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Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule or the Pareto principle?

It states that “80 Percent of Your Results Come from 20 Percent of Your Efforts, and 20 Percent of Your Results Come from The Other 80 Percent.” 

The rule applies to your customers as well.  80% of your revenue typically comes from 20% of your clients.  Now, let’s apply the 80/20 rule again to the top 20% of your clients.  64% of your revenue comes from 4% of your clients.

What does this tell us?

There is always a small percentage of people at the top that are willing to pay a premium price.  

However, are you offering that chance to them?

There are ALWAYS at least 5-10% of your clients that would be willing to pay a premium price to get a premium service.  

A premium service is going to be better, faster or easier than the services that you currently offer…and it’s going to cost 2-3 times as much.

To create your premium service offer, you need to ask yourself 3 questions:

1. What can you do to offer a better painting service than other companies?
2. What can you do to be faster than other companies?
3. How can you make your process easier than other companies?

Let’s look at a few examples for each question…

What can you do to offer a better painting service than other companies?

To offer a better painting service, you need to increase the quality of the experience.  You could use a more expensive paint that lasts longer and doesn’t require as many coats.  You could give a guarantee to the homeowner that you run criminal background checks on all of your employees.  Because a lot of people are now working from home full time, you could offer a whisper guarantee – they won’t even know that you’re there while you’re working.

To create a better experience for the customer, you will need to go the extra mile.

What can you do to be faster than other painting companies?

To offer a faster service, take the time that it normally takes you to complete a job and decrease it by 30% or more if possible.  Offer kitchen cabinets done in a week (obviously kitchen size matters, so there can be a disclaimer).  Offer rooms done in a day with quality work.

When you provide a quicker service, it really makes you stand out from the crowd.

How can you make the painting process easier than other companies?

There are a ton of premium options here that you can offer, starting with the sales process.  As soon as someone contacts you, you could FaceTime them and do the estimate immediately.  This also puts you ahead of your competition as the first quote.

You could offer a free stay at a hotel or a small vacation (built into the price of course) while you work on their house.  They don’t have to deal with the mess/upheaval…and you don’t have to deal with them as a little bonus. There are many companies that do this.  You can get great deals on pricing from travel businesses.

If they are pet people, you could hire pet sitters to take the animals away for the days that you work.  This way, there are no accidents and the pets don’t have to deal with an unfamiliar situation in their home.

Think of the problems that are created by you painting their house and provide solutions to create your premium offering.

How To Present The Premium Painting Offerings

Make the premium offerings part of your proposal.  People like to have choices, but not too many.  According to a study done in 2000, people are more likely to make a purchase when presented with less choices.  So, offer 2-3 options max when it comes to the premium offerings.

This also allows the people choosing your regular pricing to feel like they received a “deal”.

Let’s Return To Our Example Company With A Premium Offering For Our Painting Business

Remember, ABC Painting started with $40,000 monthly gross revenue.  Then, we implemented a follow-up system, which will increase the leads by about 60%.  This took the gross monthly revenue to $64,000 with a close rate of 20%.

Next, we doubled our leads from 80 to 160 per month using the tactics in Step 2 of this series.  This resulted in 32 new clients and a monthly gross income of $128,000.  

Then, we doubled the close rate from 20% to 40%, which gave us 64 clients per month with a monthly gross income of $256,000.

Now, if we add a premium offering at $12,000 that 10% of our clients choose – we’ll have 160 leads per month with a 40% close rate.  That gives us 64 clients.  90% of them, 58 clients, choose the regular offering at $4000 and 10% of them, 6 clients, choose the premium offering at $12,000.  This gives us a total revenue for the month of $304,000.

This is an increase of 6.6X

Stay tuned for the finale next week (Step 5) where we will talk about being the irresistible option, which allows you to charge what you want!

Have you ever heard someone say – “People love to buy, but they hate to be sold to?”

I beg to differ.  That statement is unequivocally false. People love to buy AND they love to be sold to. 

The key, however, is that they need to have a quality sales experience.  They will love to be sold to!

What Constitutes A Great Sales Experience

As an example, think about buying a car. 

When you go to buy a new BMW or Mercedes Benz, the salespeople offer you unlimited Starbucks and snacks in their plush offices.  You get to hang out in a decked-out designer lounge while they prepare the cars that you want to test drive.  Typically, you’ll get to take a nice long test drive to check out all of the niceties of the car.  Then, after you purchase the car, you get cool little extras in the mail for the next few months.  Sometimes, they even invite you to special track events where you get to drive souped-up cars.

Now, let’s contrast that to purchasing a new Honda.  First, you enter a bare-bones sales floor where you take a number.  Once it’s your turn, you get to take a 10-minute test drive where the salesman glosses over the features.  When you return to the dealership, you get ushered into a drab cubicle and have the contract put in front of you.

Both cars will get you from A to B, but which sales experience would you rather have?  I think that most people would agree that they would rather have the BMW/Mercedes experience.

Selling Is A Process

The easiest way to get a client is for them to know, like and trust you.  You can start this process even before someone contacts you for a quote.

As mentioned in Step 1 of this series, create a set of videos that answer common questions that you hear all of the time from clients.  You can also make videos that address common objections that you hear from people that don’t hire you.

Then, run these videos on Facebook to your target audience.  They’ll get to know, like and trust you before they even contact you for a quote.

Why?

Because you have provided value to them and shown your expertise in the area without sounding salesy.  These videos are the first step of your sales pitch (and don’t take much time from you at all).  You want people to see you over and over again.  This way, you become cemented in their mind as the go-to business in the area for painting.

BONUS TIP: Testimonial videos are a great way to establish trust with potential clients and showcase the work that you did without having to toot your own horn!

Now, when someone contacts you for a quote after seeing your videos, you’ve already gotten the hard part out of the way.  They know, like and trust you from your videos…and people buy from people that they like.  It becomes a much easier sale for you to close on.

“Selling” Is A Dirty Word

“Sales” or “Selling” seems to have gotten a bad rap lately.  You think of sleazy used car salesmen or worse.  It just has a very negative connotation.

However, you must remember that you are HELPING PEOPLE when you sell them a quality paint job. 

Maybe you are helping them paint their kitchen cabinets and get a higher asking price when they sell their house.  Maybe you are painting the exterior of their home and helping them get it weather-proofed for winter.  Maybe you are helping a family have an amazing holiday in their newly painted living room.

Whatever the case, you are helping people achieve positive goals.  They are better off than they were before!  Keep this in mind the next time you go to close a deal.  You should find yourself in a completely different mindset, which will help your close rate.

Increase Your Closing Percentage

Create a quality sales experience that starts even before someone contacts your company.  By using the tips above, you should see your closing rate more than double. 

Let’s Return To Our Example Company With Double The Close Rate For Our Painting Business [h2]

Remember, ABC Painting started with $40,000 monthly gross revenue.  Then, we implemented a follow-up system, which will increase the leads by about 60%.  This took the gross monthly revenue to $64,000 with a close rate of 20%.

Next, we doubled our leads from 80 to 160 per month using the tactics in Step 2 of this series.  This resulted in 32 new clients and a monthly gross income of $128,000. 

Now, if we can double the close rate from 20% to 40%, we will have 64 clients per month with a monthly gross income of $256,000!  This is more than 6X the starting monthly revenue and we have 2 more steps to go!

Stay tuned for next week (Step 4) where we will talk about adding a special upsell that will score you some high-ticket clients right away!

Are you looking to grow your painting company but aren’t sure where to start?

It’s difficult to know what steps to take or where to invest your time and money.  However, we have created a proven roadmap for you to follow that will help you 10X your painting business.

Step 1 – Implement A Follow-Up System So Your Potential Clients See You Over and Over

Did you know that at any given time, only 3% of your market is ready to buy from you? 

This means that 97% of the people that see your advertising are going to need a little more time.  In fact, your average customer is exposed to about 10,000 marketing messages every day.

What are the chances that your marketing message is going to be the one that stands out among the 10,000 that your client is seeing (especially if they had never heard of you before)?

Typically, your potential clients need to see and hear from you multiple times in order to make an informed buying decision.  This is why you must FOLLOW UP.  In fact, a 2011 study from Google found that a buyer needs 7 hours of interaction across 11 touch points in 4 locations.

Let’s break that down quickly.  You (or your marketing) needs to interact (or be in front of) your potential client 11 times.  These interactions can be snail mail, videos, ads, phone calls, emails or anything that gets you in front of them.

Then, these 11 interactions need to be across 4 locations.  This means that you can’t just always call or email.  You need to expand the number of places that people see you.  You need to be “everywhere” your clients may be.  So, adding to phone or email, text, Facebook Ads, YouTube, the Google Display Network, LinkedIn etc.  To accomplish this task correctly, think about where your clients commonly are.

Finally, these touches need to result in about 7 hours of interaction.  In other words, you want a prospect to spend about 7 hours thinking about you.  This is when it helps to have video.  For a house painting business, customer testimonials are great ads to use.  It allows other people to “toot your horn”, so you don’t have to.

Another great interaction piece is a downloadable pdf that contains information about your company, examples of your past work, testimonials and more.  You can make this available on your website or social media.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Set Up A 3×3 Contact Matrix

First things first – automation is your friend.  Don’t shy away from technology because it seems complicated.  In the long run, it will be worth it.

So, what is the first thing to set up?

Start using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, like GoHighLevel, CorkCRM or Keap.  It will more than pay for itself in the long run.

In your CRM, you will want to set up what we call a 3×3 contact matrix.  You want a potential client that requested a quote to receive a call, text and email from you.  If they don’t respond, do it again 3 days later.  If they don’t respond, do it 5 days later.  This automatically gives you 9 interactions on 3 different channels.

A common fear that we hear from painters is “What if they get annoyed or tell us it’s too much?”

They won’t.  Remember, they originally contacted you.  The more information that you give them that allows them to make a good decision when choosing a house painter will be appreciated.

Another common question that we get is “What should I say in these emails, texts and calls?”

• CALLS: The calls can just be follow ups to the original contact for quote, which most painting businesses are used to doing.  
• TEXTS: The texts should be quick messages asking them for a reply, so you get them engaged.  This is also a great time to offer an exclusive discount that they can only get by replying.  Keep these short, sweet and to the point.
• EMAILS: The emails are where you can shine and really highlight your company.  Send them more information about what it’s like working with your company.  Have a testimonial video?  This is a perfect opportunity to share it with them. Do you offer something completely unique in your area, like a guarantee or a special technique?  Share it here.

People buy with emotions and justify it with logic.  Use these 9 points of contact to get them emotionally invested.  Then, provide the facts so they can justify their decision.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Play The Follow Game

Have you ever looked at a toaster on Amazon and suddenly, that toaster is everywhere?  You need to apply the same principles to your painting business.

The way to accomplish this is through the use of the Facebook pixel and the Google cookie.

Install these on your website (don’t forget to mention them in your terms and conditions) and they will start tracking your website visitors.  You can now show people ads on Facebook that have been on certain pages of your website.  You can use the Google cookie in a similar way.

Another way to interact with people multiple times based on their past browsing behavior is making use of Video Ads.  Create a set of 3 videos where you answer questions that people commonly have when hiring house painters.  Use the questions that you get from potential clients all the time.  These videos do not have to be formal or cost a ton of money.  A video shot on site with an iPhone will work for this.

Use these 3 videos to advertise to a broad audience.  You want to use them to weed out people.  Then, advertise your services in a follow up specifically to people that have watched at least 25% of one of your videos.  

Why 25% of a video?  

Because no one is going to watch a video on commonly asked questions about house painting unless they are in the market for house painting.  This is a great way to narrow down your audience.

You can apply this tactic on YouTube and Facebook.  

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Advertise on Multiple Platforms

To be “everywhere”, you need to advertise on multiple platforms.  

Google Ads are a great resource that lets you advertise on Google, YouTube, Gmail and the Google Display Network (GDN).  The GDN allows your ads to show up on websites that Google leases space on.  You can decide what type of website “lease” you want to rent from Google.  So, as a painting business, Home Improvement sites or Home Decorating sites may be good places to start.

Facebook Ads are another great place to target specific audiences with all types of advertising.  Videos perform better than static ads, so start filming!

Depending upon the type of work you do, LinkedIn advertising could help you reach certain professionals.

How To Implement A Great Customer Follow-Up System – Let’s Look At An Example

To really illustrate how powerful just this one step is, let’s look at an example painting business, ABC Painting.

Let’s say that ABC Painting gets 50 leads per month, their close rate is 20% and the average painting project in their area is $4000.  This means that they will get 10 clients and the company will gross $40,000 per month.

If you implement the follow up systems discussed above, you will increase your leads by about 60%.

To use the numbers above, this means that instead of 50 leads, ABC Painting will now have 80 leads per month.  They will close on 20% of them, which is 16 clients and the company will now gross $64,000.

See, the CRM really will pay for itself…

Stay tuned for next week when we discuss how to double your leads!