Paint Business HACKS! Marketing Your Painting Business

All right, marketing 101, John. So, um let's see if we can give um maybe three or four marketing tips for people or you know, I know you've got just this one's like really top secret and it is um we're not going to share that. We're just going to continue with it and not share it cuz it's um if you stay tuned um longer in this video, we may get to it and um share it. So I think to to me one of the um when I started painting in the very beginning I was trying to growth hack my way um to success and not spend a lot of money you know marketing um zero dollars to maybe just a little bit and one thing that was very effective um for me was door hangers and um I've talked to some other uh painters across the US and one that is really big in Minnesota and the number one thing he does is um and utilizes is door hangers. And he said it's the most effective marketing tool. Since you've uh owned BNK Painting, have you passed out any door hangers at all yet? We have not passed out any door hangers. No door hangers. Yeah. So, and one of the reasons we've done that is um one, I I just have a personality that cringes at walking up to some stranger and being like, "Here's a door hanger if they're there." But the other piece too is it's it's hard to ensure that that's getting done on every project. And so um kind of a different strategy that we're looking at for trying to do something like that so that we can ensure it gets done is using a tool like uh uh Google Zillow Google Maps or Zillow like any of those apps where you can open up and see the neighborhood and see the street. you can see the house you've got a project scheduled on and you can click on each house next to it and actually get the address or you know you could do it the old school way and just creep through the neighborhood and write it down but that's a little more difficult uh creepy but uh to to send postcards to those houses that are directly surrounding it and timing those out so that you can say hey guess what we're going to be working in the neighborhood time it out so that you know that's going to arrive same time that you're working there um and say, you know, can we get you a bid? If you want, you can offer a discount. I'm not a big fan of offering discounts, but if you want to say, hey, while we're in the neighborhood, if you want us to give us an estimate, we'll give you 10% off while while we're here in the neighborhood since we're close by. Yeah. But it kind of hits people with that double whammy of, hey, if they see that you're there working and then all of a sudden they see you again in their mailbox, all you're doing is you're creating those stronger barrier or those stronger ties in their brain, uh that that you're a painter and that you're there. Yeah. Yeah. That is um pretty creative and I think it's going to be a very effective tool. Um the route I did is uh and I also felt like kind of awkward walking up to people's doors and and I wanted to hurry up and get out because what if they walked out the door or something and I know my my wife early on in her career within the first year um the kids and her would be on rollerblades and they and she said but Lisa's never met a stranger. I know but it's like she said she had to swallow her pride and hang out door and hang door hangers. What we did is um every time we would do a job uh the side the house that side we would do five door hangers on one side, five door hangers on the other side and 10 across on the other side where the house was. And that was every job we did. I did that for quite a few years. And then we also just um hit neighborhoods and we would like target neighborhoods that were like upper middle class and the people that you're more than likely going to spend money and good money on a paint job. we would just go out and just hit that whole neighborhood. And one thing I did that was kind of effective was I created um you know this um brochure I would hand out to my kids friends and it offered them a really small amount per door hanger. It must have been like a penny a door hanger or something like that. It was really cheap, but they'd hang the door hanger on and then if I got a call, we would ask the customer where it came from. If it came from the door hanger, the kid would get 15 bucks. And then if we got a job, um, a bid from it, then they got 25. And then if we actually got a job, they got $75. The whole point of a door hanger is you've got to get in front of people, right? And if you're not doing things to get in front of people, um, then I don't know where I was going with that. We're going to edit that out. We're going to back We're not going to We're going to keep that in cuz John, but um, totally gone. Here's something I know. Um, yard signs. Yard signs. So, yard signs. So, I know you're I'm a big believer in yard signs. And so, I know when I started my painting company, I had a partner and his philosophy was a yard sign is going to get you just 10 um estimates that are um just price searching. And I can't remember the term was that he used for it, but um you know, he didn't see those as valuable estimates because they just wanted to get a price or or comparison bids, just comparison bids. And I looked at it completely differently. I wanted to have my sign out there. It's part of just branding your company and letting people know you're in the neighborhood and just the more they see you, you know, it's um the more your brand is going to be exposed in the city. So, I mean, what's your philosophy do you on yard signs? I I think yard signs are are great idea. And I I would even say, you know, to try to take that a step further. Something I know you and I had talked about. Um, and it's something that I I want to implement is not just doing a yard sign, but also adding one of those like realtor info boxes to it. Yeah. again with flyers so that when you do have um Mary Joe down the street walking her golden retriever, you know, she sees, oh, info box, grabs that and has something and and she's going to carry that with her the whole time, take it home, set it on the counter, maybe in the trash, but probably on the counter. And again, just that logo, that branding, your company information is going to be in their house. I I think you know some of the like marketing gurus and stuff what they'll talk about is people have space in their mind in their heads uh like real estate in their heads for like three brands for any given thing right so when you think about computers what do you think about um Apple and Macintosh and Windows um and and nothing else really. So like really it's the one, right? And then maybe a second and then maybe that third. And the goal is when somebody says painter, you want your brand to be the thing that comes up. But that only happens with that repeated exposure to that branding and that you Yeah. And I think that's um and we'll show you your vehicle cuz you just recently like reloed your vehicles. And that was one of my reasons for traveling all the way to Florida to pick up a van that was a huge large box van cuz my whole idea was, you know, people see these signs on the side of the road and they're very effective. You can't miss them every time you drive by them. And I wanted my vans everywhere they went. people was like, "Oh, it's like in their face, you know, and I wanted that logo to be huge, so it' be like a driving billboard." And I'm amazed at how many painters don't have logos on their vehicles. And you I think um it's Well, it's logos, but it's readable logos, right? Like like people need to be able to see your logo and it it needs to be able to communicate what you actually do. And it it's got to be, you know, there's a reason things like billboards and park benches and and flyers and things like that, commercials, like all of that stuff works. The goal is how do we do it on a small scale for a small company without, you know, spending tons and tons of money and and that's where things like I mean door hangers are cheap, yard signs are they don't seem cheap when you're buying them, but it is really a pretty relatively low expense that you can use over and over and over again. similar to marketing uh or branding on your vehicles. Like these are all ways to get that logo and that branding out over and over and over again and you get to control it. Yeah. Cuz I think we had metal yard signs that I mean we're six, seven, maybe eight more even maybe more than 8 years old. It's a $80 expense and it almost lasts forever. So cuz right now it's winter time here to continue to time stamp this. But if you wait till winter and you start marketing to try to get jobs cuz now it's slow, it's it's too late. You're a couple months out. You you should be I typically would start to send out newsletters and stuff about 3 months before winter hit to start to get jobs lined up for winter. And even all throughout the summer, I was encouraging people to wait for winter, offering discounts, you know, to wait so we would line up work for winter. And so that whole, you know, preparing for winter is the same, you know, marketing yourself now is preparing for that future downturn. Cuz to me, it seems like maybe like every 5 to 8 years you have this um this bottom where you just crash. And every time it's happened here in Boise, we've never there's been a lot of painting businesses go out of business, but we kind of slowed down maybe just slightly, but then we, you know, continue to rise slightly even during those periods because it was the effective marketing branding that we did, you know, throughout the year. And my whole goal was always to if some people were sitting at lunch and somebody across the table said, "Man, I got to get my house painted." As soon as they heard painting and they needed to get painted, I wanted BNK painting to come right to their mind. You wanted that to be the real estate. You own that real estate in their mind. And that's the most valuable thing you can do. And the only way to do that though is if you're constantly putting yourself out there. Yeah. And newsletters are another to me very effective method of getting work. Every time I put out a newsletter, I always got work from it. And as your email list grows, then you're um it's going to be more and more effective. In the very beginning stages, I actually sent out hard copies of every newsletter. And then, you know, email is a lot cheaper. And licking stamps is I mean, that taste in your mouth when you lick like 500 of them is not so pleasant. And they have adhesive stamps now. They do now back now. They do. And I I actually had a folding machine. So, um, if you ever want it, if you ever want to sit down, I don't use it no more. So, the paper just automatically folds. Don't get your hand stuck in that. So, um, but newsletters, as winter would come, usually about 3 months before winter would come, I would send out a newsletter offering discounts and I usually got quite a bit of work lined up from a newsletter. Have you sent out any newsletters yet or since you own the company? Uh, so we haven't sent out any newsletters and some of that is we're trying to balance our marketing by staying consistent but also not pushing too much because we don't want to bring so much in that we can't handle it and then we're just disappointing people and then that goes the other way. But that's you still have to keep doing things and keeping yourself out there again thinking for the future. But um, same we're we're working on a newsletter right now that's going to go out towards the end of this month because we're starting to look and say, "Okay, let's make sure we've got everything set." We're we're saying this newsletter is effective for February. Not that this newsletter is necessarily going to be effective for uh November, December, January. We're saying, hey, we want to be thinking that many months out and how are we going to be starting to kind of stoke the coals there prior to going back into exterior season. That's just a kind of a planning thing back and forth. But but that's really what it comes down to is um is planning those things out, right? So there um any other you know any other things you've done differently you know since you started the painting company usual I we've spent a lot of money on stuff like this shirts hats and making sure our our crew is is uniformed and and then also just giving them shirts all the time because they're the thing is is your your guys are are representing you not only on the job sites you want people to see hey look they're clean that you're rein reinforcing that logo. When a neighbor comes by, they see your guys. They see everyone's clean logoed. Um, but when they get off the clock and they go by the grocery store on the way home, they're still wearing your shirt. And what we don't want is for our guys to be in the grocery store picking up groceries on the way home and they look nasty. Yeah. Right. Like we want them we want the logo on the back. We want the logo on the front. We want them to be looking clean and and well put together because even outside of that people that you're just reinforcing that that logo piece. Okay, John, let's talk about um something that I utilize in the very be beginning of my career and you know very effectively and that was social media and eventually the social media did so well. That's what I do full-time you know now is um I utilized Facebook and YouTube were two of them you know to help market the company. Um there's so many platforms of social media you can utilize. Facebook is um very effective in marketing businesses now. It kind of used to be a kid thing. Now it's a business thing. YouTube can be effective marketing you know your company creating a video with you and your wife talking so people can get see your wife because they never see her. That could be on YouTube and you can direct them to that. Hey, if you want to know more about my company, go check out the video with me and my wife, you know, and you'll get an idea of what we're about. Um, is there anything else besides um YouTube and Facebook that you've utilized? You know, we do a lot with Instagram. Um, I you know, I think Facebook still is the king of a lot of things, but I think there's a going to be a little bit of a shift more towards Instagram. Would you kind of agree? Yeah, Instagram. Um, Instagram is growing very rapidly and people I think Instagram is a great place for people getting ideas like Pinterest and stuff and they'll see an idea and they'll see you and your company. They'll start following you and then they're going to start sharing. I'm like, "Look what he's doing. Check this wall out he did or this decorative coating he did." And um it it is a very effective way to market yourself, I think, now and it's going to be more in the future. I think you got to be careful not to overmarket yourself though because Yeah. And I think that's like you don't want to be the guy that's always on there saying uh like we talked about this in the last video, right? You want to have that confidence like um you want to sell like you're independently wealthy but market like you need a job tomorrow. And I think the thing is you don't want to be out there going like get a free estimate, get a free estimate, come get us, discount, discount. like people see that and they just they automatically learn how to filter that stuff out. But I think we try to be really careful about curating like, hey, here's the crew at work and here's what they're doing. And like we want them to feel like, oh, I know these guys or I feel comfortable with them or or some of the intangibles like, oh, they look like they're having fun or they look like they're nice guy. like those are the kind of things we want to communicate because it may not be um social media may not be the place where they necessarily find us but it's definitely going to be the place where they check us out right cuz that's going to be kind of our either one your portfolio so you can say hey look here's some of the work we've done but also like if they hear about you they check you out on the website finally they're starting to try to to get in like they're probably going to kind of background check you with the social media What you don't want are things that are going to turn people off and away from that. If it gets too advertisy, they're going to unfollow you and they're not going to share you. And one key point I like to always point out to people is across all your social media, your newsletter, your website, you need to offer value. If you're not offering any value to who's ever coming and looking at your stuff, they're probably not going to come back. And what I mean by value is in a newsletter, you need to offer tips and tricks before you offer a discount. If you're on um Instagram, you want to show your work. And even showing your work and giving people ideas of what they could possibly do themselves is value. But I every now and then just show videos, tips and tricks, show um sharing, you know, how to do this or how to do that on Instagram. It's the same with Facebook. Facebook can be a written tip or a trick. Offer value. And if you offer value, people are going to want to come back for more. And then every now and then you throw in that advertisement. But if it's more advertisement than value, they literally will unfollow you, block you, or spam you. And that's not a good thing, I think. No, generally defeats the point of what you're doing. So I know um next next door and um websites is um used to be my web and having SEO, search engine optimization. So, you're on the front page of Google. Um, was always probably the number one weapon where we got most of our bids because we were always on the front page. And if you're not on the front page, you're not going to get any work from your web page, but Next Door eventually took that over. Are you getting a lot of work from Next Door? You know, we are getting uh it's a significant percentage. I want to say it's probably the majority, but I think it's um it's definitely I could probably look it up, but I want to say it's maybe 10% of the estimates that come in. Um or what we'll hear is uh hey, we were just doing a search and then oh yeah, we also saw you on this thing. And you know, it's again like all of these things play together to helping promote um you as a brand. Like you only 50% of your marketing is good. you just don't know what 50% of it is. Like you you don't really know which one. And and that's where it's hard to tell with some of these things. But it's my argument is they all work together. You can't just say like I don't think you'd say like, "Hey, just do Facebook, right? It's got to be this and this and this and this." Yeah. Cuz I I mean even, you know, being a member of the Better Business Grill got me quite a bit of work. I mean, all of them. There's Twitter, there's LinkedIn. I got work from LinkedIn. Um, but next go going back to Next Door. Is there any way cuz it's um it's an app that's like all over the nation now, so it's being utilized everywhere. Is there any way that um cuz there's just customers get on there that had work done and they just in their neighborhood they're saying, "Oh my gosh, this guy was so amazing." So you obviously have to do amazing work, give amazing customer service, but what do you do to get people to put you on there? that you do any you know you got to be careful because there's some some of those review sites are really picky about how you like you can't solicit for stuff. Um but if you can remind people like hey look um like when you finished out the job you're doing the final invoicing and whatnot to remind them and say hey um reviews are really important to us you know please give us a good review if if if you've had a great experience then then you know remind them that that matters. Uh and the hope is that you've…