How To Increase Painting Contractor Closing Rates

The number one excuse for painting contractors not to look for marketing help with their business is “how will I know this will work?” Everyone wants their business to grow. Most painting contractors work tirelessly to grow their business and wonder why it seems they are just spinning their wheels.

Finding the right painting marketing tactics can help you work smarter not harder. Working with the right people helps also.

Meet Keith Zafren.

Keith already had a successful business and with additional marketing instruction was able to double his business in no time!

Hello. I’m Keith Zafren, owner of My Three Sons Professional Painting Services in Lexington, Kentucky.

Question number one, what are the biggest financial or business growth results you have received as a member of the APPC? In 2015, the year before I joined APPC, I did $451,000 in sales, working four to six painters, and my pay was $101,000. That was the first time in my life I had ever made more than a $100,000 in a year. It felt like a great year. My closing rate that year, before APPC, was at 24%.

In 2016, I joined APPC as a gold member. That first year, I sold $545,000, nearly a $100,000 more than the previous year, with six to eight painters, and I paid myself $125,000, a $24,000 raise from the previous year. Due to beginning to incorporate Brandon’s Power Paint Presentation Process, my closing rate increased from 24% to 34%. I was convinced and converted. I wanted more.

So at the end of 2016, after talking to two of Brandon’s platinum coaching clients to try to determine if it was really worth the added monthly expense, I signed on to Brandon’s platinum one-on-one coaching group, because I wanted more growth and more income, and because I had experienced what being even a gold member had already done for my business. That next year, as part of Brandon’s one-on-one platinum crew, I grew to 15 painters, sold more than $700,000 of work and I made $200,000 myself, nearly doubling my numbers from the previous year, in large part because my closing rate increased again from 34% to 44%.

The next year, 2018, was stable at those numbers without much growth, primarily due to a personal health challenge we faced most of that year, but we’ve made a good recovery personally, as well as in our business this past year. It looks like we’re going to close 2019 close to a million in sales, with a gross profit rate of 40% and with my sales closing right now at 50%.

I can’t even imagine where I’d be in this business without the fantastic tools available to me as a gold member and the invaluable and outstanding coaching I get every month from Brandon as a platinum coaching client. It’s worth every single penny with excellent ROI.

Question number two, thinking back to before you joined the APPC, how do you feel differently about your role as an owner, the day to day running of your business, or your potential to succeed now versus then? How have your feelings or thinking changed? Well, this may be the most dramatic change I’ve experienced in my business since joining APPC, though there are many. I really was the classic example of what Brandon pokes fun at. I was basically a one man show with some painting helpers. I took all my own calls when I could, often while I was driving, and I returned a long list of voicemails at night. I made all my own appointments whenever I could fit them in. Then I showed up for the appointment looking like a painter, rather than a business owner.

I looked around and I guessed what the job would cost. Then I went home and wrote proposals every night. I emailed those proposals to my prospects, and I hoped for the best, waiting for them to call me back. I’m amazed I got as much work as I did, though I now understand how much money I left out there, not having a clear sales process, no pre-positioning at all, no sense that the consultation appointment was actually a sales meeting, and I did very little followup because I did not want to be pushing. I did it all. I was exhausted, frustrated, losing work to low price painters, and burning out.

Fast forward a few years. As part of the APPC and later as one of Brandon’s coaching clients, I’ve hired a fantastic operations manager. We have a part-time administrative and marketing assistant who is a lifesaver and a delight to have on our team. We have a payroll company that handles not only our weekly payroll payments, but all local, state, and employee taxes. We have a great CPA firm running monthly and quarterly reports for us, an excellent bookkeeper, and a very professional answering service that takes all our inbound calls 24/7 so we never miss a call, and so that every caller talks to a live professional person. They not only follow a script I’ve provided, but they complete a full intake form, schedule the [inaudible 00:05:34] appointment in 12 predetermined available time slots each week, and then they email me all the information.

As a result of being a part of the APPC, I’ve moved from being the business myself to running the business as the owner, making a lot more money and having a great deal more fun and freedom. I have a long way to go, but I’m on the right path and trajectory. It has definitely been a steep learning curve, and it’s absolutely worth it.

Question number three, if an owner was skeptical about getting on the phone with Brandon for their 60 minute business diagnostic call to discover how they could improve their painting business, what would you tell them to help them understand the value and necessity of it? I’d say get ready for the ride of your life, and perhaps I’d add good luck resisting. In fact, don’t even try. Before I had that diagnostic call with Brandon, I resisted him for more than a year. I don’t even know how he found me. I must’ve given my email address and my physical mailing address to get some report or something he offered for free. Ha. Because I began to be barraged by a landslide of marketing materials from this pushy guy from Tennessee with an annoying accent.

I wasn’t really interested at first, but the emails and physical mail just kept coming and coming and coming. If you’re watching this, you know exactly what I mean. The guy is a marketing machine, and frankly, even though I felt overwhelmed by Brandon’s marketing onslaught, and even though I thought some of his stuff was kind of cheesy, his relentless pursuit of me actually caught my attention. Eventually, I started to pay attention to some of his content and at that point it didn’t take me long to recognize the wealth of information, education, and proven strategies Brandon was offering. Darn it. He had me hogtied at that point. There was no escape. Seriously, I was hooked.

I signed up as a gold member in January of 2016, and the rest is history, as I’ve already shared. My business has about tripled in size, revenue, and profits since giving in to Brandon and becoming a grateful part of the APPC. Brandon, I have you to thank for all of that. I know it makes you cringe to hear that publicly. Seriously, look at the guy. Have you ever seen someone more inept at receiving well-deserved and hard earned praise and gratitude? But it’s real and it’s true. Take the call. I want everyone listening to know how fantastic it is to be a part of your academy for professional painting contractors, to be coached by you, and to see my business grow and flourish because of applying the lessons you’re teaching all of us every month. I am so grateful, and it’s a great ride. Thank you, Brandon.