Today’s pick is a blog by Heidi Nyline of Warline Painting.
Recently Heidi took a lot of flack on an online painter’s forum for a recent blog, “Sending customers to the competition”. The opinions on both sides were pretty strong, the majority of those who responded agreed that we can’t always be everything to everybody. Well, I’ll let Heidi say it, as she did so well in her blog, Chrysler Sales, Eminem, Quality Painting Contractors and Being Who We Are
I can’t be everything to everybody and we can’t be everybody’s painter. Especially for those that quality is a distant second to a dirt-cheap price. But I do know that there are enough people out there that respect and appreciate quality work, even in painting, and are willing to pay a fair price for that service. That doesn’t mean Warline is the most expensive painter out there either. Not by a long shot. We are middle of the road in cost but top of our game in quality. So the answer to our own question about how to compete today is it to do what we do best at Warline – focus on quality. Do our job and do it better. Deliver more than what a customer expects. Because you know what? That is who we are and that is what we do. Period.
So what do you think?
Nice. Truthful and to the point.
Way to go Heidi
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the great work Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Thanks for the feedback and the posting too Chris. Once we took the time to define who we were as a company and what our philosophy was, it became very easy to turn down the work that didn’t meet those parameters and focus on the business that does. It also resulted in us all loving our work that much more.
In the painting industry we are seeing some ridiculously reduced pricing and a very competitive marketplace. In house, a regular topic of conversation is pricing and how to compete against serious underbidding. But there is a cost for doing a job right and you can’t go below that cost without compromising either value or quality or eventually going out of business. I don’t know about you but I didn’t build a business to find out how much money I could lose. I don’t think Chrysler did either.
Heidi-
It’s great to see painting contractors like you get picky about who their ideal client is. The ideal client is one who:
-Wants & Needs what you have
-Sees the value in what you provide
-Will pay for that value
-And, is a joy to work with.
My guess is that you have less stress, higher profits and enjoy the projects you’re on that the majority of contractors that are too afraid to take that stand. Keep it up! I love your posts!
MOTORhard!
Tom