Unleashing Superpowers: Streamlining Your Painting Business with Technology and Automation

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One because I was leaving , I was not going to be involved in those businesses . I had to entrust others to do it . But I didn't want to . I wanted to kind of automate as much as I could so I didn't have to rely as much on people . I can at least automate a lot of it .

So I , especially for the painting business , kind of did a lot of automation to to kind of get the most out of technology and so going through that process and and basically having that business run while I was overseas , I I credit a lot of the , the success that I had of being able to do that not be there , being across the world , to leveraging technology .

So it's something that I am kind of super interested in and I'm happy to share with others . So the way I look at this is I kind of look at the different types of processes you have in your business .

So you have your marketing process , you have your sales process , your onboarding process , your production process , your review capture process , like getting reviews from your customers . Then you have your customer reactivation process how do you get repeat customers ? And then you might have some HR processes in there as well .

Within each of those processes there's different . You know things you might want to look at using automation or technology to kind of streamline that process . So I'm just going to go through some different things I've seen that have worked well for not only my my painting business , but helping others employ this in their in their painting businesses .

So I've worked with scores of other painting businesses helping them input this , this automation which is part of what we do at Bookkeeping for Painters , helping them input different pieces of automation into their business to get more leads goes , more work and make their customers happier .

That's bringing a lot of things you can do in your business . But to kick things off , we'll go through the first process here , which is marketing . There's a couple things we'll touch on here . So the first idea is rapid response , or speed to lead . Some people call it .

But basically the idea is like when you have a lead come in from maybe it's Painters Choice , kraftjack , thumbtack , angel's List or you know and someone fills out your website contact form or something . Basically , there's like a shop clock that is turned on and the more time that goes on goes by you haven't responded , the less valuable that lead is .

So having a some , this is like a perfect place for automation to jump in . You know , 78% of businesses , 78% of business , goes to the first responder .

So when folks are looking for an estimate , you know they are Most likely you could go with the person who puts up the phone first or , you know , responds to them on whatever platform they're reaching out on .

You know that's the thing with customers you never know if they're going to fill out that form at two o'clock in the morning or at 9 am on Monday , when you can actually call them back or text them right .

So I think that's where automation can really be helpful provide that immediate feedback that the customer is looking for , and if they're not expecting it , then you just won huge points . But you know , if they are expecting it and you're not doing it , then you lost big time . So what are some strategies they can use to kind of get that rapid response ?

When you have a lead come in , what you can do is to get to respond to those automatically is set up a filter in your Gmail so that every time that lead comes in , that email is labeled with a Gmail label . Let's say you're using Gmail , most folks are , so it's labeled like hey , this is a lead . And then you can use something called Zapier .

Now Zapier we're going to refer to several times throughout this podcast . Zapier is basically it's automation software that is kind of like the duct tape for your apps . It takes information from one app and pushes it to another .

So , for example , this would be taking information from Gmail and pushing it over to a texting app or CRM to send a text or to send an email . So , zapier , you can use Zapier to , basically , when that lead comes in for Gmail , you push that information into Zapier .

Zapier parses out the email of the lead or maybe the phone number of the lead , and then shoots that information over to a texting app maybe click send or maybe a CRM to send out an email or a text message to that lead as soon as they come in and just say hey , so you're interested in getting a painting project done .

You can go to this link here to schedule an estimate with me or give them the next steps , whatever if you need to qualify them first , so that way that you are responding within seconds of getting that lead and that can really help you get more , get those leads converted to prospects . Basically , get them on your schedule for an estimate .

But you spend so much time trying to research what the right system is and you spend so much agonizing time trying to find the right CRM or the right communication platform , and the reality is that all of them are perfect for everything .

And so you found ways here to automate and kind of bring it all together without it relying on one system that may update tomorrow and suddenly change everything that you were doing .

But the next marketing idea how to kind of improve your marketing process using technology is something called retargeting . And retargeting is basically when someone goes to your website and then they don't do what you want them to do , which is likely scheduling an estimate , and then they go somewhere else .

You can retarget them and everyone experiences this on a daily basis . But you go , you go , you're shopping for maybe you don't want to buy some new shoes , go to a shoe website and then all of a sudden there's shoe ads everywhere . When you're in Facebook or searching on Google , there's like ads everywhere about that same website , so that you're being retargeted .

So you can do that in your own business pretty cheaply . This is a very inexpensive thing you can do . It's just not a lot of people are aware of it . But basically you would put a what's called a pixel on your website . It's just a little bit of code put in the header of your website and it's rollworkscom is something that you can look into .

That does this Rollworkscom . They'll give you the pixel , put it in your header of your website and then you can just design some ads . You have your admin person put together some simple display ads and then when folks go to your website they don't schedule an estimate .

Then they'll start seeing your ads everywhere and website visitors who were retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to schedule an estimate , because the other statistic I'll throw out there is 98% of people don't schedule an estimate the first time they get to your website . So it behooves you to look at that retargeting strategy .

And again , just to emphasize , this can be done very cheaply . Especially , you're probably not having a ton of website traffic as a pain business People who are going to your website are probably legitimately looking at getting some painting work done , so you definitely want to retarget them . So this doesn't have to be too expensive .

It's pretty cheap , probably one of the cheaper marketing things you can do that can give you a really good return on investment .

Well , sometimes that's just a no right in that moment , and so they might see an ad for painting . Get to your website . The first one was a yes .

Maybe it was technically a no , because they really do much with the gap to your website , didn't schedule anything , because that was not the right moment , not the exact time where they were just saying no , not yet .

But they didn't go anywhere else and by retargeting them every time they see that ad that they don't click on it , it's technically a no until eventually they do say yes . So you know that's that's one way to kind of even really , what we're talking about is automating the sales process of that no , no , no , no and then finally , okay , yes .

So think about how many times the salesperson sometimes calls us and we never want to say no initially until it finally sounds good . So , yeah , I think that's . That's a great strategy .

What can you do in your sales process to improve that using technology ? So I think the , you know , these days most CRMs have the ability to do like a post positioning email series or sometimes a pre positioning , basically meaning before the estimate and after the estimate , some sort of follow up series via email .

Some may also can do text messages , you know , before and after the estimate to kind of warm the prospect up to your company what your processes are , what your people , what you're about , so that you know show them some social proof . And you can automate that stuff using a lot of CRMs before and after the estimate .

But what a lot of them don't have is direct mail and just reflecting . Like you know , when I was , you know , basically in college or high school , I just think about like how little email I received compared to now .

You know I have like probably embarrassingly , probably tens of thousands of emails I have never opened , just just ridiculous amount of email that I have . But I like never get an email , whereas you know 20

years ago it was the , you know it was a reverse you'd get much mail all the time but , you know , very rarely would I get an email .

So I think that's an opportunity for painting businesses to kind of really a way to really stand out , especially if your customers getting multiple estimates and if you have like a really nice postcard , big postcard that you send out before the estimate or a handwritten thank you card after the estimate , pretty much no one else very , very few painting businesses are

doing that . So that's going to really show your value in your sales process and increase your close rates . So because no one's getting you know handwritten thank you cards or or direct mail , and thanks to automation you can actually automate you know this this piece as well .

But I mean these are actually written by pen now . So you know those are machines that are doing a fantastic job at automating this and actually being handwritten .

But they have the robots that handwrite those , those cards , and they have different styles to see . I always choose like the one that has the worst handwriting .

You know that looks more like mine Basically have terrible handwriting , but you know so it doesn't look all fancy or anything , it's just like , looks like some , you know some fourth grader wrote it basically .

So I always choose those and those look pretty pretty good , is pen to paper and it's like not consistent and kind of it's legible , but it looks like you know an actual person wrote it . But handwritten calm integrates this app here .

So you can basically , If let's just say you just to use an example , maybe use you can book me or Calendly or acuity or one of those schedulers on for your estimates you basically set up a zap so that when that appointment starts or ends , you can trigger it to send off a thank you card in Zapier so that you tell to take the information from the scheduler

and send it over to handwritten to send out a thank you card , and that's a simple zap that you could do that . That will you know . A handwritten card is like 3 , 4 bucks , which is not much money considering . You know you're probably bidding on projects that are worth , you know , $10,000 . Yeah , similarly .

Basically you can design like a direct mail piece , like a postcard , a big postcard , and send and have that sent off in the same kind of way that it's described , like with a zap and because that does integrate with Zapier and have that sent off . Or you do both , you know , send one before and one after the estimate .

So those are ideas on how you can improve your sales process with technology . So the next one we've talked about is your onboarding process .

So your onboarding process , basically , when your prospect signs that proposal , you know , because I think there's some sort of statistic about you know , when your prospect signs up and becomes a customer , within the first 72 hours they kind of make up their mind on whether they made the right decision or not .

There's some kind of stat like that where it's basically like , are they going to have buyer's remorse ? They kind of , you know , get that within the first 72 hours . So you definitely want to reinforce that feeling that they made the right choice with you . You know when they sign up with you . So one way you can do this is by using automation .

Obviously , you can use the direct mail idea from the sales process . You could do a thank you note here .

You know , for example , when they sign the proposal they just have to tap your sensei handwritten thank you card or or just having like a , a onboarding process that's set up so that right when they sign that proposal they get the next steps email with you know , a invoice for the deposit that you charge , a charge , a 40% deposit .

There's an invoice right already you know , created . So it just makes you look more professional , like you have your , your , your stuff together . You have a process for this . You've done this before right , and still

some confidence that you know you have a next step to email that says hey , thanks for signing up . You know , here are the next steps for signing , you know , in your project . First step is please pay your deposit invoice .

Second step please provide your colors and maybe you have some just using Google forms or some something like that for them to fill out their colors . And then step three you know our production manager is going to reach out to you next week to schedule your , to schedule your .

You want the calendar so you can have a basically a next steps email that's sent out automatically once that proposal signed . Again , either using Zapier , like , like , if you have a paint scout proposal that's out , use Zapier to to create that next steps email sent out from your , your Gmail account or something like that .

But it kind of like shows , okay , they're on top of things , they have a process and you know , also creating that deposit invoice automatically . One is is going to look , make you look more professional , but also two is going to you're going to get paid faster , which is great for your cash flow .

So I know paint scout has an integration with QuipLix Online where you can basically set it up to do an auto invoice , you know , basically created in QuipLix Online . Or you can use Zapier to create the invoice in QuipLix Online and actually send it to the customer automatically right when they sign in your paint scout proposal .

You know , and I think drip drops has a similar thing where they basically can pay the you know , sign the proposal and drip jobs and then they can pay in drip jobs as well . So definitely look at that process .

It's going to just make you look more professional if you have a good onboarding process , because that is a crucial period to just show professionalism and reinforce that when that you have with your new customer .

But then when the customer responds not having to go check to see did they respond , but even having some automation on the back end that tells your team , which gets into the scheduling and everything else and I know that you've done a lot of the scheduling aspect in terms of getting them on .

You know , google calendars and various different platforms for scheduling .

The communication system is sending some sort of automated message like hey , we have new , new , new customer sign up . Please , you know , start the onboarding process for this new person or add them to the production calendar , whatever it is , so you can do some automated notifications to your team , which can just improve efficiency . Yeah , definitely .

You know , possibly even all the way down to sending an email to Sherman Williams with the paint order based on all the information , so that you don't even have to touch at the paints already at the store being ready for them to pick up or deliver even .

I mentioned it briefly , but you know , having a standard color form , yeah , an interior color form and an exterior color form , maybe using a Google form , that's an idea to easily capture colors and have it stored in a standard , you know Google sheet so that you can easily order paint and then also put that over to your , your crews as an idea to capture

colors , because I know getting colors from customers can be difficult and so trying to make that process as easy as possible for them , okay , here , go to this link , fill out your colors here , you know , and here's some resources for you know , choosing colors .

You know Sherman Williams has some resources like colors by the decade and you know , provide all those helpful links in that next step to email with the , with how to provide those colors , can be can be very helpful to expedite the process of getting those colors . And the next process we're going to look at is production .

So production is usually a lot of it's about scheduling , so I think just in this one is just having a scheduler really can be is super important when that works I know drip jobs has scheduling software in there or just having Google Calendar . I mean getting something that works . Google Calendar can work fine .

There's plenty of folks I know run one million plus dollar businesses using Google Calendar or the production calendar . So having something that works . The next kind of process I look at is like review capture . So once the project's completed , how are you getting feedback from the customer ? Because you wanna be getting that constant feedback from your customers .

One so you know this is especially important as you grow how is your team performing , how can you improve ? And then also getting those Google reviews is super important to growing your business , getting that repeat work , getting a word of mouth going . So that review capture process is super important and that can be automated to a point .

So you know , once the check is collected , once the job's closed out , you can have like an automatic text that goes out or an automatic email or both that just says you know , sends out a net promoter score question , which is net promoter score is basically that one question that says how likely are you to refer us to friends and family and it has a one

through a month , through 10 . 10 being highly likely , one being , you know , not at all likely and so that NPS , that's a proven system to that you can use to evaluate how your business is performing . Basically , if someone gives you a nine or a 10 , that means that they're a promoter . They're gonna give you positive word of mouth .

If they give you anything below a nine or a seven or eight , they're basically passive . They're not gonna be giving word of mouth , good word of mouth or bad word of mouth , and if it's like a six or lower , that's a negative word of mouth . So you don't want that one .

But , yeah , send out an NPS automatic like text or email message , you know , say how likely are you to refer us to friends and family , and then they give you that score which you can use , that score for bonuses , you know , pay incentives with your team and use it to track as a company metric as well .

And then you can also use that number to determine whether you should send a followup . Hey , can you rate us on Google ?

You know , give us a Google review , because obviously you don't want to send a Google review request to someone who thought you did terrible right , you would imagine , want to troubleshoot that and fix that issue before you send them a Google review request .

So , yeah , that's an idea is basically sending out an NPS to see after the job's done automatic and then they respond and then you can send them a Google review which can be automated as well as a followup . But yeah , that's a critical processing that needs to be dealt in .

You know that gives them an opportunity to kind of tell you about it and hopefully you can get back to them before they go out and fix the problem and then turn them into a happy customer . So , yeah , that's a huge item right there . Yep , absolutely .

So some , a lot of the painting business owners , they've been in business for years . They have a goldmine of potential new customers or repeat customers , but they kind of just sit on it . They don't really do anything with it .

And so , yeah , if you're listening and you have a list of hundreds or thousands of customers , definitely really consider having a deliberate customer reactivation program . And you can definitely automate a portion of this soon to be all of it using AI , but right now it's right now . It's still , I think , requires a little bit of manual tasks there .

But basically , just to get go through some of the reasons why you , why you should definitely consider this , let's say , and this is something we do at Bookkeeping for Painters , we do customer reactivation , and so I see these numbers pretty frequently and basically what we see is we do text message reactivation , where we send out a text message to your list .

That has like a simple offer that says hey , this is Daniel from ABC Painting . This week we're running a 10% off any exterior painting project . Would you like to take advantage of this offer ? Something simple like that ? So you send out that text message to your list and what we typically see is about a 1% response rate .

So if you have a thousand people on your list and you send that message out , you'll likely get 10 . Estimates out of that . So 1% . So 10 estimates . Usually with prior customers you're going to have a higher close rate . So you'll probably book four or five of those , since the folks are already familiar with you .

Let's just say you book four and you have average off-sides of $10,000 , so that's $40,000 in sales that you just got because you reactivated the reactivation program and it probably took you a couple hours to do so . That's a big one right there and you can use . There's many text-based apps that you can do mass texting .

If you just Google , there's plenty out there that you can basically load up your list of . You should need the first name and the phone number and you can get started . The one thing that you'll now have to face is the A2P requirement . There's this new requirement by the phone carriers that require you to register with them .

So that's a little hurdle that you'll have to . You just have to do it once to just register with the phone carriers to send out mass text messages . But that A2P 10-DLC requirement , it doesn't take too long to get through that .

Once you do that , you can do mass texts to folks assuming that you have permission to do that , which , assuming these are prior customers , you probably do . So that's definitely a piece to look at leveraging technology to get more customers reactivated .

So , whether that's 100,000s or tens of thousands of customers , depending on how old your business is , if you think about what the value of a business is , a lot of times it is the clients that are coming in , but it is that past client as well , and especially with all these other things we've talked about , making those customers happy .

That experience they want that again if it was a good one to begin with . So they definitely would likely reach back out to you , provided they know about you and remember . And so all of these strategies really kind of line up with reminding the customer about you and about your services so that you're top of mind when they do need those services .

If you have a customer base that you regularly reactivate , 4% of it each year to result in X amount of sales , that's going to make your business a lot more profitable than not doing that .

continue to get that business . But these are automated processes that you can use to make your business a lot more profitable . So it kind of takes you out of that and makes it so that it's the business stand alone , as opposed to just being you and who you know and you reaching out to them every single time .

So yeah , big , big value increases for business , for sure .

But there's plenty out there that you could use for employees , for subs I mean you can also use Gesto for subs as well , subcontractors but it doesn't quite cover you completely , I think , because I mean it can cover you completely , but often there's a piece missing , which is the insurance piece , getting the insurance documents from your subs .

So you might need to have a deliberate process there . So just to throw out an idea here , if you're using a scheduler let's say you're using Acuity , or you can book me or Calendly , a lot of these they have a you can build those embedded forms where they have to fill out their name , their phone number , their other information , to schedule with you .

Now you could use that one of those schedulers to require them to fill this out to schedule a subcontractor interview with you and then , in that form , require that they upload their W9 and their insurance , or at least their insurance and get a hold of that general liability insurance even before you interview with them . So you know .

And then maybe you have that form dump out into a Google Drive that you have for your workers comp audits . So it's just easy . You have all your insurance documentations in a single Google Drive folder . So just think about how you can kind of get that documentation up front from subcontractors .

One because you don't want to be on the hook for having to pay someone's taxes because you didn't get a W9 from them , or you don't want to have to cover their insurance for workers comp because you didn't get their workers comp insurance proof . So getting that documentation from subs upfront is super important .

Feel free to go to Facebook type and grow your painting business and join the conversation , join the group . I'd love to hear any ideas that you have and how you're improving your painting business and with that , we'll see you next week .