How To Grow Your Painting Business without Paying More for Marketing

As I wrap up my 10^th year in busi­ness, I’ve been think­ing quite a bit about the cus­tomers I’ve had the plea­sure of work­ing along­side as a mar­ket­ing man­ag­er. I also enjoy review­ing their dif­fer­ent suc­cess­es and sto­ries, find­ing com­mon themes among some­times very dif­fer­ent companies. 

While every com­pa­ny may be unique, there are real­ly three uni­ver­sal ways to grow your paint­ing busi­ness in 2020, and specif­i­cal­ly to grow your leads. I’ll wrap things up below with my best rec­om­men­da­tion too, and it may take you a bit by sur­prise (giv­en the source).

Option 1: Fun­nel More Dol­lars Into Mar­ket­ing Efforts

If you have a good plan in place and a sol­id team, grow­ing your mar­ket­ing bud­get will cer­tain­ly increase leads. And, as a mar­ket­ing guy, I obvi­ous­ly love that idea! There are lots of valu­able ways to invest in the reach and vis­i­bil­i­ty of your busi­ness, on and offline. 

But that’s not the only option, or even nec­es­sar­i­ly the best…

Option 2: Put Time and Ener­gy Into Your Community

Fair warn­ing: this approach takes a lot of work! 

Invest­ing in your com­mu­ni­ty may not yield a vis­i­ble return for a while, and you’ll be spend­ing mon­ey on local spon­sor­ships, attend­ing events, giv­ing back to char­i­ties, fundrais­ers, and donat­ing your expertise.

But, those com­pa­nies I work with that have con­sis­tent­ly done that do see a strong uptick in growth and com­mu­ni­ty trust over time, and that’s invalu­able. They tend to absolute­ly dom­i­nate their mar­ket. Plus, their employ­ees have more pride in their work, posi­tion, and com­pa­ny, espe­cial­ly as their employ­er becomes more of a house­hold name. 

That’s price­less.

Option 3: Focus On Cus­tomer Service

Last, but cer­tain­ly not least, you can focus very hard on cus­tomer ser­vice in 2020. What­ev­er it takes, you’re all about 100% cus­tomer satisfaction. 

Now, it’s impos­si­ble to please every cus­tomer all the time — we know that with­out a doubt. Despite that, the absolute dri­ve and focus of your com­pa­ny should be that 100% sat­is­fac­tion, from the office to the field.

Not only will your rep­u­ta­tion grow, but you also will even­tu­al­ly low­er costs relat­ed to labor prob­lems, call backs, etc. Cer­tain­ly a valu­able focus that will pay off in no time at all with hap­py cus­tomers and over­all busi­ness growth. 

So, Where Should Your Focus Be in 2020?

While you might think the mar­ket­ing guy would push the mar­ket­ing spend increase, I actu­al­ly would rec­om­mend focus­ing on cus­tomer ser­vice first and fore­most, then lay­er in com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment as well. It’s a longer game, but will build your foun­da­tion and growth tra­jec­to­ry bet­ter than any­thing else.

As a final reminder, don’t for­get your employ­ees. They’re the lifeblood of your orga­ni­za­tion, and if you treat them well and invest in their growth, you won’t be spend­ing extra on mar­ket­ing to get your phone to ring. Hap­py team mem­bers make for hap­py clients, bet­ter qual­i­ty work, and more of those gold­en referrals. 

What­ev­er your spe­cif­ic focus might be, I (and the ADC team) wish you all the best in 2020!