How to grow your painting business

How to grow your painting business

Once you’ve started your own company and have been working for a while, chances are you’ll want and need to grow. Looking at how to get more leads is just one part of the puzzle, you also need to know how to grow your painting business.

But how do you go about doing this if you’ve never done it before?

Well, just like when you first started out, you’ll probably want to put together another plan.

This will be a growth plan that you can follow to gain a steady stream of new customers without outstripping the current capabilities of your painting and decorating business.

Generally, a good growth plan will look at all of the areas below:

• How do you plan on scaling your painting business going forward, and at what rate?
• How do you plan on promoting your business, either digitally, or through traditional means?
• How do you plan on boosting your portfolio of painting services to meet the needs of your customers?

As with your existing business plan, all of these areas will require a good degree of thought before you settle on anything, which is why we’ve broken down what to consider for all of them in the next section.

How do you scale your painting business?

When it comes to business growth, there is no point in generating more leads than your business can handle.

You need to be conscious of how you plan to scale your business in the near future.

You want to be sure that you expand your business at a rate you’re comfortable with.

This should be at a speed that won’t see you sacrificing quality over quantity when it comes to jobs. So, when looking at business growth potential, always consider the following four areas:

• Streamlining – Ensure all areas of your business work together as intended, such as the admin, supply, and customer relations
• Finances – It is so important to keep an eye on your cash flow so you have the funds to back up any new investments
• Consistent quality – You can’t afford to drop your standard of work, so maintain a focus on quality over quantity, no matter how big your business gets
• Building your team – In order to scale effectively, you will inevitably need to hire more staff for your business

Take your time looking at the candidates available to you and choose those who have both the skillset and the temperament to match your business vision. You’ll need to grow at a pace that is achievable, as well as desirable.

How to promote a painting business

Having a good online presence is essential for any painting business. Even if you choose to focus more of your efforts on traditional marketing methods.

It is still worth lending some of your marketing budget to the below areas:

• Maintaining a website – Make sure information is correct and it works as intended (include all of your painting and decorating services and areas covered)
• Updating social media – Decorating is a highly visual field of work, which means images and video can be used to really show off your capabilities and get more work
• Joining a directory – Online directories are still one of the main tools customers use to find reliable tradespeople, so why not take a look at Checkatrade?

Why not take a look at some of our other articles on marketing your painting business? We’ve put together guides to help you with your social media and setting up a website, for example, to see how to go about doing this.

Advertising your decorating business

While a large portion of business marketing now takes place online, that’s no reason for you to drop traditional marketing methods entirely.

In fact, when implemented properly, any of the following areas can bring in huge numbers of new leads:

• Print marketing – This includes adverts such as leaflets and flyers to help highlight what your painting business can do for your customers
• PPC – Pay-per-click advertising (otherwise known as PPC) involves getting placed in the ad spots at the top of the relevant Google search results
• Company branding – Whether it’s on your van or the back of your shirt, good branding when done right will essentially become your own mobile billboard
• Sponsorship – Sponsoring a local charity or event is a fantastic opportunity to network and will help to get your name out in the local community

When it comes to growing your painting and decorating business, it means getting your name out there. More visibility, more opportunities and more work coming your way.

Other marketing ideas

Last, but not least, as a final note to help you get started, there are three passive marketing areas you can also look into.

Why not think about these to bolster your stream of new painting customers:

• Encourage customer reviews – A good review or two can really go a long way to improving your credibility of your business
• Networking – Reaching out to fellow tradespeople can help to expand your contact network and get you more leads through referrals
• Google My Business listings – Google’s business listing tool is a quick and easy way to place your business to appear in any related local searches

There is plenty more marketing you can be doing on top of all of these ideas, so for even more assistance, you should look at making use of our free marketing guide.

How to get more painting and decorating work

Knowing how to grow your painting business means focussing on your marketing and lead generation.

With all of that in hand, you should be more than ready to get your painting and decorating business going… and then growing!

If you want to draw in even more potential work in the future, you could look into doing the three points below:

• Further accreditations – Getting further qualifications can always help your work, with more accreditations helping gain a greater level of customer trust
• Specialised work – Another way to grow your painting and decorating business is to expand or specialise your service offering (this could be anything from outside decorating work to painting upcycled furniture)
• Repeat business – Never sacrifice your quality of work to take on more jobs (doing a better job overall with less work will help get you more repeat business)

Thinking to yourself ‘how can I promote my painting business’? There are a number of techniques. Especially getting listed as a checked and approved tradesperson on Checkatrade.

Growing your painting business with Checkatrade

When you’re looking to expand your painting and decorating operation, joining Checkatrade might be the perfect way to take some of the weight off your lead generation activities.

As an approved member of Checkatrade, you have options when it comes to the number of leads you receive. Remember that you can always talk to our membership advice team about options when you want more work.

There are a whole host of benefits to a membership, which can work together to help you grow:

• Access to existing interest and leads
• Use of Checkatrade branding to build on trust
• Savings on business essentials in our Member’s App
• Discount on vans
• 20% off the cost of PLI
• Dedicated membership advice team

Get in touch to learn more about the 12-check system we follow when onboarding our members. Check out the great benefits of signing up with Checkatrade, and we can help you start on the path to even greater success.