Free Painting Leads: How to Get Your First Jobs for Free
I want to show you how to get free painting leads. But before we go over that, I wanted to share what makes being an entrepreneur so amazing. I love being an entrepreneur because I create my own income. For example, lets say I want to take me and my wife on a month long […]
How to Create a Professional Painting Proposal
Creating a professional painting proposal is a simple thing you can do, that will immediately set you apart from some of your competition. This is one of the easiest ways to win more business while putting in about the same amount of effort. And any time you can get more with the same amount of […]
How Much Does it Cost to Paint a House Exterior?
For most people, a home is the most important investment they’ll ever make. Whether you’re in it for the opportunity to resell at a later date, or you want a place to call your own, taking care of that investment becomes an ongoing (and often expensive) task. Many homeowners, aiming to increase curb appeal, choose […]
Home Advisor Pro Reviews – 2019 – What You Should Know Before Signing Up
A serious focus of any painting business owner, is where to get the next sale. A popular choice for those who are just beginning to look into lead services is Home Advisor Pro. But, in recent years, Home Advisor Pro has caught a lot of attention due to alleged claims of unfair treatment towards their […]
How to Bid or Estimate Paint Jobs
Coming up with the right price for painting a house is important. For most people, this is a big concern, and rightly so. If you estimate too low, you don’t make money. If you estimate too high, you don’t get the job. The good news is that it’s pretty easy to estimate paint jobs. Will […]
How to Estimate Exterior Paint Jobs
When you’re just starting out, estimating a job can look very complicated. However, if you talk to a seasoned painter, someone who has been in the business a long time, they’ll tell you how easy it is to estimate exterior paint jobs. Most of them can just look at a house and tell you what […]
3 Strategies to Keep Your Painting Business Sales Pipeline Full
Running a business is difficult. It becomes even more of a challenge as it grows beyond just a few employees working on a referral basis. One of the biggest struggles in the painting business is keeping your sales pipeline full as you expand your operation beyond six figures. Some of the obstacles that prevent a […]
How to Identify a Bad Sales System
There are plenty of actions a business owner can take every day to boost business. A common fallback when revenue is low is to increase the amount spent on marketing & lead generation. It makes sense. More advertising should generate more leads, which should lead to more revenue. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, […]
What Do I Need to Start My Own Painting Company?
Most people who visit this site want answers to the very simple question: What do I need to start my own painting company? We get a lot of emails asking about types of equipment, how many employees, and how much experience is required to actually get a profitable painting business up and running. Our answers […]
Estimating a House Exterior
Estimating is a big concern of everyone that opens their own painting business. And that’s understandable. Get it too low, and you lose money on a job. Get it too high, and you lose a sale. For some, it can be tempting to use price as a bargaining chip with their customer, especially if price […]
How Much Does it Cost to Paint a Home Interior?
Looking to revitalize your home interior? One of the simplest and most profound ways to transform how a room feels is to change the color – best part is, it can be done in a weekend! But it’s easy to forget little details about painting rooms, especially if you keep a day job doing that […]
Confidently Advertising You Are Not a Cheap Painter
Confidently Advertising You Are Not a Cheap Painter If you’re wondering why you should take the stance of “Not being a cheap painter,” head on over to this article. If you’re ready to learn how to approach such a bold advertising strategy, then look no further. In this article we’ll be covering exactly that. In […]
5 Main Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Market Yourself as a Cheap Painter
5 Main Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Market Yourself as a Cheap Painter While reviewing paint companies in my area, and a bit beyond, I noticed a trend. So many companies focused on price. In a way, it makes sense. Painting a house is an expensive ordeal. Statistics show that the average family in the United […]
Why NOT to Buy a Painting Franchise
If you are thinking of buying a painting franchise, stop right now. I’m going to break down the fundamental problems with buying a painting franchise, and the alternative options you have to start a painting company. This is based on my experience growing a multi-state, multi-million-dollar painting business where we considered becoming a franchise but […]
HomeAdvisor Pro – Reviews and Complaints
If you run a painting company, or any home service business, you’ve probably heard of HomeAdvisor Pro – a site that connects homeowners with professionals. I’ve worked with HomeAdvisor on and off for several years, and have hundreds of customers who have used their services and given me feedback. In this article, I’m going to […]
Guest Post Requests
As of now, Painting Business Pro blog is accepting guest posts. Unfortunately, I can’t accept every request that comes in, so here are a few guidelines for writing guest posts on Painting Business Pro: What am I looking for? Most of the posts on Painting Business Pro are intended to help business owners (in the trades […]
Double Your Painting Business Every Year
Learning how to estimate is important for running a painting business… but what is even more important, is knowing HOW to run a painting business that turns a profit. I started Foothills Painting in 2010 knocking on doors and offering free estimates. I did just a few jobs in the fall to make enough money […]
How to Oversee 400+ House Painting Projects Per Year
Video: Our production system from when a client books with us until they write the final check. Paul is our production manager. He’s 25 years old and will oversee the painting of 400 homes this year, for over one million in revenue. For 90% of those homes, he will never even step on their property. […]
How Vidal Booked His First $35,000 in Paint Jobs
Meet Vidal. He is 22 years old and lives in South Carolina. Like you, he found me online and was thinking about starting a painting business. Also like you, he had no clue how to start earning profit as a painting business owner. However, he bought my course, Painting Business Pro, July 31, 2014. Then […]
Mike Quit His Job, Started a Painting Business, Grew to $1 Million in 2 years
I want to tell you the story about how Mike went from working 40 hours per week, hating his job to working less than 30 hours per week, growing his income, and running a business… and loving it. …. and it only took him 3 months to quit his job and grow his income …. […]
How to Build Your Painting Website & Get Ranked on Google
Over the last 4 years, I’ve done a lot of different stuff with my Foothills Painting website. I made some mistakes. I lost some money. I made some shitty websites. I’ve learned along the way, and I’m going to teach you the lessons I have learned. In 2010, Foothills Painting started and my roommate was […]
Why People Spend $1,000,000 on a McDonalds Franchise – and How it Can Help Your Painting Business
A McDonald’s franchise cost $1,000,000 to start… give or take a few hundred thousand. Why would anyone risk that kind of money? Because it is not a risk. When is the last time you saw a McDonald’s with a “closed” or “out of business” sign? Probably never. If you go into a McDonald’s anywhere in […]
Frequently Asked Questions
Any questions about the course, go here or contact me. How do you bid or estimate a job? Do you have an estimating system? I have estimating standards that I use to come up with the total number of hours and total gallons of paint that a job will take. Once I know the hours […]
How Much Does It Cost to Paint a House?
Need painting estimates for your home project? Use Painter Choice to get 3 estimates from qualified painting contractors. Compare quotes & find the best painter. Get Quotes Painting costs vary greatly depending on a number of factors: the type of painting that is being done; the materials being used; the current condition of the surfaces […]
Painting Company Names: What to Name Your Painting Business
Since you can’t register your painting business (one of the first steps to start a painting company) without a name for the business, you need to settle on a name for your painting company fast. Your name is an important part of your business, but sometimes settling on a name is not easy. If you’re […]
Painting Leads: Marketing a Painting Business
There are a lot of options out there for marketing your painting company to get more painting leads and painting customers. Some companies provide an excellent service, and others don’t work so well. This is an overview of some services available… but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Have something to add or want […]
Why Start a Painting Business?
In 2010 it was time for me to start my own business. I had just graduated from college after working with another painting company for the last 6 years where I trained other students on all of the aspects of running a painting business. It was a no brainer for me – I KNEW I […]
How to Estimate the Cost of Interior House Painting
I’m always asked about how to estimate interior painting. It’s one of the biggest questions I get. People just starting a painting business, or even people who have been in business for a while, all seem to get hung up on writing a painting estimate. But it doesn’t need to be hard to come up […]
How to Start a Painting Business From Scratch
Want to learn how to start a painting business without having much money? Here’s how I got started and how you can do the same: I started my painting company in 2010 with $200, and in 2014 we sold over $1,000,000 in house painting. Over the last 10 years I’ve helped hundreds of others start a painting business. […]
Marketing 101: How to Get Painting Customers
There are a lot of marketing services and in this video I review a few of them. This is just a small introduction to marketing and the basics of marketing you painting company. I have a word of caution about marketing. One of the biggest mistakes I see painters making is judging a marketing service […]
How to Subcontract Work
Subcontracting is just a way to hire a professional painter to work for you. Why do that? Consider the alternative – hiring painters. You can post an ad to find a painter – someone who is looking for employment, for a job. Sometimes they are looking for something long-term, sometimes they are looking for some […]
Be Great at Sales
This is a video from our 2014 Sales & Marketing Training. Every January we hold a sales and marketing training for all of our sales reps – new and old. The purpose of this training is to train and retrain. We make adjustments to our systems every year, and people get rusty. This is a […]
Sales and Setting Up the Perfect Estimate
In this video I’ll walk you thru exactly how we set up our painting estimates. This video is a little old, and we have made changes to our script since then. I recommend that you always keep improving your systems, just like we do. Why is the first phone call to set up the estimate […]
Production System
Watch the video for a detailed review of our production system. Once a customer signs with us, they go into our production form. First, customers need to choose their colors. Once colors are selected, they need to get approval from their Home Owners Association, if they have one. Once they have colors chosen and approved, […]
Painting Business Systems
This short video talks about the importance of systems. Main benefits of creating business systems: They can be constantly improved. If you don’t have a system to improve, it makes it much more difficult to improve your results. Training employees is very difficult without a system, and very easy with a system. Growing your business […]
Painting Business Sales 101
It always surprises me how little people focus on the sales part of starting a painting business. Everyone is worried about hiring painters, equipment, estimating, and marketing… But sales seems to be the last thing people worry about. If you are starting a painting business… or you run a painting company already, sales is the […]
Painting Business Marketing 101
Marketing is easy, so this post is going to be short. Step 1: Spend a bunch of money on marketing Step 2: Track your results. Step 3: Decide if you like the results or not. Step 4: If you like the results, do more of it. If you don’t like the results, don’t do it […]
Cut Your Workday in Half in 10 Minutes
You can make a few decisions in the next 10 minutes to cut your workday in half. When you do this, you won’t make any less money. You will just work less. We are all making a certain amount of money, for a certain amount of time we put in. Our goal is to maximize […]
About Me
I’m Eric Barstow, creator of Painting Business Pro, founder of National Painting Group & Foothills Painting, Co-Owner of Painter Choice. I’m disrupting the painting industry, and helping thousands of painters start or improve their businesses. I love what I do!
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