Let’s be honest. You typically hire painters when you’re swamped. Right? You filled up your pipeline and have 8 weeks worth of work on the board. You put your hand on your head and say to your team, “We need to hire some painters! Let’s get to it!”

Most painters are very busy when the economy is strong. Right now, this is definitely the case; especially since we’re entering into the late spring months. Is it easier or more difficult to find painters when they’re all busy? It’s much more difficult. All the good painters are working right now — or at least should be working. Read More

I got a quote to replace my sliding back door with a new unit. I asked the guy doing the estimate a fairly simple question, and it will sound familiar to all you estimators out there! “I know you have to work up the numbers back at the shop, but do you think it will cost more than $2k or less than $2k for a ballpark.” Fair question, right? I did not want to waste his time…as I had a budget figure in my head. Read More

Dropbox

Many customers of mine and friends have used and continue to use Dropbox to upload, store and share files and folders. It has become the “Kleenex” brand of online file storage. Dropbox is a fantastic program. It is super easy to use and has a number of great features including its newest collaboration piece called Dropbox Paper. Read More

This tip, Make Customers Feel Comfortable, might be a no-brainer for many of you reading this blog. However, I am surprised at how often employees of home improvement companies can get customers into some awkward moments.

Let me give you a real-life example that happened this week. Read More

Online reviews have been around for well over a decade now. It grew in popularity thanks to services like Amazon.com. It then began to find a place in the home improvement industry, especially in Google’s local search and services like Yelp. Consumers are relying less and less on what their neighbor’s think about a service provider and putting more faith in the reviews they see and read about online. Can you blame them? Most of us don’t connect much with our neighbors anymore. We whip out our smartphone to do our research now!  Read More

Many of my customers use Google Apps (now known as G Suite) for their business email, calendar and storage space. G Suite is a pretty secure platform for paid users. However, many times, G Suite users do not take the proper steps to make sure their data is extra secure. Read More