A carefully crafted estimate process is invaluable. Why? Because:
- You can make more sales.
- You can sell at a higher price point.
- You can set better expectations with your customer.
- You can provide a better customer experience.
- You can spend more money on marketing because you sell more jobs at a higher price point.
Overall… your business grows significantly! The higher your company sales rate, the faster your company will grow. It’s the most valuable part of your business to make improvements on.
In this article, we’re going to outline what a good estimate process looks like from start to finish. We’re not going to miss a single thing. We’re touching on every single detail, including:
- The initial phone call
- The Q&A at the estimate
- The pre-close #1
- The walk around
- The pre-close #2
- Estimating and writing up the agreement
- The close
- Follow-up
Let’s get to it…
1. The Initial Phone Call
The first step is setting up a great estimate. How you handle your initial contact with the customer can make a huge impact on your sales rate.
Because of that, it’s imperative that you set yourself up to win. Some people refer to this as “Field Position Theory”. It’s like a football game. Each interaction with the customer gets you further up the field. With a really weak initial call, you might only be on the 10-yard line, leaving you with a long way to go!
On the other hand, with a great initial phone call, you can put yourself on the 50-yard line. By the time you give them the contact, you’re on the 1 yard line, and all they have to do is say “yes”.
But if you don’t do a great job throughout the process, you need to make something magical happen at the end. Which we all know is unlikely. So, do yourself a favor and start off as amazingly as you can. Here’s is a great video on how to set up a perfect estimate.
2. The Q&A at the Estimate
Once you arrive at the estimate, you should immediately start building rapport. A great question to get that started is “How long have you guys lived here for?” Look for common ground and build genuine rapport.
Remember, people buy on trust. The best way to build trust is through building a relationship, and being genuine and real with people. Become their best friend.
Customers will get estimates all across the board. Some higher, some lower, some more professional, some less professional… which one is the right one to go with?
The one they trust the most.
So, start off with the relationship. Then, when you notice the rapport slowing down (could be 2 minutes, could be 30 minutes) transition into talking about the paint job. All you need to do here is ask questions and cover the basics:
- What concerns do they have?
- Have they painted before?
- What are they looking for in a paint job?
Your job is to find out what they need and want, and make recommendations and help them get the paint job that is perfect for them. Be genuine and honest and look for what’s best for their needs. People can sense that, and that in turn builds trust. Which is exactly what you want to do.
3. The Pre-Close #1
A pre-close is when you offer a discount in exchange for something from the customer. The reason you do a pre-close is to encourage the customer to take the estimate seriously.
Instead of them thinking “We’re just getting an estimate”, we want them to be thinking “Do I want to hire them?”
When customers are considering if they want to hire you, they ask all the most important questions. They listen more. They care more. They evaluate each part of the estimate differently. This all benefits you.
For example, when you ask: “When are you guys hoping to get this painting work done?”, they say whatever they say.
Follow up with: “I’m just asking because right now I’m trying to fill my next available spots. Right now, that’s June. If everything works out and you guys decide to paint with me, would June work for you?”
They’ll say “yes”. Then you say: “Perfect! If everything works and you can schedule for June, I can save you guys some money because that really helps us with our scheduling.”
Now, you’ve got them listening and taking the estimate more seriously.
Now their thinking has shifted from “Maybe we’ll paint this year, we’re just getting an estimate” to “Do we want to hire them? Because if we do, we definitely want to save that money for painting in June”.
Because let’s be honest. Nobody wants to spend money painting their house. They’d rather take a family vacation. The less they can pay, the better!
4. The Walk Around
Now that we’ve covered basics inside the house, it’s time to walk around.
During this part of the estimate, you want to walk the house with them. Identify all the problem areas on the house. Educate them. Tell them what is happening. Why is it happening? And what is going to happen if they don’t do something about it? What do you recommend doing for that problem and why?
Only make recommendations. Then ask them: “So do you want me to scrape, sand, and prime all of these peeling areas around the house?”
See what just happened? You’ve given them ownership of the estimate. Now they are the ones customizing the estimate. It’s their estimate now. It’s not the stock estimate the company offers, but they’ve been given all the options, and they chose this paint job.
You also want to take this opportunity to customize the estimate. Give them unique options that fit their situation and budget. Ask about all the little details. If you were about to start the job tomorrow, you’d ask stuff like: “Do you want this utility box painted?”; “Want us to add an accent color to the peaks?”; etc.
5. The Pre-Close #2
Once you’ve finished the walk around, it’s time for another pre-close before you send them back inside.
First, recap everything you’ve talked about. Tell them the options you are working up, the prep work you’re including, materials you are using, and any other important notes you wrote down.
Let them know you’re going to take about 15-30 minutes to make your measurements and write up the estimate for them.
Remind them that if everything looks good, and they want to move forward with you today, you’ll save them a little extra money on top of the money you can save them for scheduling in June.
Hand them your client binder full of references and referrals and send them back inside so you can do your estimate.
6. Estimating and Writing Up the Agreement
This is all on your own. Take your measurements. Write up a professional proposal. Make sure the proposal is detailed and includes every single thing you talked about.
If you can put something on the contract that you talked about, but they already forgot about, that’s a good thing. It makes them feel like they are in good hands… even if they miss something, you’ll catch it.
Check out our article on how to make a professional painting proposal for more expert tips.
7. The Close
When you walk back into the house with your contract in hand, pick up the rapport again. Talk about the weather, their weekend plans… anything to lighten the mood.
Sit down with them. Let them know you’ll run them through everything you came up with. Then slowly and clearly talk them through the estimate.
In the proposal article, we go into more detail on this section of the estimate. Refer to that article about how to close like a pro.
8. Follow-Up
Customers either say yes, no, or maybe. If they said yes, you signed them. Great!
If they said no, you can take them off your books. No need to follow up.
But if they said maybe – like they are getting other estimates, or they wanted to think about it, you need to follow up.
The most important thing about following up is persistence. Each time you talk to them, agree on a time to follow up next. Always call when you say you’ll call. Never stop until they give you a yes or no.
Remember, the person who persists longest wins the job.
And there you have it. Every step in the process of doing a full painting estimate. Now, review the article. What changes are you going to make in your sales process?
15 Comments
Eric,
I’m highly contemplating starting my own business, now one thing i keep asking myself is wether I need a ton of experience to begin it or will i learn as i go? Should i play it safe and work as a painter for a few months or just start getting jobs and using sub contractors to do the work for me? Any advice helps!
Thanks,
Victor
Hi Victor, the nice thing about starting a painting business is that it takes no experience to start. If you find the right people, you can hire experience. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to paint some houses with other experienced painters to learn the basics, but this is not absolutely necessary. If you find subcontractors who know what they’re doing, you can spend your time running and building your business. We have a great course on building a painting business from scratch here: PaintingBusinessPro.com . Or you can get a lot of good information reading through our blog: paintingleads.com/blog/ hopefully this helps, Victor.
Very informative and concise. Covers all aspects of the process. Thank you, I have been out of the game for some time. This jogged cobwebs loose.
Hi Eric, I have owned a small independent home improvement company for the last 17 years. I have done property maintenance, remodeling, and a good portion of my business is painting. People like our work and I concentrate on quality painting. I don’t own a sprayer. We take the time to prep things right. We usually wash exteriors, wipe down dusty trim, patch holes, spot prime or full prime surfaces, etc. We use good quality paint, (mostly Sherwin Williams Super Paint), and typically use 1/2” lambs wool rollers and good trim brushes, (peacocks or purdy sash brushes). I don’t use a sprayer because in my experience by the time it takes to mask everything off we can start painting almost immediately. Besides in most cases I find you still need to back roll with a sprayer, you use more paint, it’s messy with overspray, and you still need to brush for cut work and trim. I don’t really see the advantage unless it’s new construction.
I’m getting up there in age and I’m getting tired of doing too many disciplines. It takes a lot to do everything and I find myself getting spread too thin. Lately I been thinking of sticking with one trade discipline. People like our painting so I been thinking I should just stick with that. The problem I have is finding good help and pricing the jobs. I tend to look at the number of hours we would realistically spend on the job and bid the job accordingly. I’ve gotten pretty good about judging the time over the years. I guess my question to you is what hourly rate should I charge or pay subs in order to stay competitive and actually make a profit? I live in St. Louis,Missouri. I would like to get away from the labor end of the business and concentrate on building the business. I do have a general liability policy but if I use subs technically they should carry their own insurance but most don’t. If I hire them as employees then I have to pay workman’s comp, fica, etc. if that the case I would need to charge more to cover the additional cost. What I find is the additional cost usually prices me above the competitive rates others charge. Do you have any advice on that? Thank you.
Bruce
Hey Bruce,
That is a very difficult question to answer. In order to answer it, I almost need to explain to you an entire business model. Everything needs to be set up right from the marketing to the estimating to the salesmanship and the production systems.
In short, I think you’ll need to change how you approach your business entirely. So far, you’ve personally been delivering exceptional work to people and have been charging whatever price you’ve been charging (probably charging not enough for the kind of detail you are delivering).
We usually recommend using subcontractors. It takes time to find great ones – that’s part of the process. You’ll need to hone in your estimating and sales as well.
Since this is such a wide ranging question, I’d recommend checking out these other resources:
http://www.youtube.com/ebarstow18
http://www.paintingbusinesspro.com
Hello Eric,
So I am starting my own painting business but I have a question. So since I am just starting up, I don’t have any client referrals or references. If they ask for client reviews/references, what should I say?
Hi Leonard, that’s a good question. You should always be honest with the client. If you’re just starting out and cannot provide references or past jobs, see if you can get some references from your painting crews with more experience. You can then show the customer that the crew you are using for their job has completed quality work. Some painting crews and subcontractors have been painting for many years and should have a stockpile of quality references and reviews.
I just did an exterior to a large home approx 4000 sq ft with 3 story peaks and chimney. 1 covered deck, 2 uncovered. The lid for the covered deck is aluminum and customer wants it to be getting painted in the new trim color which the house went from a really light color to a dark, and the entire structure needed to be caulked for the first time since being built 20+ years ago I’ve been the only person doing the job and I have put 97 hours on it so far and possibly have another 4-6 hours till it is completed. I used a titan 490 sprayer, I wasn’t able to get any extensions for the spray gun. Exterior paint used was the Sherwin Williams Satin 100
9 gallons of Primer
17.5 gals of body color and 8 gals of trim. I wasnt able to back roll any of it because of being rushed to get the job completed. I just found out only $2000 was charged to the home owners but I’m being let go of because I’m being told that anyone else wld of been done by now that I am just to slow. Oh and it only took me a day and a half 6
We opened a small painting business about six months ago, lately our closing numbers are horrible. We charge very reasonable rates that are lower then any of the price estimating tools quote for our area and it seems people still want things even cheaper. The prices I’m seeing others quote – by way of following up on estimates that don’t book – I don’t even know how they are covering the cost of paint. I don’t know how to adjust for this situation or if we shouldn’t even bother and just close up shop.
Hi Jessica, it would be too difficult to encompass the entire sales process in just this feed, but I would highly recommend a couple things:
1. Read our free articles on how to sell jobs and set estimates (we have a couple good ones found on this blog).
2. I would highly recommend investing in our sales course Painting Business Pro
There’s no reason you should have to close shop over some issues with your selling. We have many guides and resources on this site and Painting Business Pro that can turn your whole sales process around. Without sales, you don’t have a business. So this is definitely worth figuring out on your end. Hopefully these resources will help, thanks Jessica!
I’m really looking into starting a painting business but I see that all your jobs are exterior. I was looking to specialize with interior painting just because I live in Minnesota and there’s not a very long season to paint exterior jobs! So my question is, does this same concept still work with interior? I’m not apposed to doing exterior I just want to be able to work more than just a few months during the summer!
Hi Shane, a lot of our examples are exterior, but we do have some interior bidding/pricing examples on these guides:
How to Bid a Paint Job (Exterior & Interior)
How Much Does it Cost to Paint a House (Exterior & Interior)
Hello Eric, I’m thinking of starting a painting business. I would definitely like to hire subs. I’ve watched several of your videos and ” I admit”, they are very inspiring.
I understand I would need to registering a business name. But I’m not really understanding why I would need to have insurance . I would be using subs only, in witch case they would have to have there own liability.
Do I still have to have liability insurance? If so, do I explain to the insurance agent that I’m not actually doing the work…
Please advise
Sincerely
Adrian M.
Hi Adrian, you’d want to get insurance no matter what; it’s the smart thing to do and it’s not expensive considering the coverage you get. Also, customers want to know YOU have insurance, and you don’t want to have to explain that you don’t have insurance but your subs do for example.
I’m painter/ Sandblaster I’m looking for a job