The Online Resource for the Painting Industry
Articles on the business side.
Even though Instagram is about delivering images, videos and media-based content to your followers, it’s also a great place for many businesses to focus their marketing efforts. The benefits of those visual media features come to light when you have a business or product that needs to be seen in order to be appreciated. When […]
Leftovers in the fridge are sometimes amongst the most coveted cuisine, especially when you are hungry and just need to eat. Cold pizza can be better than hot pizza. Same holds true for other delicacies. And here’s the large leap where I state that good contractors are to be coveted too. Residential repainting in particular […]
How do you pull it all together? Keeping track of customers, proposals, contracts, employees, payroll, appointments, is hard if you don’t have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system in place. Most people I talk to use some combination of Outlook and Quickbooks along with paper documents and appointment scheduling software. Doing it that way worked […]
You must get this all the time: How much? How long? How fast? How fun. Day after day, these questions for painters. That pretty much covers it. Every gap not filled in there is where your head needs to be. It is what keeps me running a ProShot on something one day, and turning right […]
When I go to PDCA conventions, I often run into friends and fellow painters that know me as an estimating buff. They know that I’m both the owner of an estimating software company and also a paint contracting business. Don’t get me wrong, estimating is critical to being successful, but it’s also really important to […]
If you haven’t heard, Google recently changed their search algorithm, a move that will effect over 90% of all queries. That means if your small business website hasn’t been optimized with “white hat” SEO techniques, you might have to revamp your content. If you’ve been working with an SEO company or keeping up with the […]
I’ve been talking about reviews and reputation management a lot lately. And because I work with both local SEO companies and reputation management companies lately, I’ve had the chance to be exposed to the sometimes contradictory advice that both types of companies offer. It might not be a surprise to learn that most of the […]
Third-party apps were the gold standard (and only applicable method) of holding Facebook contests. However, the new changes made two additional options: timeline contests and Facebook app contests. For many painting businesses it can be difficult to determine which one to utilize. Timeline Contest Timeline contests will suit small businesses better than it would suit […]
Facebook has been intent on keeping promotions to a minimum throughout the past several years. A company could only promote themselves and hold contests and sweepstakes through the use of third-party apps. Users were unable to like or comment on these links to enter themselves as part of the promotion. Businesses struggled to utilize the […]
There is a lot of information the sites listed above, and here. I encourage our readers to investigate for themselves how this will affect them. Some states will run their own program, some will follow the federal one, click here to see where your state stands.
Marketing your business without a clearly defined audience is like throwing darts in the dark. Sure, your message will hit something, but probably not the target you intended. But this is exactly what many contractors do. They create websites and ads, replete with a bullet list of services, which carry the emotional charge of a […]
Breaking down “Bonded and Insured,” As a service professional, it’s likely that you’ve heard the phrase “bonded and insured.” But, what does it mean? In this two-part series, we’ll dissect the terms bonded and insured and how they pertain to the painting industry. What does “bonded” mean? Being bonded refers to the act of obtaining […]
Yelp. Angie’s List. Google. Review sites are a reality of doing business. They’re a vital portion of the local SEO process and they’re an important source of sales. Yet, at times, they can be very destructive to a business. Some sites, Yelp in particular, seem to aggressively filter out any positive review while placing malicious, […]
While social media has developed into an important tool for marketers, it is also an excellent medium for providing customer service. Traditionally, call centers, help desks and online chat applications have been the avenues through which companies offer customer service. Despite the effectiveness of these service options, social media presents itself as a much more […]
Author Rank is a content ranking system used by Google which seems poised to supersede, if not replace, their Page Rank system. Unlike Page Rank, which evaluates each page of content for relevance and quality, Author Rank considers an author’s entire body of content, ranking pages based on the author’s past performance. Author Rank has […]
