Post While the Paint Dries

How people check you out now

What actually happens between somebody hearing your name and ringing you.

Somebody gets your name off a mate. Most will not ring straight away. They look you up first, and what they find decides whether you get the call, or the next name down does.

Before the conference I ran the same search three times, on three different AI tools: find me a painter in this suburb, and tell me which one you would go with. Three different painters came back. Not one of them agreed with the other two.

But every one of them looked at the same five things.

• How many reviews you have got, not just the score
• Whether those reviews are about the job the customer actually wants doing
• How local you are, by suburb and not by city
• What the reviews actually say. The ones mentioning preparation counted for more
• Whether you are a Registered Master Painter

And not one of them looked at your page.

That is the bit worth sitting with. It did not pick the best painter. The best painter in your town might never come up at all.

But being recommended is not the same as being booked. What comes back is three names. Then somebody goes and looks each one up, and that is the point where your page starts deciding things. The search told them which three to consider. It could not tell them which one turns up when he says he will, keeps the place tidy, or has done a room like theirs. That is what somebody is looking for when they open your page.

So there are two separate jobs, and only one of them is slow.

The badge is already working for you

Two of the three tools picked up Registered Master Painter on their own, and one called it the biggest single differentiator, saying membership means an assessment of workmanship and standards that carry on. The third did not mention it at all, and the painter who led on it came third in that one, because he had ten reviews.

So the badge gets you taken seriously. It will not carry you on its own. Which is the whole argument for using it rather than just holding it.

• Put the words in your bio, not just the logo. Registered Master Painter, and the area you cover. The words are what gets read.
• Putting a job in for an award is a post. So is getting through. So is the night itself.
• You are already taking the photos an entry needs. Before, prep, detail. If the habit is there the entry is half done, and you have had months of content out of the same job.

That is the difference between the two, really. Your website shows the finished house and whether you won. Your page shows how you got there, and the second one is what makes somebody trust you.

Your reviews and your Google listing get you onto the shortlist. What you have got up of your actual work decides which of the three gets rung. Most of the time your page is not winning you the job. It is stopping you losing one you were already in the running for.

What do I actually put up?

The answer is the job you are already standing on. Stage by stage.

The reason people give up is not that it does not work. It is that they run out of things to put up. You will not, and the reason is in front of you today.

To you it is just another Tuesday. It is the same thing you did last week. To somebody thinking about getting their house done, it is not ordinary at all.

You already run a job in stages. Protect it, prep it, paint it, tidy up. Plan the content the same way and there is nothing to think up.

Where are you on the job right now?

Pick the one you are on. Each tells you what to shoot, what to say with it, whether to put it up now or hold it, and what to keep out of frame.

Keep every photo you take. Putting one up and keeping one are two different things, and nothing gets deleted off your phone. Make an album for the job on the first morning and put everything in it as you go, so you are not scrolling past three months of family photos to find a skirting board. Some go up the same day, some wait for the finished shot to pair with, and at the end of the job the whole lot is sitting there in order. That is a start-to-finish video without filming anything extra. Storage is free and the shot you binned is the one you will want.

Same spot, same wall

The before and the finish only work as a pair if they are the same wall from the same place. Otherwise it is two photos of a room.

• Pick a spot on the floor the first morning. A tile, a corner of the drop sheet, the doorway. Stand on it every time.
• Window behind you. Interiors are dark, so shooting toward a window turns everything into a silhouette.
• Wipe the lens. Dust looks like fog and you will not notice until later.
• Shoot the cornice line, not the ceiling. A flat ceiling says nothing. The line where it meets the wall says everything.

Filming with paint on your hands

Nobody mentions this and it is why half the photos never get taken.

• Get the phone out before you open the tin. Once there is paint on your hands you will not want to touch it, and the shot never gets taken.
• Hold still for two seconds before you start and after you stop. It gives you a clean top and tail to trim, so the clip does not open halfway through a brush stroke.
• Not on a ladder. Ever. Nothing here is worth that.
• Shoot noisy work anyway. Put the words on later, or lay a music track over the top. Most people watch with the sound off. Use the music built into the app rather than something off your phone, or a business account can get the sound stripped out of it.

Asking the customer, and what to leave out

Just ask them. It takes one sentence, and then it never comes up again.

We take photos of the work as we go. Faces and street numbers never go up. Is that alright with you?

Hardly anybody says no. Telling them what you will not put up is the half that reassures them.

Then four things stay out of frame. Every other photo you put up is you showing somebody they can be trusted in their home. One that is about them instead of about your work is the one they will remember.

• Where they live. The number, the letterbox, the street sign, the neighbour’s place
• That they are away, or how to get in. If the place is empty while you work the photos can wait until they are back, and step to one side so the alarm panel and the key safe are out of shot
• Anything of theirs that is personal. Family photos, the kid’s room, and any repair that would embarrass them about their own house
• Anybody working at height without the right setup. Put that up publicly and it is one phone call from somebody who reports it

Why you charge what you charge

Every post is a receipt for work nobody can see.

They are not paying for the painting. That is the easy part. They are paying for everything around it, and most of it is gone by the time they see the room.

The prep. The protection. The care taken with somebody’s home. The way you leave it at the end of every day. None of that is on the wall when you finish.

So show them what they are actually paying for. Every one of those posts is a receipt.

Show the repairs too

The rot somebody painted over. Filler falling out. Four coats on top of wallpaper. Every one of those explains your price without you saying a word about money.

One rule. Do not have a go at another painter. Nobody looks good doing that. Show the problem, not the person.

Some of the best posts have no paint in them

Hardly anybody thinks to shoot this lot. The van set up properly, everything in its place. Brushes cleaned and hung up rather than left standing in a bucket. The sprayer stripped down on the bench.

It is the same argument the prep photos make. Somebody deciding who to let into their house reads a tidy van exactly the way they read a properly filled wall, and neither of them has any paint going on in the picture.

What they stop asking you

When you are standing there giving them the number, do not try to explain it all. Point them at your page instead: have a look at ours, you will see exactly what we do, start to finish.

• Why is it that much?
• What sort of jobs have you done?
• Is the work any good?
• How will you look after my house while you are in it?

It is all sitting there, and they can go through it that night on the couch. But only if it is there.

And the wrong calls dry up

The ones who only want the cheapest number stop ringing, because they can already see it is not going to be you. That sounds like a bad thing. It is not. You stop losing evenings on quotes you were never going to win.

Who is actually watching

It is not how many follow you. It is who.

Everybody chases the number. For what you do, the number on its own does not tell you much.

Think about who follows you first

Your mates. Your family. Blokes you did your apprenticeship with. Other painters. None of that lot are going to hire you, because they already know what you do.

The ones who might actually ring you turn up slowly, mixed in with everybody else.

So do not judge it by the number. Judge it by who is in it. Your page will tell you where your followers are, in the stats, and it takes about a minute to find.

What you put up decides who turns up

• Post the jobs and the transformations → customers
• Post how you fix things → other painters
• Post your crew → blokes wanting a job

At the start, go after the ones who could actually hire you. Customers, near where you work.

What happens as it grows

The bigger it gets, the more of them are people who will never hire you. Other painters, people three hours away, suppliers. That sounds like going backwards. It is not.

Say you had five hundred followers with two hundred locals in there. Now you are at two thousand with four hundred locals. The share has halved and the number has doubled. The percentage looks worse and you are twice as well off.

That only keeps working while you are still putting up local jobs. Chase followers for the sake of the number and you end up with the two thousand and not the four hundred.

And the rest are not wasted. That is where the other things start coming from.

• Free product to try. Suppliers do notice painters who put their work up
• Other painters asking you things. Worth more than it sounds when you are the one stuck on something
• Not being a stranger when you turn up to quote. They have already seen the work before you knock on the door
• Paid work of a different kind. Further on, and only for some. Not most of you, and not a reason to start

None of it is a job, and all of it is worth having. And it happens to the painters who kept putting their work up.

Not every post has to be a job

Two of these take five minutes and get pinned to the top of your page.

• Which towns you cover. People genuinely do not know whether you will come out to them, and most will not bother asking. They ring somebody closer.
• Booked out until December. Now booking January to March. That one does two jobs at once. It tells people when you could start, which is the second thing they ask after the price. And it quietly says you are busy enough to be booked out.

Do thisNot this

Canva is free and will do either in about five minutes. Keep it plain. Your logo, your towns, your phone number, and one of your own photos behind it.

The reason every AI-made flyer looks the same is simple: everybody is using the same handful of tools and those tools have a house style. Swirls, a painter who does not exist, three different fonts, and writing so small nobody reads it on a phone. People have got very good at spotting it, and it says somebody knocked this out in thirty seconds. That is the opposite of what you are trying to say about your work.

A board outside the job

This gets you the people nothing else does: the ones who live on that street and walk past it every morning watching the place change. They are as local as it gets.

• Ask the homeowner first. Plenty of people do not want a sign outside their house.
• If you put a code on it, point it at your page, not your website. Somebody walking past can watch the job coming together while you are still there.
• It only works where people walk. Nobody is scanning anything doing fifty down a main road.

And this does not clash with keeping the address out of your posts. A board is seen by people who are already standing in that street, and it comes down when you finish. A photo with the number in it goes to anybody, anywhere, and it stays up.

Three things to ask a customer

• Share the post I put up. Send it to them and say, if you are happy with it, stick it on your page. That is word of mouth with a photo of their own house attached.
• Or leave us a review. Plenty will not post anything, ever. Do not push it. Ask for the review instead, and that one is worth more anyway.
• Tag us if anyone asks in the local group. Somebody puts up “can anyone recommend a painter” and twenty people pile in. You want your name in there, put forward by somebody whose house you painted.

All three cost you one text message.

Reviews, properly

The moment

Inside forty eight hours, while they are still pleased and the place still looks new. Text the link. Do not make them go looking.

The message

Thanks again, really pleased with how it came up. If you get a minute for a review it makes a big difference to us, and it helps if you mention the prep, because that is the bit nobody ever sees.

How many, not just the score

The AI search picked a four point nine off twenty seven reviews over a perfect five off six, because a small sample proves nothing. The score still matters. Forty reviews at two and a half will not help anybody. You need both.

And reply to them

Ten seconds each. The reviewer does not expect it, and the next person reading sees somebody who turns up.

LinkedIn, if you do commercial

If you only do houses, skip this. It is a different audience: property managers, facilities managers, builders, developers, body corporates, architects. And the posts that work there look nothing like the ones that work on Facebook.

• Show the size, the scope, and the hard bits. Rope access. Specialist coatings. Working around a building that is still open. To somebody wanting their lounge done that is noise. To a builder deciding who can handle his next job, it is the whole pitch.
• Tag the builder, the developer, the paint brand. Name them properly so the link works. Their followers see the post too, and that is somebody else’s audience for free. It is the bit almost nobody bothers with.
• Do not ask for work. Go and read a few commercial painting posts and you will notice none of them do. No “message me for a quote”. They describe the job and stop. The post is the ask.

The photos still matter, and the good accounts use plenty of them. What is different is that on LinkedIn somebody actually reads the words underneath, because they are trying to work out whether you can handle their building.

Make posting part of the job

Small habits that fit around the work you already do.

Not one of these costs anything, and most of them take seconds. Answering people is the exception. That one takes real time, and it is the one worth giving it to. Together they are the difference between still doing this in six months and quietly stopping in a fortnight.

• The satisfying shot. Tape coming off a clean line, a roller loading up.
• Time lapse. It is already on your phone. Stand it on a paint tin, press it, paint a wall. That is a post and it cost you nothing.
• Answer every comment and every message. Somebody who bothers to comment is a real person, usually near you. And enquiries sit in message folders for weeks.
• Captions on if you are talking. Most people watch with the sound off.
• An album for every job. Thirty seconds to set up, and it keeps the work photos out of the family ones.
• Shoot on site, post later sitting down. Nobody expects you to caption things up a ladder.
• Let AI write the words if you hate writing. Tell it what the job was, ask for three options, change one word so it sounds like you.
• Do not guess the best time to post. Instagram tells you. Insights, then Audience, then scroll to Follower active times. It gives you the hours your own followers are actually on, day by day, which beats any rule of thumb somebody hands you.

Evenings generally do better than the middle of a working day, because that is when people are sat down with a phone. But do not sit on a good photo waiting for the right hour. You will forget.

Three posts. Every week.

Do not count content by the job. A three-day repaint and a three-week repaint will give you very different amounts to work with. Count by the calendar instead. Take photos as the job progresses, save them, and choose three to post each week.

Pick your twenty minutes

Do not wait for a spare minute. “Whenever I get a minute” usually means never. Give it a regular time: Monday morning with a coffee, Friday after packing up, or Sunday night on the couch. Twenty minutes is enough.

Wet days are what the album is for

On a day you are not painting you do not need to go hunting. Last week’s job is already sitting in its album, waiting. That is what keeping everything is for.

Where to get ideas when you are stuck

Most people run dry at some point. The quickest way back is to go and look at somebody already doing it well, and the trick is being a bit careful about who you look at.

• Other painters, anywhere but your own patch. Plenty of New Zealand painters are already putting up good work, and the rest of the world is there as well. Search painter or decorator with a city after it. Dunedin, Whangarei, Melbourne, Manchester. Big outfit or one van makes no difference, as long as they are not quoting against you next week. Take the format, not the words.
• Other trades. Builders, landscapers, tilers, roofers. A before and after works the same whatever the trade, and a format you borrow from outside painting will not look like everything else in your customers’ feed.
• Save the ones that stop you. Next time you are scrolling and a post makes you stop, hit save on it. In a month you have got your own folder of things that actually worked on you, picked by you rather than by anybody else.
• Whoever the good ones follow. Once you find one account worth watching, open the list of who they follow. Fastest shortcut there is.

You are after ideas, not posts to lift. How somebody framed a shot, how they opened a caption, what they thought was worth filming. Then do it on your own job, in your own words.

What it costs you

Almost nothing, and less than anyone will try to sell you.

The phone in your pocket. It has been enough for years.

The paid version of most of these apps is built for companies whose whole job is marketing. That is not you.

If you are going to spend anything

• Time on your Google page. Sit down once and fill it in properly. Worth more than a year of any subscription.
• A phone clamp so you can set the thing down and be in your own photos.

That is the whole shopping list.

One warning

There are companies who will run your social media for you, on a monthly fee. Two problems.

It will not sound like you. Quality craftsmanship. A passion for colour. Every painter knows in a second that nobody who has held a brush wrote that, and a customer feels it too even if they could not tell you why. Your page only works because it is obviously yours. The day it stops sounding like you, it stops doing the one job you set it up for.

And you still have to take the photos. Most of them are not coming out to your job. So you are paying every month for somebody to put captions on pictures you took yourself.

What stops people posting

Every reason, and what to do about each one.

It does not have to be flash. It does have to be real.

The work has to be good. That is why you are in this trade. But the photo just has to be clear and honest. Nobody expects your page to look like an advert, and the polished stuff often does worse, because it looks like one and people scroll past adverts.

If you hate being on camera

You do not have to be in it at all. Start with your hands, just the work. Then your voice over the top, still not on camera. Then in shot without talking. Talking to camera is last, and only if you want to. Your hands count. People can tell a real person is there.

When somebody has a go

• One bad comment feels bigger than ten good ones. That is normal, not you being soft.
• Not all of it is trolling. Sometimes another painter is pointing at something real, he has just said it badly. If it is fair, take it.
• Do not argue. You will not win and everybody watching can see you trying.
• Answer once, politely, then leave it. The person you are really answering is everybody else reading.

And it works the other way. Being useful in somebody else’s comments, especially in local groups, is one of the easiest ways to get noticed. Answer the question properly. Do not pitch.

Your crew is your content team

For anyone with painters working for them.

If you have painters working for you, this is the easiest money in the whole session.

You do not need to post at all. Your painters are standing on the best photos in the country every day and most of it goes in the bin.

• Put one of them on the page as an editor. Two minutes in the settings. They can post, they cannot lock you out, you can take it off them any time.
• Do not have them sending photos to you. You will be the bottleneck and it will stop.
• Their name goes on their own work. Whoever hits post, the caption says who did it.
• A small reward for the best one each month.
• If you want it done properly, put one of them on the clock for it. Paid like any other work, so it stops being a favour they do when they remember. Writing the words, editing a clip and getting the shots is real work, and how much of it is worth paying for is something you will only know once you can see what it brings back.

It does two other things nobody thinks about. The painters you have got stay longer, because somebody who sees his own work up with his name on it feels like the work mattered. And the ones you have not got come to you. Two more good painters is two more jobs a week.

And if it is just you at the moment, this is also how you find your first one.

How long it really takes

The honest answer, including the bit where you want to quit.

This is slow, and nobody tells you that part.

The first few weeks it is your mates and your family. Then it goes quiet, and the quiet bit is where most people stop. Around three months before you see anything real. Three to six before somebody rings you because of it.

That is not being negative. That is just what it is, and it is why this has to be a habit and not a plan.

How to tell if it is working

Some of it counts itself. Anybody who messages you through Facebook or Instagram found you on Facebook or Instagram. You did not have to ask, and that is the clearest signal you will get. Watch how many of those turn up.

The rest is guesswork. Some people will tell you straight out they saw your page. Plenty will not, and will not even remember where they saw you. So ask at the quote. How did you hear about us. It comes up in conversation anyway, and it is the only other measuring you are going to get.

One job, start to finish

Nothing here was a separate job. Every photo was taken while the work was going on anyway, and the posting happened later, sitting down.

Count it up. Six posts, one review and one share, off one ordinary job. The only decision made in advance was to take the before shot on the first morning, before the van was unloaded.