You don't always need three estimates

You don’t always need three estimates:

It seems somewhere everyone came up with the great idea of getting three estimates for every project around their home from painting to electrical to plumbing.

Yes in some instances this can be a good idea especially if you don’t know any of the contractors who are coming, hopefully, you did your homework before you go that point and checked references, past work through pictures their social media pages or word of mouth.

But if you're like me I feel I am a great judge of character and if the first estimate turns out to be a great one and we connect that is good enough for me, I would prefer to not waste my time waiting around for a contractor who may not show up, is late or shows up and never sends me the estimate.

In my case  I checked out all the reviews and maybe emailed a few references but why continue the song and dance act of each estimate when I feel totally comfortable with the first?

If the issue is price alone you can get 10 estimates someone will always be cheaper but if yours looking for quality work and quality people doing it and they show up in your first or second estimate stop the show now and get them signed up to do your work because I can guarantee if they are great at what they do their schedule is most likely booked.

There will be exceptions to each rule and some people feel more comfortable gathering all of the estimates, it is tough when your doing this to make sure everyone is bidding the same way on residential work (apples to apples)

You will have to make sure they are all using the same materials, they are fully insured with liability insurance AND workman's compensation and are licensed in your area.

So if you have time to do three four five estimates, by all means, go for it, I personally do not and do not want to waste my time or the contractors and more importantly want my work started as soon as possible. 

General Patching and Why

What is general patching and why is that what I am getting?

1      After years in the painting business with Amato Painting on residential projects, the number one issue or complaint and confusion is the appearance of the walls as far as prep.

Sometimes the client is expecting a perfectly smooth new wall on a wall that is plaster or gypsum board and has been painted ten times over with runs, sags, drips and different levels in it.

To get it back to the perfectly smooth level is not impossible but not part of a typical repaint job for any painting contractor unless otherwise specified during a walkthrough and in your scope of work (contract)

So after all of these years, we do a general patching on all of our surfaces, it is the best way to offer an affordable paint job and give an acceptable prep to your walls for 95% of customers.

It is also a PDCA (Painters and decorators contractors of America standard) 4.8

4.8. PROPERLY PAINTED SURFACE: A properly painted

surface is uniform in appearance, color, texture,

hiding and sheen. It is also free of foreign material,

lumps, skins, runs, sags, holidays, misses, or

insufficient coverage. It is a surface free of drips,

splatters, spills or overspray which were caused by

the painting and decorating contractor’s workforce.

In order to determine whether a surface has been

“properly painted” it shall be examined without

magnification at a distance of thirty-nine (39) inches

or one (1) meter or more, under finished lighting

conditions and from a normal viewing position.

[PDCA Standard P1]

These are the standards we go by every day, without a standard for the painting company it would be up to the client and painter to decide what is acceptable.

General patching of walls which consists of minor dings and dents, then walls will be sanded and any spackle spots primed

General patching will not fix rough surfaces from existing paint and or coatings unless specified in the scope of work

General patching will not correct existing flaws such as old plaster, hairline cracks in plaster or GWB walls, old paint texture, bulges and uneven surfaces

New patches may show through as smoother than surrounding areas

What does this mean to you? If you stay up at night looking at the wall under a flashlight or halogen light that is not a good thing, any surface if you magnify it will show imperfections from the floor, your face, and especially the wall. You cannot expect on a simple repaint to address every little imperfection on a wall or ceiling.

What I worse is when walking through an estimate and you agree to this but when the job starts having expectations that will never be met and the customer and painters will be miserable until the job is complete.

So know your expectations before the estimate, express them to the estimator and you will have a successful happy project

10 Things you should be doing

Things you “should” be doing

Every day I am amazed at the things people should be doing but just don’t.

Does it come from how they were brought up or simply they are not fit to be around other people?

I see it doing interviews at Amato Painting, pre-qualifying potential employees, estimates, at the store

Here are my top ten pet peeves

1)      Not holding the door for someone when leaving or entering a store, this is common courtesy, hold the door even if yu have to wait

2)      Not moving to the left lane when cars are merging from a ramp on the right.

3)      Bringing your cell phone into an interview and answering it?  Now this is an automatic disqualifier for us

4)      Wearing sunglasses through your whole interview

5)      Not saying thank you in any instance

6)      Not looking me in the eye when I speak to you, are you hiding something?

7)      Scheduling an estimate, confirming it and then not being home

8)      Confirming an interview and not showing up and then begging for another one

9)      Not treating others in a respectful manner or as you would like to be treated

10)   Knowing the rules but expecting to be treated differently

These are just a few of the things I come across each day and things we look for in our job interviews, my job interviews are generally very quick and short as I am looking for character more so than your experience, degree etc.

Check your Social Media pages too, if you're applying for job interviews and your profile pic is you at a party drinking and other things with profanities and slang throughout your profile. Where is the first place you think employers look?

I am not saying I am the perfect person and sometimes break my own rules but work

hard each day to become a better person and offer something to the community

What to expect on the first day of your painting job

The first day of your painting project is coming up and by now hopefully, you have expressed all of your expectations and have turned in your color selections. So now what?

A good company will call and confirm the start of the job a few days beforehand and introduce either your foreman or project manager at this time, he would be your point of contact throughout the process, one thing this person hates is clients calling the office when he or she can easily solve almost any problem on site and much  faster.

On the day of the job you should have your breakables moved out of the rooms being painted, furniture put into the middle of the room and a nice breakfast ready for the painters (ok just kidding on the breakfast)

Your crew or painter will arrive and the person in charge (your foreman) will walk through the entire project with you and go over each color and all of your expectations based off of the scope of work. If there are any issues this is a great time to bring them up and resolve any unmet expectations after the job is complete.

They will go over job sequencing and scheduling to let you know how they will manage your job when certain rooms will be done and if they see any issues

As this is going on the rest of the crew is setting up a shop area somewhere you said would be a good spot such as the basement or garage, you should also let them know where they can clean their tools and what bathroom facilities to use.

Once your walk-through is complete your general spackling will begin and masking off of baseboards, plastic covering the furniture and drop clothes placed on the floor.

Now the expert work will begin, our painters are highly skilled and trained and do not need other supervision on the site, remember you hired professional, you must let them work. They may do things you're not accustomed to, remember just because you read it online doesn't make it true or the professional way to do things. Nothing is worse the client disrupting the painters, it distracts them, cause ill will and may make them rush your project.

A few days before the project is over the foreman will walk it with you, address any concerns at this time, hand you, our invoice and let you know payment is due on the completion day.

Once payment is made we will ask for any referrals, reviews and take some pictures of our work. No is a great time for a video review of our work and helps tremendously with our future work

A great few weeks

We have had a great few weeks at Amato Painting in many ways.

We won Lehigh Valley Style Best Painting and Wallpaper services 2017 for the 4th Year in a row

Lehigh Valley What's Happening Best Painting Company for the second year in a row and third overall time plus we are a Hall Of Fame Member
We were honored to receive the PDCA Bronze Safety Achievement Award which is a National Award and one we were thrilled to get.

I personally have been all over the place, in magazines, on other websites, have an article coming out in a National painting trade magazine soon, been invited on blogs and just for doing what I love to do which is painting, business,
and teaching others

Not to mention the painters and sales team have been killing it recently and were booked pretty solid

None of this would be possible without the people who help me , from the painters who get up every day and go to jobs they may not like or deal with very difficult customers or tough weather such as rain, extreme heat and cold. Jeremiah has been here from day one and is the hardest working person and always up for a challenge to the office staff who deals with my ever changing ways, we worked hard to bring in great people in the office and in the field who can manage themselves and it has paid off on my end simple by me not being involved in every day to day task.

Tanya kills it with our commercial jobs and if you don't pay your bill you will answer to her, she is who I lean on every day and were a great team together!! She does not go unnoticed by me

Kyle came in and took a huge load off of me personally by managing the painters, he is learning while in the fire with some of the craziness each day but has handled it very well and always asks to learn new things

Marisa Came in when we needed support in the office, with a busy family life she helps as much as she can and has certainly helped with the enormous amount of paperwork thatis required for some of our jobs.

Adair in the shop has brought some structure to the ordering of paint, supplies and all whiel he goes to college at night (That is a work ethic!)

Rich our commercial estimator is so busy he asks for mercy sometimes but has been a great resource and is invaluable to us

But on my end the people who have inspired me to keep me going, some may not even know it
Rian Carr was with us a short while but you can sense his passion for things and that is inspiring to me, Other painting companies most certainly inspire me Nolan Painting and Brian and Kevin helped me so much get to where we're at today, Steve Burnett and Tom Reber, I am not a client of either but each day I learn something new
There are so many more, Anthony from Sherwin Williams, Eric Miller Benjamin Moore, All the guys from Gleco Paint and the Benjamin Moore reps, Pipeline Deals, Knowify, Pep Cloud Estimating

Too many to mention but the point is everyone who you come across each day may insire you in some way to do great things never have your blinders on.

What makes for a great painting estimate

I go on about 10 estimates a week in person and not counting the others we do from blueprints in the office so I have seen it all from potential clients who could care less what I have to say other than the price to ones who I can talk to forever.

Somedays the bad ones make it a very long day but the others who turn out to be great make up for the bad generally

So what makes a great estimate on my end?
Communication is the big one here for me, if a potential client does not open up about their project or we do not connect in some way while I am there it makes for a very difficult estimate, I never find out their key needs nor did they share them with me which makes it a complete guess once we start the job and is ripe for problems and expectations not met.

Be on site, I know that sounds simple but the person making the decision should be on site, you have to connect or feel comfortable with who you hire and not make your decisions solely off of the price. We ask a lot of questions before we show up on an estimate and if the decision is based solely on price for a residential project we will refer these jobs out.

We are entering into a relationship once an estimate is given and you select us to do your work, we will be interacting over the course of your project and we like to work for great people and are selective in who we work for just as much as you are when selecting your contractor.

Know what you want and express it at the estimate, not after the job starts. At that point you should let the painters do what they are trained and experienced to do, paint. Nothing is worse than a homeowner looking over their shoulders or pulling gout a light to shine on the wall which is a big no-no. Know what you want, express it to the estimator and let them deliver it.

Snow day but not really

A snow day when I was a kid was a day to have fun with friends and not have to go to school and for some adults, this is the same just subtract school and add work in.
But when running a business is there really a day off?
Since I am writing this blog that answer is no.

A day off, while everyone is off, is the perfect day to catch my breath and evaluate things that are moving so fast on a normal day. When no one is in, customers have no demands time moves slow and I can check in on almost every process in our company and trust me there are a ton of them

We are always striving to make each process better for us and our clients, on a typical day they are all work in progress, continually updating, changing and updating.

Wehn things slow down, I can track the success of them, remove some and add others.
I bet the most changes I make come on Sundays and holidays while everyone else if off and it is most likely the least favorite of my employees when they return to work the next day as 100% there will be changes and evaluations

It may be a painting company however, we are really filling the roles of many different trades such as color consultants, psychologists for our customers and employees, human resources, delivery drivers, carpenters, cleaners and much more. Not too mention the sales aspect and accounting.  It seems as if I am pulled in so many different directions.

This is why I am steadfast on my time, I strictly enforce my available time and delegate many tasks to the appropriate person not working on the day to day tasks but managing and training the employees to make their own decisions as I would.

So a snow day to most is fun and relaxing a snow day for me actually means extra work , the normal days are less work as my team is back in.