Why Convenience Wins the Bid - The Comfort Economy for Painting Contractors

Regardless of their personality type, if you can convey your estimate with them, how you're going to provide them an easy experience that's not invasive, you're going to communicate well and you're going to make their life simple and easy compared to one more thing they have to mentally deal with. You will win bids over your competitors. Welcome back to the Elite Business Advise Podcast. My name is Chris Moore, the founder of Elite Business Advisors, your host of the podcast here.

And I am super excited for our new free business health assessment. If you've ever wondered what your business looked like and benchmarked against professionalized systematic painting companies, we built this assessment just for you. 10 minutes max. Most people have been taking it in about seven to eight to nine minutes.

Um, we've seen a lot of good feedback on the accuracy of these scores. So head on over to score.elitebusinessadvisors.com if you want to take it.

No strings attached. Free value add assessment just for you guys. All right. So today, let's talk about a few things that we really love and enjoy about life these days.

Okay. Uh, number one, maybe one of my favorites, some of your favorites for sure, Amazon quick shipping. For some of us in big cities with a lot of distribution centers, there's a lot of like same-day shipping or overnight. I could order something right now, and worst case, it'll probably be at my door between 4 and 8 a.

m. tomorrow morning when I wake up. Uh, for some of you guys, a little more rural, like one or two-day shipping, right? But like convenient.

It's so great. Straight to your doorstep. You don't have to go to the store and buy it. How amazing is that?

Uh, for some of you guys, grocery delivery. I don't love spending my time in a grocery store, especially with two small kids, because they want everything. So, guess what? Just having Walmart deliver it straight to my doorstep.

Again, usually same day or like very early, like whenever you want it, right? You can pick like 12 hours and anytime you want. Just they just show up. Just push a button, bam.

I will I could also now know the answer to anything I want right at my fingertips within about 10 seconds, thanks to 5G or LTE or whatever internet we're on these days on cell phones. Okay. Talk to text. How amazing has talk to text been?

Um, I saw something the other day that said you actually will get things out ten times faster by by talking it out and letting it text it for you than you typing it, no matter how fast you are at typing. Uh that was really interesting. We can talk a lot faster than we can type, but it's so good, it's pretty spot on nowadays. Um, you know, another one, I'm gonna this is my last one, okay?

We love our microwaves, but it's been interesting now that these air fryers are like mainstream and common nowadays. We're actually willing to sacrifice a little bit of the time and the convenience for like the quality because the air fryer just does a better job reheating stuff. So that's kind of an interesting one that goes against everything else I've been sharing. But for the first four, what do they all have in common?

Comfort and convenience. The things that we love nowadays, it's all about comfort and convenience. And so today's episode, we're gonna talk about this term comfort and convenience from the lens of owning a painting company to really understand what consumers want and more importantly, how to position our businesses to serve them in this manner and focus on comfort and convenience and the opportunity that lies here with the very few people that are actually following through on it.

So I hope it helps. Thanks always for plugging in. This is the business advice on my list. Alright, let's start with how we got here.

Think back to a minute, and maybe this one may not hit home to you, but think back to a day or imagine a day when there was detached garages on homes. We didn't have the nice two, three-car, maybe it was a single car. We didn't even have that. It was detached garages were the norm at some point in society, right?

Think back to a day when imagine or try to imagine what life was like with no air condition in a lot of places. Home. I remember my elementary school didn't have air conditioning in it. Um, and that was like we were probably the last school in our entire district to finally get it.

Um, and it was like the year after I left. It was super awesome. Um, but I do remember that like early on. It was fans, right?

Think back to those days. Think back to landlines. Some of you guys are like, what in the heck is a landline, Chris? Um, I do remember them at least.

Uh, but think back to that, think back to not having internet or it was dial up internet. I'm gonna take some of you guys back on a journey here to AOL dial up internet, you get the CDs in the mail, right? Um, think back to a day when Amazon didn't exist, okay? But then at some point somebody had an idea.

And instead of getting soaked carrying groceries from the car to the house or getting the kids, you know, all the kids out while it's snowing, um, they thought, hey, let's connect the garage to the house. And that was a revolutionary idea, right? Um, this is called evolvement. And honestly, if evolvement is centered around one thing as time goes on and history plays out, it's convenience.

Think back to the evolution of any single thing that exists in your life, especially electronics, and it's all designed to make things more convenient for us. Okay, I want to think through this like on a really just big picture foundational scale today as we go through this, because I think one thing that that we should constantly think about is that even though technology has evolved, even though all these things exist around us, like the core fundamental psychology of who we are as people hasn't changed, right?

Our core human behaviors are still our core human behaviors from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Yes, things have shifted, things have evolved, but the foundation is still the same. I think the same is true about how we strive for convenience. We want things to be convenient, and everything around us that has evolved to the level it has exists because we want things to be more convenient.

Here's a perfect example. I got a couple of them on here, but here's number one baby monitors. Okay, some of you guys this may not relate to, that's okay. But when we, you know, knew we were pregnant, we were having chase, you know, four almost five years ago now, and we were looking at like baby monitors, right?

And I was like, I want like we want like the physical one to where we've always got like the direct connection. If the Wi-Fi goes out, like we still have a monitor, but I also really want one that I can pull up on my phone and look at in case I don't have the monitor by me or you have it, and whatever. And let me tell you, that was a great purchase. Okay, it was so convenient to be able to have it on our phone or the physical monitor.

We had options, and guess what? Whatever company, I can't remember what company came out with that one, made a lot of money because they offered convenience, right? Um, businesses understand this one thing about consumers. People will pay for it, right?

We paid more for that baby monitor than any of the other ones out there because you know it was evolved enough to connect to Wi-Fi and also have the physical monitor. A lot of them are one or the other, right? We paid more to have the one that was more convenient for us and our lives, and that to me, I view that personally as an investment, not an expense. In that case, that's not what this podcast is about today, though.

Okay, people will pay for convenience. This is why Uber Eats is valued between 30 and 40 billion dollars. Okay, as best as they can guess it because Uber Eats is just wrapped into the you know Uber company as a whole, but they're estimating that Uber Eats alone, the food delivery service, is valued between 30 and 40 billion dollars. This doesn't take into account DoorDash, Grubhub, any of the other large, you know, restaurant delivery apps that exist in the world.

That's absolutely crazy. Maybe here's the statement I should make, because this is my this I'm I'm gonna get a personal belief coming out here. Um, people will irrationally pay for convenience. Okay.

I will admit Walmart grocery delivery game changer for us. Okay. Yes, we spend, you know, 10% on the tip, whatever, but we do it through Walmart because one walks up at Walmart's cheaper anyways. Two, we spend less money because we're not walking up and down the aisles.

But three, the big one is Walmart doesn't mark up the cost of their products. If you go through Instacart, you pay like 10 to 20% more for the items on top of the delivery and the convenience fees and the tip and everything else, right? It's the same thing with Uber Eats and with DoorDash with everything. All of your items you're buying are actually marked up as well on top of the fees and stuff that you pay.

And this is why Uber Eats drives me crazy. Now, do I use it sometimes? Absolutely, but very sporadically. And it's usually in a day when my schedule is packed and I look at it and I say, I'm gonna pay a little bit more for this, but what is my time worth?

And if I can spend an extra 20 or 30 minutes today doing this, that makes sense, right? Investment, not expense, but there's a fine line there, okay. I know some of y'all are door dashing and Uber Eats and Starbucks coffee every morning for $25. That does not make sense.

Okay, so it's again, I have a little bit of a soapbox tangent sometimes with this because I see a lot of people's financials, I see where money goes. And the statement I will make again is people will irrationally pay for convenience. And I say irrational, that's all relative. Okay.

Here's my last kind of real-world example here. Um, we all at some point, some of you guys may not relate to this, but at some point everybody started hating cable because it was so expensive, it was monopolized, and we all just wanted everybody to just just get rid of cable. All right, we have Netflix, and then Hulu came out, and like the evolution of streaming services, and it like for a little bit it was amazing because it we were called cord cutters, cut the cord was like the movement, and I'm trying to think back what year this would have been.

Um, probably mid 2010s, right? 2015-ish. Cord cutters. Okay, and so convenience was great because you could just subscribe to what you wanted, it was cheaper, it was great, right?

Well, now we've hit a point where you need 17 different streaming services to to watch like everything that you want to be able to watch. And guess what's coming back now? YouTube TV, Hulu, live TV, all these things that are saying, hey, we're just gonna take all these channels, we're gonna bundle them back together. It's still cheaper than cable used to be.

Uh, it's about half the price right now. Um, but we're just gonna make this convenient again, right? Like, I'm every month goes by, I'm trying to put off buying YouTube TV, but every month I get more annoyed um because I'm trying to watch a college football game, or I'm trying to watch this and we don't have it, or we gotta sign into this, or like I hate the game that we play. I am about at the point, any given month, I'm gonna finally break in.

I've been holding off for two years now, and I'm gonna just freaking buy YouTube TV for the convenience. Okay. All right, that's all my examples, it's all my personal stories, I think. Let's talk about how do we actually focus on this in your painting company because that's what makes sense, right?

I want you to understand the big foundation here. Um, hopefully there's some fun nostalgia there, but like what actually matters for you in your painting company? All right, I got three points here for you guys. Number one, we got to meet customers where they are.

Okay. So for starters, we have to respect their time. If we're going after convenience and comfort, being at their house for two hours for a $3,000 painting estimate probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Okay.

Now I'm all about having a good conversation, building a connection with them, doing a presentation on the spot with them. 30 to 40 minutes. Perfect. Okay.

Let's respect their time. Meet them where they're at. They're probably busy. Not always, right?

You're gonna get the occasional retired 72-year-old couple that their grandkids don't live nearby, and they will happily sit there and talk to you for two and a half hours. That's on them. Try to manage your time well, but I get it, okay. But respect their time.

Obviously, when I say meet them where they are, you're gonna do that geographically, you're going to their house to meet them. Um, you know, I I know one thing, and this kind of goes a little bit into my next point, um, point number two here, but um, we got a quote from a flooring company, and it was like like a weird, and I think I understood why they did it, and and I they were friends of mine, and I just kind of said, Hey, like, figure this out. Um, but it was like we had to go into the showroom first to look at stuff, and then they came out to measure, to finalize the like there was just a lot of steps there, right?

And so, again, for a painting company, if you're in the residential space, you're meeting them where they're at geographically already. If you're not somehow for some reason, entertain that, get get face to face with them. Um meet them where they are. I'm gonna say you're also gonna have a time that's convenient for them.

Okay. This is a big thing. I would say we have to make sure we keep control of our schedule, we lead that conversation well, but we want to try to make it convenient for them, not hey, I have one time available in the next two weeks, and other than that, I cannot get there. Doesn't come across great, right?

So, what's convenient for them may not always be convenient for you, but how bad do you want the job? That would be the question I'd ask. So, again, we want to walk a fine line between efficiency and convenience for you as the business owner or as the company doing the estimate, but also what is convenient for them, right? If we start off the customer experience and I have to move a bunch of stuff around just to accommodate their schedule, I'm already like not thrilled and loving this company.

Okay. Not that I think the world revolves around me, not that I know they have to cater to me, but if we want something done and they're like, yes, this is the only time we can do it, I'm kind of already annoyed. Okay, especially if I have to move stuff around. If it works out great, great.

Um, this leads me into the point, kind of the the last thing on this one is self-bookings. I I get a lot of questions about this. I know there's new software emerging in the industry. I am a fan if you can set up your system to where customers are able, if they choose, to book on their own.

They can just go in, they can book a time that works for them, it works out great, right? We need to make sure that it geographically makes sense for you, gives you enough time. So that's where you need, you know, software that just puts parameters in place or takes these things into account. So I'm actually becoming more and more of a fan of it.

What I don't want to happen is two things. One, they go online, they self-book their own appointment, they don't hear from a single person at your company until that time comes. I think that's a fail on a lot of contractors' parts. They think, man, this is awesome.

I've got this automated. You know, Mr. Jones can just, they just went on, they booked their estimate, and I don't even have to talk to a person until I show up at their house. I don't think that's good for sales or customer experience.

I think what you should do in that case, let them book it, and then just follow up with a call the next business day or whenever that later that day and just say, hey, Mr. Smith, this is Chris Moore with Elite Painting. I saw you just booked a quote for next Thursday at 1230. I'm really excited to meet with you.

Um, hey, I just want to get a couple questions about your project and kind of run through that normal SOP um estimate scheduling call script that you would normally use. Um, and just you know, have that human touch. Check in with them. Hey, do you have any questions for me right now?

Just like have that, you know, personalized touch to it. We still need that. So don't make it so automated, but again, let it be convenient to them. If they want to book a quote at 7 o'clock while they're thinking about it at night, they can if they want.

Okay, so I do like that idea. Have your system set up to accommodate it if you can. Okay. Um, the second thing that I see a lot of people do is you have this booking option set up for them, and the customer calls you or your office or whoever, you say, Hey, great, why don't you go to our website and and go ahead and find a time that works well for you?

Again, I like having the system set up, but if they're calling in, they want to just book it on the phone. Okay, so again, convenience, right? Now you can offer them, hey, you are welcome to go to our website if you want to just see our full calendar with all of our open times, or I'm happy to walk through that here on the phone and we can find a time that works well that we're available. However, you want to do that, right?

If you want to mention that, say, hey, we'll just go online and book it, whatever. Um, again, I don't like that because you already got them on the phone. Just get them across the finish line. Your whole goal of that call is get an estimate scheduled.

So, um, okay, so point number one, meet them where they are. That's a big one. Talk about convenience, think about things like that. Number two, less friction points means higher sales.

Okay, the least amount of friction we can give them in this experience on the journey they go on in your company from start to finish. Again, talking about lead, intake, scheduling estimates, all of that, all the way through the completed end of it. The less friction points we put in place, the higher our our sales is gonna be, the higher closing rate we're gonna have. Okay, so think about things like this color consultations, right?

I will be honest with you guys, I got to the point I got so sick of dealing with colors because it was annoying, it was you know sucking my time. I was trying to build this business while I was still running my painting company, that I did what I would recommend not always doing now. And I just said, why don't you guys go into Sherwin Williams, pick out some colors you like, they can make up samples, let me know what you guys want. Okay.

At times I would still, you know, for some of our VIP customers, loyal customers, I would still go do some color samples and stuff for them. But like I got to the point where I was like, hey, why don't you guys go to Sherwin Williams, pick this out? I had two designers that would recommend. Um, you know, if you guys were really struggling, we do have a couple people we could recommend.

We weren't paying for it, it wasn't included in our price. Again, in hindsight, I would go back and do that differently. But I'm just gonna be honest, I created friction for my customers, right? Um, and so again, if I had a painting company today, I would handle that differently.

But color is a huge friction point for a lot of jobs and a lot of homeowners. So, how do we make this the least amount of friction as possible? Okay. Um, number this second point here and less friction, uh, high communication.

Okay. Um think about it. Go back to all those examples I mentioned earlier, right? And if we talk about Amazon, Amazon will over-communicate with you.

And I love over-communication, actually. I always strive for that in my company when it came to scheduling and everything and where we were at in their and the production schedule. Um, Amazon will tell you, you know, hey, we got your order, it's confirmed. Hey, your order has shipped, hey, your order's out for delivery.

If you want, you can even almost track the driver making the drop-offs. And it will tell you Amazon is 18 drop, you know, stops away. Oh, Amazon is 15 stops away. That's the level of communication you should have within reason.

Okay, I understand you're not Amazon. I get that. Um, but we want to communicate. We want to communicate about the schedule, we want to communicate, you know, if you're running late to that initial estimate, we want to communicate every step of the way.

Because when you eliminate the friction points early on, then they see and they build confidence in you. All right, we talk about I'm talking about convenience, talking about comfort. I should also throw in confidence. People want convenience when and they when they know convenience is there, and they have confidence that you're gonna follow it through on that convenience you tell them about, they feel pretty good about making a decision to go with you.

Okay. Um, the third thing, less friction points, job site prep. Okay. We always send them an expectations document.

Here's what you can expect of us, here's what we ask of you. Okay, and it was the like, you know, take all the breakables off the shelves, we'll move the furniture. It was, you know, take the things off the walls, you know, leave the hole or the screw in if you're rehanging it, we'll we'll paint around it. Otherwise, you know, if you're if you aren't putting anything back there, pull it out, pull the anchor out, we'll fill it, right?

So I probably created a little bit of friction and having them do some of that. Um, again, it's all about balance, but I wasn't having them move furniture. I wasn't saying we're not touching anything, we need an empty room to walk into, right? We would do the heavy lifting.

I just wanted the liability and the breakables gone, right? And so I kind of again balance, but how do you communicate that? Are we putting friction points in place? Are we making the rest of this process seem like it's hard, right?

Um, that's not a good thing. And so that leads me into my third and final point here is the value proposition you have. Okay. Um, if you know, I believe that actions always speak louder than words.

You can tell me you're a quality painter. Show me you're a quality painter, right? You can tell me how professionalized you are and how well you communicate. Show me instead.

And when you do the things in the first two points, this leads into again that confidence and that value proposition. Okay. And what I want you to think through here is understand when you're at that quote, uh, understand your goal is to build confidence and to sell convenience and comfort at the end of the day. Okay, understand that consumer behavior and that psychology.

Because for me, regardless of their personality type, if you can convey your estimate with them, how you're gonna provide them an easy experience that's not invasive, you're gonna communicate well and you're gonna make their life simple and easy compared to one more thing they have to mentally deal with. You will win bids over your competitors. Time and time again, no questions asked. I know you will, but you we have to communicate that to them.

And again, this goes into things that we can say, things that we can leave with them and show them hey, this is how simple this process is, this is how simple it is working with us. Here's what you can expect in working with us. You know, color consultation provided for free. Um, we'll move all your furniture, we'll do all like these are the things on how your life is going to be easy when you work with us, and when you can convey that at your estimate, when you follow through on it in production, too, right?

You can't be all talk and no walk. When we do these things, people will pay more. A lot of people ask us, well, man, you know, we're getting customers that are saying, Man, our price is double somebody else's, our price is, you know, 30% higher than everybody else's. Okay, did you sell it?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I guarantee you, when people understand how you're gonna make their life comfortable and convenient and make this process as simple as possible. People, when it comes to in interiors, they don't want their house torn up, they don't want to deal with cleaning out every room so it can be painted. Let's make it easy, let's make it simple for them.

They're gonna make that decision because customers don't want to babysit just another contractor. They're they've had bad experiences with contractors before, they don't want to babysit another one. So show that confidence, they don't have to babysit you. Show them how working with you is gonna provide convenience in their life, and you will sell work even at 30 or 50% higher than all the other things that they're getting.

Thanks for plugging into this week's episode. I hope you're able to take a few nuggets away from it to implement into your business. Remember, knowledge without implementation is useless. If you're curious about what we do and how we help painting contractors all over North America, schedule a free business analysis meeting with us at www.

elitebusinessadvisors.com. Our entire team of advisors to brand and manage painting companies just like myself that are here to help support you on your journey. We have packages available for contractors at every stage of business from flying solo and just starting out all the way to multi million dollar businesses.

And lastly, if you love this episode, please leave us a rating and a review. It helps others on the platform find our podcast, and it can be the best blessing that's ever happened to them, thanks to you. Thanks for plugging in, and we'll see you back for next week's episode.