A David Creation

For those of you who are familiar with the Painter For a Day (PFD) program and wish to have assistance in beginning this in your business or need help with implementing it, I would love to help. My father, Mike Chism, was the original founder of the Painter For a Day concept for his painting company in San Diego, Chism Brothers Painting. He original started the program to service his existing clients who had small to-do items. When I came on to work for him full time, I began to see the benefit of marketing the PFD to potential clients so they could sample our fine painting services. My dad and I worked many long hours fine tuning the way the program worked at Chism Brothers and made it into a very successful part of our company.

After attending many PDCA and painting conferences and sharing our PFD success, many other painting owners began to like the concept and began to market their own Painter For a Day program. When I talk with painting contractors to do who use the PFD in their own business, they still struggle with how to sell and market the idea successfully. This is why I am offering my assistance to my clients, Summit members and professional PDCA members who are not direct competitors of my father or my clients! I can answer questions, help with the sales process, marketing ideas and even customizing proposal forms.

Email or Call me anytime! Request David’s Help

I stumbled upon a great little iPhone App that makes tracking your mileage easy. If you need to track your miles for tax purposes or even to bill a client, MileBug will probably do the job. There is a paid and free version available. The free version works great. You can only track up to ten logged items at once. However, all you need to do is email the 10 items to yourself, delete them off your device and start over to keep the free version useful!

Several cool features I really like about MileBug:

1. The ability to have several Businesses and Breakdowns. In other words, you can name your company and the purpose of the visits such as “Estimates,” “Project Management” “Warranty Work.”
2. Multiple Vehicles: If your car is in the shop and you have to use a personal vehicle or rental, you can add that to the program.
3. Types and Rates: You can receive tax deductions for charitable work and medical needs. So, if you are running to the hospital, click on “medical” within the program to track your miles!
4. Emailed Reports: The reports function is the real winner. They are easy to read and VERY well organized. All you do is select the “range” of dates and click “email.” It is that simple. This way, if you have an estimator using his own vehicle, he can use MileBug to track his estimate calls, follow ups, etc. and email you a report right from his device, assuming he has an iPhone! If only RIM would be more proactive on making useful business applications for the Blackberry!

Finally, one of the drawbacks is using the Odometer feature only. You have to discipline yourself to remember to track your mileage in the proper order. Therefore, if you logged in a trip on Wednesday and forgot about your Monday trip login, it will mess up the Odometer. It would be really nice if it had a feature for just typing in the mileage manual. In the past, I just typed in the Directions in Google Map, the Route I would take and write in the total 2-way mileage. So that is the only major drawback.

Try out the free version. If it is as cool as I described, by the unlimited version for $3.99.

Sometimes you have to wonder why almost all consumers write the same “no thank you” email and letters to salesmen. Is there a book about the things to say and not to say to a salesman on the market that I am missing? This is how you know you lost a sale when you read the following 6 words of the first sentence, “Thank you for taking the time…” I don’t think I have ever read those 6 words ending this way, “…we’d love you to do the job!” Instead it ends, “…but we’ve decided to go with another…”

I like to write the obvious at times, which is why I’m posting this! Maybe a consumer will read this post and come up with something new and different like making the salesperson really wonder what he or she is trying to say! Hey! a blog is short for weblog, so writing a journal that is not real important is fun sometimes. Give it a try…write something fun on your blog today and watch your stress level be GONE!

This is a reminder for all you painting contractors and small business owners who are still using Internet Explorer (IE). IE browser is standard with any new PC. However, it is not the best browser to use! You really need to upgrade to the latest Firefox browser. Firefox is better, faster and has way more features known as “add-ons.” Firefox also has some great Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools that you can use. Download and make Firefox the browser of choice for your PC or Mac computer.

I am excited to be in the process of managing and creating 4 new painting websites for professional painting contractors. So far, all but one have decent websites but are in need of quite a few changes. After much discuss, they all decided it was time to start from the beginning. I will be showing the new websites when they are finished. The current companies I will be working for are: MB Jessee Painting out of San Franscisco (Bay Area), Imhoff Painting near St. Paul, Pete the Painter in Chicago and a completely new website for Masterworks Painting near Boston. Each website will be very unique are designed with their ideal clients in mind.

My job is to help facilitate the entire process: Beginning Concepts, Design Assistance, Project Management and then adding my final Creative Touch. The creative touch at the end is my favorite. Once the site is completely done, I like going through it myself and make sure it looks incredible. All of the paint contractors who have contacted me to help them on their marketing and websites really want a high quality look that fits with the type of painting they do! I’m sure their customers will be impressed with the changes they are making in the weeks to come.

For those who don’t use Google as your main search engine: They reminded us of the cool date today

09-09-09

Pretty cool!

Apple has always had the power and the brains to dive into the Tablet “PC” market. I am not sure why they have not released their own touch-screen Mac in the last few years. Their iPhones and iTouch devices are incredible, so the technology is definitely there! Tablet computers, for those of you who don’t know, are basically a laptop with “touch” capabilities. However, most Tablet computers can only be touched using a stylus (pen). Only a very small handful of Tablet PCs on the market allow for finger touching, such as HP.

Tablet computers are an incredible invention for service companies, especially painting contractors. I first started using a Tablet for estimating over 5 years ago. I would say that my time was cut in half by being able to produce an estimate in the field with a client vs. taking notes and measurements and doing the proposal back at the office. I have definitely closed more deals with the help of the Tablet. Why? Because I have more face-time with the owner. I can provide them ballparks and/or fixed numbers on the spot. If I have to leave the jobsite/home, my chances of selling just went down.

The problem I have found with Tablet PCs mainly is the cost and the reliability of the machines. A good Tablet PC with MS Office can cost as much as $3,000. The other expense is one they break. I have rebuilt my Toshiba Tablet 2 times and a Motion Computing Tablet at least two times.

Thanks to Steve Jobs, it appears Apple will finally jump into the Tablet market and be producing their very own machine to the public later this year. I hope it is as easy to use as the iPhone. Netbooks have really taken off the past year, which is probably the main reason Apple began tinkering with the idea of producing something better. Believe me…whatever Apple decides to release will be incredible.

To read more about the Apple Tablet and see some possible ideas of what it will look like: View this site.

Blackberry and Palm devices always did a great job including a good and easy to use task manager application. On the old PALM, you actually had a button for “To-Do’s” right on the front of your device. Making list were easy and checking them off was even more fun! Now that the technology age is so much more advanced since the early Palm Pilot models of the late 1990s, we think we need better programs to manage our crazy schedules. Books have been written about how to manage your time more efficiently, including the popular “Getting Things Done” book by David Allen.

The iPhone, being the latest and greatest mobile device on the market does not come with a standard task manager program. Apple left that particular App to the App creators! If you do a search for a good “to do” list for you iPhone, it will be hard finding one that is easy to use and even reminds you when things are do. I’m still in the testing stages of finding a quality task management App for my iPhone, but so far, I like the App called “Things.” This App cost $9.99 from the Apps Store on your device. However, if you are familiar with the Getting Things Done method or have your own creative way to organize your list, Things is probably a great little program for you to try. I know it is $9.99 but if it really does help you organize your busy schedule better, I’m sure it is worth it. Things allows you to quickly jot down thoughts and to-dos. It then saves them into a folder called “Inbox.” The next step, when you have the time, is to go into your Inbox and categorize and priorities your recent to-do items. Things then will organize your items into separate folders such as: Today, Next, Scheduled and Someday. All items can also be tagged. I use the “tag” function as the categories for the companies I am working for on an ongoing basis.

Two final “cool” features are the Projects section and the ability to email your items to yourself or someone else. The projects area gives you the capability of naming projects and the items that need to be done to accomplish the overall goal.

To learn more, visit Things and watch their short video on how it can save you time and money!