How Trevor Won a 5 Figure Decorating Project WIth his Construction marketing Without even Meeting The Clients.
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Trev. Tell us who you are and a little bit about your decorating business.
Well, I have a decorating business and I run it myself and with my son, Ryan.
That's a whole load of other stories.
Working with family can be a nightmare!
But I think we've gone through the worse and we are now coming out the other side, which is good.
We generally do domestic decorating and a little bit of commercial decorating.
We do some work for very select builders.
Probably two builders in our area we work with, just because they're easy to work with.
They pay us on time, we have no problems.
But we've moved into spraying and we’re doing quite a lot of spraying.
We've got ourselves a workshop and we're spraying kitchens.
We're trying to move away from traditional decorating and into spray finishing.
So that's where we are.
I started in 1999 and left decorating as I just got fed up with it.
Spent 10 years representing builder’s merchants.
I ended up as an assistant manager with Travis Perkins and got stuck in a branch - wasn't really for me.
Got back in to decorating at the beginning of 2016.
I think once you've been self-employed, it's very hard to go back to working for a company.
Earned more and worked less, which is sort of the perfect work life balance.
Also, working with you, my market has improved quite a bit.
I'm getting better jobs, earning more money and like I say, working less, which is ideal.
What did you find was your biggest struggle when it comes to marketing your decorating business?
It's the same as any decorators.
You've just not got enough time in the day.
You're doing quotes, you're invoicing, you're doing the job.
You just don't get enough time.
Now, luckily, I've got Ryan so I'm trying to take off a day in the week to do my admin.
It’s a really good idea because you've still need to grow your business.
I found that because I'm working for better clients after talking to you and getting the ideal customer nailed, I'm now focused on that.
Rather than the scatter gun approach where I do everything for everyone.
It doesn't work.
You want to narrow it down to the sort of person you want to work for, because you can't be everything to everyone.
Master one thing and then move on to something else that you think you might be reasonably good at, or you could learn to be good at.
Something that you really enjoy.
And you can earn a bit of money - quite a bit – that you can live on and then work on that.
Once you've mastered that, then move on to something else. Just because you've focused on one thing, it doesn't mean in the future you can't do something different.
So, how do you find that you usually win your work - before you started doing some clever little things in your branding and your marketing you know. Are there any repetitive patterns you've found in your decorating business as to how you are winning work?
Networking.
It's good.
Although I try and do what a lot of other decorations don't do.
I think if you do something they're not doing, you're either going to be good and successful because they're not thinking of doing it, or they're probably not doing it for a reason, and you're not going to get very far.
What I found is to build a good relationship with your local decorators’ merchant.
I was in there today actually.
Quick story.
I went in there today because I needed to pick up an order, some materials for a job I'm doing on Saturday morning.
I'm not a great fan of working Saturday mornings, but I've got to this weekend.
Rich, the manager said, “Oh, I passed your number on to a woman.”
“She hand-paints her frames at the moment.
She's got a picture framing business.
She hasn't painted, but she's looking to, you know, get a better affect by spraying.”
I said, “That's brilliant.
Thank you very much.”
And there was a woman looking at the Farrow & Ball samples in the shop, which is great start… Farrow & Ball. Lovely!
She said,
“Oh, I just overheard you. You do spraying?”
I said, “Yeah.”
She said, “Well, we've just moved into the area. We've got a workshop and we restore furniture.
Sometimes we need it sprayed to get a better finish.
Is that something you'd be interested in?”
I said, “Yeah”.
So, it just shows, just being the right place, at the right time, talking about the right thing.
Rich has really helped at Brewers.
I've helped him out because he's got people that come in asking about spraying and sometimes, he passes it in my direction.
Then people get an idea of what spraying is like on a large job.
But it does work both ways.
It works well.
You recently won a five-figure job and you did it in a way most people might not have thought would be possible to win work.
Tell us the story from start to finish for all the decorators and other construction businesses watching.
Well, to be honest no one was more surprised than me, which is ironic!
What happened was I was on Houzz - they're quite big on the web.
I thought it was quite a well-known name, but apparently not a lot of people heard of them.
Anyway, I was with them for three months.
It was costing me £150 a month.
It got to the third month.
I thought this is a lot of money I’m forking out.
So, I stopped.
A couple months after that I got an inquiry.
Three-up house.
”We’re moving to a property in Petersfield.” (near me)
“Would you be interested in giving us a price?”
“We need it decorated the first week of August.”
I said, “I can give you a price, but I can't do it the first week of August because I'm busy.”
I said, “I can come and have a look.”
She said “No, we haven't actually exchanged contracts or the keys yet.
But can you give a price from the plans?”
I said, “yes I can do that.”
Because how I price my work is I measure it up and I've got spreadsheets.
So I know roughly what I can do and how long it will take me to do each room.
I did the quote, sent the estimate over and said, “Look, you know, this is off plans.
I need to look at the job properly before we go forward.”
I sent it over about 7 o'clock with all the other bits that I sent in my quote.
I sent a copy of my public liability.
There's a letter of introduction from Dulux which would explain about the guarantee.
A proposal document.
That tells you a bit about me, the sort of jobs we do, the sort of ballpark figures they can expect to pay for those sorts of decorating works.
Some testimonials in there.
Then I've got a timeline of what’s been happening since I've come back to decorating so they see what we've been up to.
I sent that off.
They read through it.
Then with a software I use, you can sign to accept the quote.
I sent it off about 7 o'clock.
By 9 o'clock they'd signed and accepted the quote, and by 9.30 they'd paid the deposit that was in my account!
I think next, I phoned you.
I was so surprised that it worked.
It must have given them confidence to see that I knew what I was talking about.
I've never won a job by not meeting a customer or visiting the property first.
I then arranged to visit the property.
I went through the quote again and everything was in order.
We’ve started the job now and we're 2 weeks into it and it's all going well, touch wood!
With that proposal document - which is literally the only part of your brand and of you that they got between saying they needed the job doing and meeting you - why do you think that they became so trusting, chose you out of everyone else, and put a nice big lump sum of a deposit into your account when they hadn't even met you?
I think a lot of it worked by being able to price off the plans.
I think that was a big deciding factor because they asked other people if they could price, and they said no, they'd have to come and visit the property to give a price.
The other thing is they paid the deposit and they wanted some colour cards to decide what colour they were using.
I put together a goody box of colour cards, bits of lining paper, a little paint brush to paint on the lining paper, some tea bags and biscuits.
I think I put a few things in there for their kids as well.
I can't remember exactly what I put in there, but I put a box together and put it in the post.
When they got that they were over the moon with it.
I spoke to Barry, the husband, and he said that he'd been recommending me to people on the strength of the welcome box I sent them.
You’ve not even turned up, you've not done any decorating yet and the client has paid you a deposit is already recommending you to everyone else - All because of your brand and your construction marketing?
The first time I met him he even said, we're blown away with the way you've been.
He said, you’ve been amazing.
He said, ‘You're going be our decorator forever more now.
The only thing that could go wrong is that you are useless.”
It's just surprising – everybody says, ‘everybody buys on price.’
If you are in that mindset, then you're going to find those sorts of customers.
You've just got to get away from that.
Not everybody buys just on price.
If you just send over a figure that's what the clients are going to focus on. Right? Oh, that's the figure.
What you send over positions your decorating business - you've featured in lots of publications and magazines, other companies you’ve worked for, photo proof, specific client testimonials - we put that in your proposal documents didn't we?
The client really got to know TJ Decorating.
Whereas your competitors who just send a figure, that's all that client focuses on. But it's not always down to the money. It's down to this person is coming into my home, I want to know who they are.
Oh, they’ve worked for this company as well. I know who they are. If they trust them, they must be good. It's about thinking of how you present yourself. Even when you're doing a quote and even when you're not there in person, how else can you be showcasing yourself and your construction business?
You had a little version of a proposal document before you met me. You are great with your marketing. We helped you tweak it a bit and add certain things.
What benefit do you think our help played for the experience for that decorating customer? What was your proposal document like before and what was it like after?
Well, it's gone from looking like The Times or The Guardian to looking like Vogue Magazine!
It looks like you can enjoy reading it rather than just loads and loads of text.
Like you said there's way too much text.
I think you had about a hundred pages when I got to it – lots of good stuff in there.
We make it shorter and make it more specific to the ideal customer it was going to. What your domestic three or four bedroom house in a nice area of Hampshire wants to see and take out all the stuff they don't.
We have spoken before when you are working on relationships with estate agents, for example, to create a proposal document specific to them - just the pictures, text and testimonials they’d want to see.
What I see when trades and construction owners are doing their own marketing is that they try and make one thing tick all the boxes – e.g., one brochure that caters for everyone - because that's going to save money on design, it's going to save money on print.
It can, but it's not going to convert if you've given me your brochure and I've got to go 20 pages into your commercial decorating work to try and find how you are going to fix up my three-bedroom house.
It comes down again to the ideal customer.
Which is once you've got the bare bones of the brochure, you can then just take out a few pages and change those pages and make them specific to estate agents, or to a builder or to a developer.
You don’t have to redesign everything every time because you know the basics are there.
The best parts I think is the timeline, because you can see you've got milestones that's happened to you ‘Oh wow, you've decorated the Farrow & Ball showroom!’.
It just highlights the stuff that you know is important to that type of customer.
You mentioned the benefit of designing this once. I was going ask what do you see as the potential?
You’re saving time, you are showing off your reputation.
You’re positioning yourself as the domestic decorating expert to the domestic clients.
There's a lot of potential with having something like this in your construction business.
Without a doubt.
It also shows that you care about what you're doing.
Again, back to what I said earlier, you’re doing something that not a lot of other decorators are doing, so you're going to stand out.
From the off, you've put great effort into how you are turning up and presenting yourself to a decorating customer - before they’ve put a single penny in your bank account or said yes. They’re a serious construction person.
I know it all takes time initially.
We get to where we need on a Thursday or we finish on a Wednesday.
Rather than thinking, ‘Oh right, Thursday, Friday, I've got a day off’….
Use those two days as admin days and work on your business.
Don't just sit there and watch This Morning, or whatever is on.
Spend the whole two days (or at least a day) that you wouldn't have done otherwise on your business.
I think a lot of people look at themselves as decorators and not business owners.
That's another mindset thing.
You've got a business to run so be a business owner.
Don't be a decorator.
Think like a businessperson, not like a decorator.
A lot of it does come down to how you think, your mindset.
If you get your mindset right, then you're halfway there.
You mentioned the Ideal Client.
For anyone watching this video thinking ‘what the blooming hell is that?’
An Ideal Client is the customer who's in need of what you offer and is willing and able to pay for it. That's your Ideal Client.
Some Trades are going to specialize in residential, some in commercial, some are going to be high end, some are going to be mid-end, some are going to be in certain locations or have certain skills - like the Venetian micro-cement that I'm hearing a lot about recently.
You specialize in spraying. There are lots of decorators in this group, but you all have different things that you specialize in, enjoy more or are more profitable in your business. So, there are already differences - even though everyone here today is a decorator.
We did work a long time ago on your Ideal Client.
What effect do you think the ideal client work has had on your construction marketing ideas - like your proposal document and your marketing as a whole?
Every time we produce a bit of content, we do have our ideal client in mind.
Our ideal client is Sue, the homeowner.
It does makes you focus.
When you are writing a bit of content or doing a blog post or you are doing a social media post, you do think of that person.
What would they want to see?
What would be helpful to them?
It does take a bit of effort.
It focuses your mind.
It does help you a lot.
Once you do that legwork in the beginning, it does get easier later. Like you said you've got Sue in mind. Every time you are about to post a picture on Facebook, you are going to think right, is this the kind of thing Sue wants?
If Sue is a high end, high net worth individual and you only want to be doing luxury homeowners, but you showcase my tiny little studio flat kitchen, are you going to put that on your Facebook? Would the Sue’s want to see that? Because she can't relate to it. She has a bigger kitchen, she has a family home, she has children…
You’d be thinking even though I might take on that job in the beginning (if we've got time), we don't need to show that off because that's not what we want more of necessarily.
We need to be showing more ‘Sue’ work or the joiner (ideal introducer) who can pass you more than one job.
We did an ideal introducer as well, didn't we?
Someone who can pass you more than one job just through introduction.
And it isn't a clash to you.
A joiner for you is ideal.
All that work on Ideal Client just makes your business decisions - construction marketing or otherwise - quicker, easier and more effective later on because you know what Sue does or doesn’t want to see.
Sue's not on LinkedIn, so I'm not going to waste my time there. Sue's not networking meetings or no one at these networking meetings interacts with ‘Sue’, so I'm not going to that one. You just start filtering out the time-wasting activities. And time is money.
Well, it worked perfectly.
Three or four weeks ago, we were doing a Farrow & Ball job.
We got recommended by Farrow & Ball to a customer and we had to go to the showroom in Guildford to pick up materials.
I did that.
I took a picture of the outside of Farrow & Ball and just did a quick post saying thanks for all your help and named the people in it – Annette, I think it was.
Sue will be looking for a Farrow & Ball decorator.
That's the sort of thing they'll find helpful.
Oh well, if you're going to the showroom in Guildford, that'd be helpful.
And you can ask for Annette, and she recommends you.
It could help you out.
Ideal Client work just makes you think a little bit differently - instead of just posting those before and after pictures that you love so much.
You said I can't swear, so I'm not going to!
I’ll be good.
What do you think happens to the decorators and other construction businesses that don't work out their Ideal Client? What trouble is this causing them in their business and construction marketing as a whole?
I was the same.
You've got to take the time and it gives you the focus.
Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, just focus on one thing.
Go back over the past 6 or 12 months and pick out the customers that you've got on well with and the jobs you've really enjoyed and try and find out what they've all got in common.
It may be the area where the job works come from.
It might be the type of work.
We went through a spell where very phone call was a hall, stairs and landing.
I think that's the same for every decorator.
I think people are trying to tackle their hall, stairs and landing.
It's probably not a good example.
Just go back through the customers you've enjoyed working for and try and find out what they have in common and then try and target those sorts of people for that sort of work.
And looking at what jobs are most profitable because that's often going to be the kind of work you enjoy more, right?
You know that you are out for a day or week doing a job. You know this job is worthwhile for your construction business. This is going to help me hire the next team member, this is going to help me outsource some marketing, this is going to help me get the new van that I wanted. It all makes sense.
Being able to create this proposal document and how that's helped your decorating brand and marketing overall and how you're going to use it moving forward?
I just think that it's not something that you can produce overnight.
Even if you put an hour a day aside just to work on it, it'll grow and it'll develop.
I think in mine I've got a bit about me, about the decorating business, who we've worked for…
I've changed one.
I've got a spray painting one and that's got the different products we use.
Then I've got the process we go through.
I spoke to a customer today about this.
Because we decorate every day, we just turn up and it's like water off a duck’s back, we just get on with it.
But for a customer that's maybe not had a decorator in before or they're not used to it, they don’t know what's going on.
It's a complete ‘I wonder this’ and ‘I wonder that’.
If you can lay it out and show them what to expect, then that helps them through the wave too, and the customer's going to be a bit more reassured.
We spoke about this Georgia.
It's just hard because it's something you do and you are in your business all the time.
It's very hard to take a step back and see it from the customer's point of view.
The only way we can do it is by asking the customer and finding out from them.
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