How to do better painting quotes, Part 1
Nick Vondra has owned and operated AAA Painting (aaapaintingcolorado.com) in Denver, Colo., for 15 years. “My number one theory is to educate the customer,” says Vondra. “That can only be done if you are educated yourself.”
Before you walk around a room and call out a figure, learn the basics. “There is a very specific system to estimating,” he says. “Learn the hard, drawn out way to estimate using charts before trying to estimate by eye.” Vondra doesn’t do a painting quote and give a price on the spot, but studies his findings and sends an email after the visit.
Next, write it all down. Go into detail – product, brand, sheen, latex or oil, etc.,” he says. “Make sure to have signed contracts. Get the customer’s input on color from the very beginning to the very end.”
Organize before you do a painting quote
Painting can be emotional, says Paul Willems, the owner of Paint and Hammer (paintandhammer.com) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, so make sure you listen to your customer and find out from a business viewpoint what they are looking for.
“I start every estimate with ‘let’s do a quick overview of what you want, then we’ll talk details’,” he says. “If I have an overview, I can facilitate the conversation and keep it focused on solutions, which is a positive feeling for them.”
After his visit, he sends an email painting quote estimate. Most of his communication is done by email, as that is what his customers prefer. He also offers them a color consultation for $100. “Their reaction to this tells me if they are buying a service or just getting a paint job,” says Willems. While he follows up later with a detailed estimate, sometimes he’ll “ballpark” it right away, just to see if the customer is truly interested. If they want to continue, he’ll send an official Quick Books copy of the estimate.
But how do you get it right? For one, says Willems, get organized. Plus, if you are working with a crew, make sure they are organized. If your painters don’t know your game plan, you can safely estimate it’s going to take longer.
“My comfort zone on residential repaints is me and two other painters,” says Willems. “Getting it right means having them focused and having them change tasks without my guidance. They need to be thinking about the steps and moving ahead.
“It’s a charge to work as a machine. You can tell that everyone is feeling pumped about the project and the satisfaction of moving fast. That comes from clean goals, expectation and organization.”
However, he advises, before you can start moving fast, you need to move slowly when doing a painting quote. “I think the agony of doing things painfully slow and documenting everything in the beginning is valuable,” says Willems. “I remember staring at a big exterior wall and putting a time on everything.”
He makes pages of notes about the front door, back door, trim, threshold, etc. “I don’t blame the new painter for wanting to skip this anxiety and uncertainty,” he says, “but the process is valuable. Document, document, document, and when you are sick of it you might have learned something!”
Charge for everything, he says. Check off colors, and put all that on the invoice.
Check your work
Luis Carillo of Aztec Painting (aztecpainting.ca) says to measure your surfaces and analyze the scope of work to be done, then when you’re done, do it again and again, if you have time. “Ask homeowners if they have a particular product they would like you to use and factor that pricing into your estimate,” says Carillo. “Always make notes to take home and study.”
Also keep up with pricing. If there’s a price jump you don’t know about you might come up short by selling this month’s job at last month’s prices. “That $2 extra a gallon might not look like a big number but it will when you are estimating larger jobs against your competition,” he says. “Always factor in your labor in man hours, material overhead, and unforeseen factors—this will give you peace of mind.”
After you’re done, follow up with an email and ask your customer if they have any questions, says Carillo. “Sometimes, you will get a response stating that you will or won’t get hired, while sometimes you won’t get a response at all. That’s the same as “no,” so once that happens or doesn’t you can move on to a “yes.”
Remember too, he says, that estimating isn’t just about getting a job. It’s about getting the job finished with profit and cash flow to your company to help your business grow. “This is one of the reasons why we are in business – not just for a paycheck.”
To start an estimate, don’t eyeball – ever, says Carillo “Even if you have been in the business 10 or 20 years, you should take time to measure. “You can be short on paint and potentially have to pay for it out of pocket, or you might buy more than you need to begin with,” he says.
Closer inspection will give you better information. Check surfaces carefully, Carillo says. New stucco, for example will suck up a lot more paint than previously painted drywall. A poor estimate and it’ll suck up your profit along with it.
“My advice is to focus and pay full attention to your notes when doing estimates,” he says. “No one is perfect, but our greatest accomplishment would be to minimize errors when doing it. Don’t be scared of naming your price. This is your job, your life, and as such, this is your reward for hard work.”
Would you hire you?
Let customers know about problems that might arise that could increase the price. “Be honest and be sure to point out to the customer any possible hiccups that may increase your time on the job,” says Mary Herriott of Decorating by Mary in New Bremen, Ohio. “My theory about estimating is to be honest and straightforward with customers and not hide anything. Always try to be the type of person that you would want to hire!”
Pricewise, leave some wiggle room. “You can always start your bid a little higher and come down,” she says. “Customers will appreciate that. It’s hard to increase a price.”
Make your customer feel secure that you’ll work on their house and not everyone else’s. “When I quote a job and begin the job, that is the job I am working on,” says Herriott. “I tell the customer when they get quotes from other contractors to make sure that they will be staying on the job and not bouncing between others. I will stick to my word and be there on time and not go to another job until their’s is complete. That makes a difference!”
The hardest thing to estimate is wallpaper removal, says Herriott. “It’s hard to quote a total price for removing wallpaper prior to testing an area to see how hard it will be to remove,” she says. “Some comes off in large pieces and some comes off in quarter size pieces. Also, all areas of the wall are not usually the same.”
We don’t do windows
Mike Kremsreiter, DBK Painting (dbkpainting.com), Schaumberg, Ill., says it’s just as important to tell a client what you won’t do as what you will. “Years ago I never included what we weren’t painting in the details of an estimate,” he says.
“Once, after painting the trim in the house, the customer asked about the windows,” he says. “They weren’t included in the estimate because they were vinyl, but the customer thought they were part of the trim. I had to explain that they were vinyl and I didn’t recommend painting them. If I had specified no windows to be painted somewhere in the estimate it would have saved a lot of trouble.”
The other advice Kremsreiter gives is not to underestimate time. “Include time for prep, load in and load out,” he says. “The time needed for applying the paint is the easy part of estimating. Pay close attention to possible time-wasters and account for them.”
Keep track of your crew. If you run multiple crews, see how your estimates pan out with their performance. “As my business grows and I hire new employees,” says Kremsreiter, “I find my estimating has had to adjust with my team. I have to constantly pay attention to our production and also do job-costing to track how each crew is doing on particular types of jobs.”
Success comes down to asking the right questions of your client. “Knowing their expectation and scope of the job is the biggest first step,” he says. “We find a typical homeowner doesn’t know what really goes into a detailed and quality paint finish, so including all those details is very important when writing the estimate. When you include each detail of the job, it is very difficult to forget or overlook a process or material. This allows us to be very precise with each and every estimate.”
Continue reading, “How to do better painting quotes, Part 2” here
By Jerry Rabushka, editor & associate publisher, The Paint Contractor magazine. (Special thanks to Chris Haught of Blogging Painters, bloggingpainters.com)
