A David Creation

Painting contractors looking to establish relationships with local hospitals need to have their ducks in a row before a hospital will consider them. Working for hospitals can prove to be a profitable venture for the professional painting contractor. Why? Because hospitals and medical facilities have strict guidelines on what can be painted, how it should be painted and the types of products that can be used. A hospital is more concerned with the who, what, where and when than the “how much will it cost?” So the more professional, the more certification and accreditation a contractor has, the better chance they have at gaining business with the medical industry.

One of the ways I established a relationship with a large hospital (Scripps Green) in La Jolla, while working with Chism Brothers Painting, was through existing customers and relationships. We had painted the home of the current hospital CEO and sometime after we finished, I sent him an email and asked if he could get us in to paint his hospital. We had been painting for this executive for years but never talked about his hospital. All I had to do was ask!  He did not know we wanted to work at a hospital. Even though we were a primarily residential painting company, our painters were highly trained and skilled at using all different types of paint materials. The other benefit we could offer, besides being professional, was being through, neat and tidy. You’d be surprised at the companies that market themselves as commercial painters. Typically they had a reputation for hiring cheap labor, being messy and sloppy. Anyways, the CEO made a couple of calls, I got into do a bid, we got a nice size and profitable project and we began many more projects. What sealed the deal was the feedback from the staff at Scripps Green. The staff went to the facilities manager and told him they could not believe how clean and professional our company was while painting during normal business hours!

If you know anyone in the medical field, even a physician in charge of a department, ask to be introduced to the construction or facilities manager. Then make sure you know a lot about products, procedures and certifications.

Oh by the way, a great product to consider using for medical facilities is a Zero VOC epoxy-like coating called V-8 Performance. I sat in on a presentation of this material a few months ago and was blown away! Using Zero VOC products will only increase your chances of doing more work in the medical industry: even during normal business hours.

GoDaddy is a full service web agency that markets heavily to the Do It Yourself (DIY) small businesses. They have done an excellent job branding themselves as the affordable solution for simple websites. They also provide cheap hosting options. What this means is you can develop a custom website (separate from GoDaddy’s tools) and host the site using GoDaddy. Hosting is important, because this is where the data and your domain are stored. If your website is “down” one day, this means your “hosting” or server site is down. So a good hosting company is very important.

The downside I see with using GoDaddy is it is limited when it comes to web design. To do an attractive and effective website today, you really need to have an experienced web designer and programmer. It is not just about the design anymore but the text used, the way it is worded, the latest web standards and the backend coding. GoDaddy and other DIY web companies have advertise that you can create and publish your own websites, but is that really what you want to do? Do you have the time? Do you keep up with search engine techniques and graphic design?

Even though I like GoDaddy and have experience using their products, I’d recommend hosting and building your site with a professional web designer, who has their own host. For example, I work with Pioneer Design for all my websites now. Pioneer is a small business that offers secure hosting, design, copy writing, SEO, setting up your email accounts, a Google Apps account and more.  What I like about Pioneer is that they are innovative when it comes to using technology. In other words, technology does not scare them. They embrace it! They are always using the latest in web standards, codes and design. Also, the hosting server they use is huge, so the uptime is very strong and stable. Plus, if there is ever a problem, Pioneer can fix it right away, since they host the site. Oh, and they don’t own your site: the customer does. If you want to change designers or hosting, they’ll give you the reigns.

So, if you want a cookie-cutter website or want 100% control of your content, GoDaddy will do the job. However, if you really want a good experience and don’t have the time or want to be a web designer yourself, work with a professional web company. A good web designer will produce better results in the years to come.

I recently purchased the new Apple iPad to test out and see if this is a good business tool for contractors. After the purchased, I received an email from Apple asking if I would take part in a 15 minute survey about my recent and past Mac purchases. I thought the email was written well and it was a great marketing idea. However, I was concerned about the 15 minutes. But, being a huge fan of Apple, I clicked on the link and began the survey.

To be quite honest, I hated the survey. I was really surprised at the level of detail Apple went into in each question. 15 minutes seemed like an hour, and I had to think really hard to answer the questions. I could not skip the questions either. They asked me technical questions like, “How long did you spend researching an Apple product before you purchased it?” and “How many sites did you visit during your research?” This was just a sampling. The questions were more advanced than that. When I finished I was almost upset. I kept saying, “This is not like Apple” to myself. They make everything so simple and easy, but this survey was heavy and boring. Good grief.

Marketing Tip for Painters and Contractors

My take is this: when doing a survey, make it fun and keep it simple. Better yet, consider doing it by phone. If you have a very happy customer, they’d be more than happy to spend 5, 10 even 15 minutes on a phone call with you. I’ve done this a number of times when I was working for my dad’s painting company. In fact, I even drove out to a client’s home or business to talk to them. They’d talk for over 30 minutes! Oh, and you don’t have to give them a gift card or buy them anything: just ask them! Apple didn’t say they’d give me anything. I was glad to help, well not as much after the long survey. But you get the point.

A good survey helps you better your service and know how to gear up your marketing to past and future clients. Just make sure you don’t put your customer to sleep!

I was asked by a client recently how he could get his calendar, contacts and email on his new iPad easily. He was not sure it can be done. Well, he was in luck. There is an easy way to get all three items in sync in 5 minutes or less. Once it is setup, you just have to be connected to an Internet source. My client just purchased the new 3G iPad, and within a few minutes, he had all of his information in real time. He is using the iPad as his main “mobile office.”

To get your mobile office running on your iPad, I strongly suggest using the following programs: Google Apps and Dropbox. If you are using Microsoft Outlook and want to continue using MS Outlook, you need to sign up for Google Apps Premier, which is $50 a user per year.

Step by Step Setup   Step 1. Open Settings App
Step 2. Open “Mail, Contacts and Calendars
Step 3. Create a New Account  - Under the Accounts Heading, Tap “Add Account” - Touch the first “Microsoft Exchange” logo
Step 4. Fill out Account Information  Email: Google Apps email account: [email protected] Domain: leave blank Username: same as above “email” for Google Apps Account Password: Google Apps Password Description: Whatever you’d like. I suggest, “Company Email” or “Google Apps Account” Then Click “Next”
Step 5. “Certificates and Verify Account”  You will receive a few pop ups to verify your account. Just tap accept, continue and/or next when prompted. Bottomline: don’t tap “cancel”
Step 6. Add “Server” info  - After you tap accept, you will see the previous screen appear with a new tab called “Server” - Type in “m.google.com” and tap the blue next button
Step 7. Turn ON Mail, Contacts and Calendar  - By default, the mail will be “ON” and the Contacts and Calendar will be on “OFF” mode - Turn ON the Contacts and Calendars. - If you already have contacts on you iPad, You will be prompted with a pop up screen that will ask you if you wish to keep or delete your iPad contacts. To avoid duplicates, I’d recommend making sure that your Google Contacts are up to date and you remove all iPad contacts. Google should be the default. Tap Save…and you are done!

If you are not currently using Google Apps for your business or Dropbox and don’t know if that is a good move, email me with your questions.

Intro to Cloud Computing and Google Apps

Many owners of paint companies are spending more time on the road and less time at the office during a down economy. The need for a mobile office is more needed now than even a year ago. So, I’ve been encouraging my clients to consider switching to “Cloud Computing.” Cloud Computing is basically computer programs/software on the web, not physically installed on your computer. If you have an Internet connection, you have all your office applications and files at your fingertips on the go. Oh…and with a good connection, Cloud Computing is typically much faster to load and operate than the typical heavy programs like Microsoft Outlook and other CRM programs.

Anyways, Google is becoming a leader in Cloud Computing by offering “Google Apps:” business applications in the clouds. They also have Google Marketplace which allows 3rd party companies to offer their Cloud products to be installed on the Google platform/dashboard. What this means in a nutshell is that by using Google Apps and the Marketplace, you only login to one program: your google account. Once you are logged in, you have access to all other programs you’ve subscribed too or purchased and don’t need a separate username and password (i.e. Everything under one roof).

Custom Signatures

If you decide to make the switch to the clouds and end up using Google Apps, you will probably end up settling with Gmail as your emailing program in most cases rather than MS Outlook.  Gmail has a different interface than Outlook. It takes some getting use too, but once you use all the cool plugins (called labs in Gmail) and get familiar with it, Gmail is pretty powerful! The one major downside to Gmail is that you can only use “plain text” for your custom signatures. So, a company called WiseStamp created a plugin that allows you to create custom signatures, similar to what you could do in Outlook. The latest version of WiseStampmakes creating a custom signature easy and requires little or no HTML knowledge.  Check out their website and download the plugin for your browser: Firefox of Chrome (my two favorites).

Need Help

Setting up a Cloud Office, Mobile Devices, Google Apps, Customizing Gmail into a Business Account, Setting up your Calendars, Signatures, Filters etc. can be done without hiring a consultant or computer wiz…but it can be quite time consuming. So, if you don’t have the time or get stuck in the process, I’m happy to help. Just ask!