Did you know that Santa was originally green? For much of the Victorian era, Father Christmas was depicted wearing a green suit. However, along came Coca-Cola with a Christmas campaign showing him in a red suit, and there you go – we now have the Santa we all know and love from our childhoods, dressed in a bright red suit. One company, one Christmas, one person’s idea changed a global icon, they discovered the importance of making money and how to use people’s needs to do so, and not many people know any different. So why is it important to know this? Why does Coca-Cola turning Santa red matter?
Queuing for your services
Coca-Cola made that change in the 1930s when things were different. There was no social media, barely anyone had a TV, and not many people could afford the newspaper. However, times have changed, but not as much as you’d expect. People, society, and customers still exhibit a pack mentality, where one person goes, others tend to follow. When the iPhone came out, there were queues down high streets and around corners. When Adele releases a new tour date, we all sit there hitting refresh on the keyboard to be the first to get tickets. Similarly, with more people becoming aware of the capabilities of spray painting and the rise of kitchen refurbishments, it’s easy to see that there’s a clear direction decorators or any tradesperson involved in decorating should be taking.
Is spraying a fad
Of course, there were the MiniDisc and Blu-ray, so fads and phases can happen, but they only had limited time due to the speed of developing technology. Both of those were outdated by online streaming. So, that begs the question: will spraying soon become outdated too? Can or will something else come and take its place? We’re pretty sure it’s unlikely. Perhaps there’ll be greater development in drone technology which will carry spray guns, but that’s a change in equipment, not methods or your approach. And even if that did happen, not training to be a spray painter now means you’re two steps behind when we do need to adapt.
Get those bookings in
I think it’s quite controversial to say this, but I feel it’s important. Making money has never been the issue; there are tradespeople out there who are thriving. They have jobs booked for a good six months ahead, all set at the price they want to charge. And then there are those who struggle, and believe me, the tutors here know what it means to struggle. We’ve all been there at the start, struggling job by job just to make enough to cover the mortgage. But we’ve learned that making money is never the issue; the clients and the desire to pay for your services are there and so we learnt and adapted.
Let’s get serious about making money.
What is an issue is the way we run our businesses. I feel the heat in the room rise a level, but if you want me to give you a quick pep talk, tell you it’s going to be okay, and just take your money for a quick course, we can’t. Someone has to be the one to tell you that if you’re struggling, if you want your business to be better, run more efficiently, and make you more money, then it starts with you. It starts with how you run your business, including the skills and knowledge you have. And that’s not always your fault, but it is something you can change.
Slicker, cleaner, more modern
As I mentioned at the start, people are turning to trades with a specialisation in spraying. They want that off-the-shelf look, that slicker, cleaner, more modern look that spraying can achieve. We’re not saying to put down the brush; just like vinyl records, there will always be a place for that kind of uniqueness in decorating. And in our opinion, spraying vs the brush will be the tool that distinguishes decorators based on skill level.
Making money
But back to my main point. Making profit. As more customers are turning towards wanting spray painting services, the profit is there. With the look and speed of spraying, you could make anything from 20% extra per job, and fit in more jobs a year. Additionally, with the rise of marketing from larger companies focusing on kitchen renovations, there are more customers wanting their kitchen redecorated and willing to pay a greater cost to get it right. Remember our opening paragraph, by following the trends in marketing you can’t go far wrong. The profit is in spraying, particularly kitchen spraying.
Don’t want to charge more, it’s already competitive
The cost is often a tricky question. Can you charge extra? We hear this a lot, and there’s always a fear to do so. Let me ask it another way: next time you go out to buy a phone, are you getting a Nokia 105 for £25 or an iPhone 13 for £400? Remember a phone is a phone; they both perform that function very well. But I guarantee you’ll choose the iPhone, or a similar Samsung or Google device. Why? Because it makes you feel better, because you can do more with it, and you’re happier to show it off. The last thing you want to do is bring out a Nokia 105 with your mates around.
Are you Nokia or Iphone?
Kitchen redecorating does the same thing. A customer could get their friend of a friend to do it for £700, and it’ll be okay. It’ll be a Nokia, paint not perfect but ok for the cost, a little bit of peeling here and there but no one will really notice, the brush marks are obvious, but they’ll live with it, and although they’re happy to cook in the kitchen, it’s not somewhere they want to stay for too long.
Now you, the spray painter, costing £2500 or more, this is the iPhone. Perfect in every corner wherever you look from and however the light shines. Their kitchen is somewhere they want to be all the time and find it hard to leave, it’s somewhere they want to show off, and a place they’re at peace with. It’s worth every penny.
So think! Is cost an issue? Probably only to you; and if you do find someone that think you’re priced too high, then they probably have a Nokia.
We’ve been teaching spraying for many years, and it’s not just ingrained in us but in our families too. Most of our family members own decorating businesses of some kind, and all have set up around spraying and have niched into decorating thats more profitable. If you want to know more, if you want to make a change in your business to have a focus on spray painting or understand additional elements to running a business like project management or estimating jobs, then please reach out to us. We can help guide you to make sure that money is never the issue.
