, and other factors can help you direct the customer to a wise color choice. While color preferences are a personal matter, there is nothing wrong with providing assistance to the customer.

There are many ways to do this. Most paint manufacturers now have on line programs to help with color selection. Certainly, the old fashioned way—fans decks and other color samples—works as well.

We often provide larger color samples when a customer has narrowed their choice. We generally do these samples on 6” x9” cards. The cards allow the customer to see how the color will look on different walls, different lighting, etc. It is more convenient for everyone as well—the samples can be done in our warehouse, so we do not need access to the customer’s home.

With rare exceptions, we charge for color samples. A minimal charge does 2 things—it compensates us for the time and materials used, and it prevents the customer from asking for dozens of samples.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Internet Lead Services

There seems to be no shortage of Internet lead services. They all work essentially the same—a potential customer contacts the company on line and requests an estimate. The lead service then contacts contractors.

In general, the idea is good. The leads can be relatively inexpensive ($30 to $40 is typical). The contractor gains exposure to a significant number of new potential customers.

In practice, there are some serious flaws. I’ve used 3 of these companies over the years, and the problems we experienced were similar with each company.

The most significant problem was simply being unable to ever make contact with the customer. This was a regular issue, and we often experienced it with 40% or more of the leads.

Another common problem was that the customer had already hired a contractor to do the work. We were always responsive, replying to the customer within 30 minutes of receiving the lead. We often wondered how the customer could have hired someone so quickly.

Many of these companies buy their leads from other sources. The time between the original request and delivery of the information to the contractor can be significant. If you are on the back end of the line, many other contractors had a huge head start on you.

We also received a fair number of leads from people wanting a price over the phone. These too ended up in our dead lead pile.

Having said all of that, using internet lead services can be beneficial. They can be a part of your overall marketing strategy. But if you use them you should understand the pit falls.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Dissing the Competition

With the large number of low-ball painting contractors and other assorted hacks who really don’t know how to operate a business, it can sometimes be easy to make disparaging comments about the “competition” to customers. In general, this is a pretty bad idea.

Some contractors seem to think that if they demean the competition then they will stand out. But one doesn’t stand taller by knocking others down. Often it means you have to get down on the floor to do so.

At its root, demeaning others is a sign of insecurity. It is an attempt to elevate one’s own self-image by diminishing the value of others. It is basically saying, “I’m not so bad. Look at what these other contractors are doing.”

There are certainly ways of exposing the short-comings of other contractors without debasing oneself. The most effective way is to simply shine—to present your company in a much more positive light.

Being better than the competition means exactly that—being better. If you focus on what makes you better, rather than what makes the competition worse, your customer will be much more responsive.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Fool-Proof Business Systems

I saw an ad the other day for a fool-proof business guide for painting contractors. Make $330 a day and more than $2,000 a week it claimed. (Out of curiosity, I bought the course.)

It’s not a difficult math problem to see that to make more than $2,000 a week at $330 a day, one would need to work 7 days a week. Personally, I’m not sure that is such a great business guide. Shouldn’t a business guide help you work smarter, rather than longer?

The author—who never mentions his name and doesn’t have a phone number on the web site—claims to have purchased other courses. “Most of the other courses suck,” he writes. This may be true, but several claims made on his site raise questions in my mind about the value of his material.

For example, he states that his course will show you how to win 8 out of 10 bids. Between you and me, this isn’t anything to get excited about. I’ll tell you how to do that for free—don’t charge nearly enough. If you are winning 80% of your bids, you need to raise your prices.

He later states that his course will show you how “earn extra income that can pay 100% of your overhead”. Why would you need “extra income” to pay for overhead? Shouldn’t that be a part of your regular selling price? Again, I’ll offer some free advice. If you need “extra income” to pay your overhead, you need to raise your prices.

It has been said that anything that sounds too good to be true, probably is. That includes fool-proof business systems.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

My Cat Weasley

Last summer, while working in the yard one day, I heard the unmistakable mew of a kitten. After a short search I located the offender stuck on a fence rail. I rescued the tiny beast and showed him to my wife.

We decided that we would take him to a shelter on Monday. Since he was covered in fleas, we bathed him repeatedly. Cats aren’t particularly fond of baths, but he actually seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps he sensed that we were ridding him of the fleas.

On Monday we learned that nobody would take such a young kitten. If we took him to a shelter, he would be immediately euthanized. That thought did not sit well with us, and after some anguish, we decided we would keep him. We named him Weasley, after a character in the Harry Potter series.

Weasley has been a source of fun and frustration ever since. For the first few months he purred constantly. My wife took him to have his photo taken with Santa, and he relished the attention. It also didn’t take him long to discover our house plants, which he apparently decided were his own personal play toys. He proceeded to methodically destroy a large number of the plants, as well as other personal possessions.

He will often jump onto the kitchen counter. We put him down and he jumps back. We will repeat this little game over and over and over. We aren’t sure whether we should hate him for being so stubborn, or celebrate his persistence.

Persistence is a good trait. It is often necessary when building a painting company. It helps us weather difficult times and provides us with the strength to stick to our plan. In short, persistence helps us persist (no surprise there, since persist is the root of persistence).

But persistence must also be tempered with a healthy dose of rationality. To persist in the face of evidence that our efforts are futile is a waste of time and resources. Then persistence becomes stubbornness, and that is neither attractive nor effective. Weasley however, may argue otherwise.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

He Said, She Said

It is not unusual for a customer to tell me that another painting contractor said something that conflicts with my statements. This can put the customer in a difficult position—which contractor should he believe?

The situation can be made more difficult when the other contractor is offering a much lower price. That low price can have a subtle, but significant impact on the customer’s thinking. He might view you as attempting to take advantage of him by proposing unnecessary work.

The most effective method for addressing such situations is third-party literature. Documentation from a disinterested party provides an effective argument and can eliminate the “he said, she said” dilemma.

For example, last year we were staining some new cabinets. One section did not take the stain well. The customer called me and said that the cabinet maker insisted that we use sanding sealer prior to applying the stain. My counter-argument did not convince her other wise.

I did some quick research on the Internet, printed out the material, and headed to the job. I showed the documentation to the customer, and she was convinced.

In that situation, the customer viewed the cabinet maker and the painter as having conflicting interests. To the customer, each wanted to point the finger at the other (this wasn’t actually the case, but it could easily appear that way). But the product manufacturer had no interest in the issue. In that case, what he—the manufacturer—said was far more powerful than anything I could say.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008

Strange Customers

Having owned a paint contracting business for more than 20 years, I’ve had my share of strange customers. At the time, those experiences were annoying or worse. Looking back, I can now laugh at them. And on occasion, their antics were as much my fault as theirs.

I had one customer who wanted to supply the paint. I agreed. He then asked if he could use my charge account. I agreed. He then asked if I would pick up the paint, since it wouldn’t fit in his tiny sports car. Like a fool, I agreed. So much for him supplying the paint.

Another customer failed to empty his kitchen cabinets, even though he wanted us to paint them the first day. He wasn’t at home when we arrived, and his caretaker told us to empty the cabinets. He later called to complain that he didn’t like the way we had stacked his pots and pans.

One customer called to complain that we had stolen a throw pillow. It turned out that her decorator had taken the pillow to match some fabrics. We never received an apology.

Then there was the customer who called to complain about our work 4 years after we completed the job. Interestingly, we had been to his house on 2 other occasions since the original job, and he had made no mention of any problems. When I pointed this out, he said that he was unaware that we had done more work for him.

Finally, there was the customer who said she wanted the walls painted the same color. I bid one coat, as she was simply trying to clean up the walls. She then changed colors and expected us to apply 2 coats for the same price. She proceeded to berate me when I refused.

Customers—we can’t live without them, and sometimes it’s hard to live with them.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008