Where do the jobs come from? How do we get new customers? How do we expand into a new area. How do we market? Do we just throw dollars at everything that is screaming to us, “buy from me, I will send you all the customers you want.” Do we take one big burst of advertising to everyone?

Here is the real truth, in order to succeed a painting company must have a constant flow of leads to generate new business. And to achieve this flow, our marketing must be constant and consistent. Since we can never know the exact time when the customer needs us, then our name needs to be in front of them consistently. A hit or miss program will produce just that, a hit or miss lead flow.

Steady long term marketing helps to give name recognition of us to a busy consumer. A thorough steady, regular marketing of your target customer will reward you with the lead flow that you need to succeed. Specialization is the key to marketing. Picking our market and pin pointing our marketing to exactly our market is a key to success.

Once we have that lead what do we do with it? The information age has brought change to us with an avalanche of information. The average consumer gets bombarded with sales messages by the thousands each day. TV, radio, internet, newspapers, magazines, packaging, billboards, so many we are unaware of most of them. So how do we stand out in the crowd? How do we stand out when everyone is shouting, bigger, better, etc,blog and the customer wants to hear “How much does it cost?” The greatest problem that consumers face is a real comparison. Most of the time customers will choose a contractor on price alone, assuming that all contractors are the same. What do we do? Lower our price? There is always someone lower. And is it the best thing to let the customer buy the lowest price?

The best thing for the consumer is to help them educate themselves. Are they really comparing apples to apples or is it apples to oranges. What are the “cons” of buying the lowest price? And what are the benefits of a better job?

Marketing may be an alien concept to a dyed in the wool painter/craftsman. Gone are the days when the local painter was the one we called. Today there is a lot more competition, and not just from painter but from the people like Home Depot who want the consumer to do the work and buy directly from them. In today’s marketplace we all need to wear many hats, and to succeed in the painting business we need to first wear the hat that starts it all rolling. Marketing is that place where all the work comes from.