Marketing for painting companies · One per market

Start with the outcome. Work it backwards.

Most agencies start at the top of the funnel and sell you leads. We start with the revenue you need and work the problem backwards — brand, sales, process, close rate, set rate — until we know exactly what the top of the funnel has to do. Then we build the system that does it.

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01 — The problem nobody names

Your agency makes more money when your marketing costs more.

Paid a retainer plus a slice of a growing media budget, an agency's best client is one who spends more. One of the largest agencies in this trade publishes a ten percent cost of marketing as its target. Read that again: their goal is for you to spend more.

8–10%
Industry average — of revenue, all in
~5%
What we run — inside our own painting company
4%
Where we're driving it — while revenue goes up

We are the only people in this trade whose stated goal is to make your marketing cheaper.

02 — Your numbers

How many leads do you actually need?

Four inputs. Two answers. The full version does the rest.

$
$
%
%
Leads / month
91.6
Marketing as % of revenue
3.6%

At 50% set and 35% close, that's 5.7 leads per job.

Run the full math →
03 — How we work

The problem, worked backwards.

The number you need is the only fixed point. Everything else is a variable we solve for — in this order, because each one sets the target for the next.

  1. 01
    Outcome

    The revenue you need this year. From that: the jobs, the proposals, the leads — the whole funnel, sized before anything is bought.

  2. 02
    Brand

    What you're known for, and whether the market can tell. Positioning, proof, and the process story that makes you the obvious choice before a proposal is written.

  3. 03
    Sales excellence

    The option ladder, proposal on site, financing at the table, follow-up that doesn't quit. Close rate is a skill, not a statistic.

  4. 04
    Business process

    Who answers the phone, how fast, and what happens next — phone to calendar to crew. Set rate is a process problem, and it's usually the cheapest one to fix.

  5. 05
    The funnel

    Every stage measured. Every lead tagged to its source and carried through to booked or lost. Cost per booked job by channel — the only number that decides anything.

  6. 06
    Top of funnel

    Only now: Google Search, Local Services, Meta. Sized to the number, not to the budget. Bought last because it's the only step that costs money.

Business, sales, and a best-in-class marketing strategy — built as one system, so it keeps working when we're not in the room.

04 — What you get

One system. Four disciplines.

01
Brand

Positioning that makes the premium price make sense. Proof that's real — reviews, photographs, the process — and a story the owner can tell in one breath.

02
Sales excellence

The option ladder, proposal on site, financing at the table, follow-up cadence. Coached by someone who sells painting for a living, installed in the CRM so it happens without a reminder.

03
Business process

Speed to lead, answer rate, missed-call text-back, the handoff from phone to calendar to crew. The unglamorous work that moves set rate — and set rate moves everything.

04
The marketing system

Google Search, Local Services, Meta, call tracking, one clean conversion signal, closed-loop economics. Run as one portfolio and documented so it survives without us.

05 — Proof

We'll show you our own account. Broken parts included.

We bought a Kansas City painting company doing under $350,000 a year and spent years building the thing we now install for other people. Here is what we found when we audited our own agencies. Nobody in this trade publishes this.

81%

of our search impressions were lost on ad rank, not budget. Tripling spend would have changed nothing.

$19–23

per click we were paying for our own company name. Nobody was watching.

146

conversions reported on $236 of spend — in a paused campaign. The signal was garbage.

17

conversion actions all marked primary. Smart Bidding was chasing map clicks and page views.

Every one of those was found in an account someone was being paid to manage.

That's the audit you get in week one — run on your account, with the same honesty.

Photograph — black and white — jobsite
Photograph — black and white — jobsite
Photograph — black and white — jobsite
06 — The first ninety days

Nothing scales until it works small.

Preflight
Four numbers

Leads in, appointments set, jobs won, average ticket. Plus a full audit of every account you're already paying for. You get the findings whether or not you hire us.

Days 1–30
Funnel first

Speed to lead, answer rate, missed-call text-back. Local Services and your Google profile go live — the fastest route to a real lead that doesn't need history to work.

Days 31–60
Signal, then search

Call tracking and lead events wired properly. Search campaigns built on a clean signal instead of guesswork. Close-rate coaching runs alongside.

Days 61–90
Scale what proved

Budget follows cost per booked job. Retargeting and the dormant-lead list — the cheapest leads you own. Meta when the funnel has earned it.

07 — Pricing

Published, because nobody else does.

One monthly number. No percentage of ad spend, no percentage of revenue, no build fee for the first five.

Preflight
$1,000
one time

The full audit and a ninety-day plan. Yours to keep and act on with anyone. Credited in full if you continue.

Charter rate · first five
$2,500/mo
locked 12 months

Brand, sales, process, and the marketing system — all four disciplines. Build fee waived. In exchange: a testimonial, permission to publish your numbers, and you actually implement the changes.

Your media budget
Yours
$1,500–2,500 / mo to start

Paid directly to Google and Meta, on your card, in accounts you own. We never touch it and never take a percentage of it — or of your revenue. One number. No incentive to spend more of your money.

Call tracking and reporting tools run about $100–200 a month and are billed at cost.

08 — Apply

One painting company per market.

It's written into the agreement. We will not take a second client in a market where we already work, because the playbook is the same one and two of you bidding against each other with it helps nobody.

Best fit: $500K–$1.5M, owner still sells, willing to change the sales process.