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Painting businesses are always in demand. People hire painters when they’re selling a home or renovating an existing one. Business owners need painters for exterior signage, interior offices, or communal areas. Bars and restaurants often install colorful murals to make their spaces attractive to customers.
Launching a successful painting business requires a financial commitment, training, and hard work, but the payoff is a flexible job that allows you to be creative and bring joy and beauty to other people. Here’s a step-by-step guide to starting your own painting business.
1. Define the painting services you’ll offer
The services you offer determine every aspect of your business, including operational structure, marketing activities, and financial considerations. Here are some common services offered by painting businesses. Consider what feels realistic for you and the type of services that are in demand in your area.
Residential painting: This can include houses, condos, or apartments, either rentals overseen by property managers or owner-occupied homes. Residential painting can encompass exterior or interior work, or involve activities like installing wallpaper and weatherproofing outdoor spaces.
Commercial painting: You’ll work with business clients and commercial property owners. Properties zoned for commercial use include bars and restaurants, retail spaces, or offices.
Mural painting: Murals are large works of art commissioned by business or commercial clients. These can be pieces on an inside wall or public art installations.
Consulting: If you have a knack for color and design, you might be suited to become a consultant and work with interior decorators, business owners, or homeowners on renovation recommendations.
These businesses can have some overlap. For example, painting an office space uses similar techniques as painting interior rooms in a house, and a consultant might also be hired on to do the actual painting. Different kinds of services also require certain skill sets. For example, some people excel at detail-oriented tasks, making them ideal for painting rooms with ornate molding or complicated decor.
Choose the focus of your business based on your skills and interests and where you’re likely to find your first clients. You can always add to or update your services over time.
2. Crea un business plan
After determining your ideal painting business model, create a business plan. This is a document that outlines the structure and aims of your business, along with insights into how you plan on reaching your goals. A business plan also serves as a blueprint for your marketing strategy.
While this doesn’t have to be formal when you’re just starting out, it’s a good source of truth for your goals and plans. Things to consider including are:
Your focus or niche: Be as specific as possible about the focus of your painting business. If you’re targeting residences, you might focus on rental properties.
Your target customer: Identifying ideal customers is key to business growth. You might work directly with homeowners or real estate agents, as a fresh paint job often increases the potential market value of a property. In other cases, a landlord or property manager might contract with your business to repaint rental units.
Market and competitor research: Doing competitor research can help you understand where you fit into your local business landscape and ways to differentiate yourself. For example, you might get a sense of what to charge customers for specific jobs.
Your budget: New businesses require a certain amount of capital to fund their initial purchase of equipment and supplies. Consider doing several budget forecasts for different lengths of time (for example, three months, six months, and a year) to account for different scenarios and the budget you can commit to.
Your team structure: Determine whether your business will be a solo endeavor or if you plan on bringing on coworkers. Having additional team members can make bigger projects like exterior house painting easier and safer. However, hiring subcontractors adds extra steps, expenses, and paperwork.
Goals: Your goals should align with how you define success for your business. If your preferred metric is sales, you might track revenue and number of customers. Focus on a mix of attainable goals and stretch goals, so your business plan can grow along with you.
3. Budget for equipment and tools
Painters need to buy a significant amount of equipment to do their job correctly. The cost of things like paint are often built into the fee you charge a client. However, owning your own tools also gives you an advantage over competitors.
Painting equipment falls into several categories:
Materials: Paint/paint samples, sealant, varnish, wallpaper, paste
Strumenti: Pennelli di varie dimensioni, vaschette di miscelazione, rulli, raschietti, carta vetrata, secchi
Accessories: Tape, drop cloths, measuring tapes/rulers, levels, ladders, scaffolding, clothing scrubs
Safety equipment: Goggles, masks/respirators, gloves
Attrezzature per la pulizia: asciugamani, stracci, soluzioni detergenti
Decide which materials you’ll build into client costs and which make sense to include in your general expenses. For example, it’s common for a painter to cover their own tools, but might they might build materials costs into the client’s costs.
Painters with more niche businesses can opt to buy additional specialized equipment. For example, painters who focus on building exteriors may want to invest in sprayers that can cover bigger spaces or specialized equipment that can reach higher points.
4. Develop and maintain your skills
Becoming a painter doesn’t happen overnight. Many people opt to enroll in a vocational school or apprenticeship program to gain experience before stepping out on their own. Keeping your skills fresh ensures you’re up to date on efficient methods, trends, and techniques, which keeps your service stand out to clients. This experience is also required to obtain licenses in many states or local municipalities.
Painters also need to obtain certifications so they can operate their business legally. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) program is required education in the United States. Other organizations may offer painting-specific certifications that give your business credibility.
5. Determine administrative and operational considerations
When you start a business, buttoning up your legal obligations should be one of the first things on your to-do list. For example, certain states in the U.S. require painters to register their businesses before operating.
Formalizza la struttura della tua attività
It’s recommended to incorporate your business before launching. This means creating a legal entity like an LLC (limited liability company) to separate all of your work-related expenses, transactions, and income from personal ones. A legal business entity also protects your personal assets in the event you are sued.
Creating an LLC for your business offers several advantages. This makes it easier for you to operate and work with other businesses as a vendor. From a financial perspective, it changes the way your income is taxed. Many states also require painting businesses to register with them.
Other businesses opt to become an S-Corp or a C-Corp, which have different structures and regulations. It’s best to talk to a lawyer that specializes in incorporating to find out which option is right for you.
Porta un'assicurazione completa
Insurance is a must for a painting business. There are four different types of insurance you should consider carrying. Work with an insurance professional to ensure you’re properly covered for where you’re located.
Liability insurance: This protects you in the event of damage or lawsuits. For example, if you accidentally spill paint on something valuable, or if a client doesn’t like the outcome of a job and decides to sue, you’re protected.
Worker’s compensation insurance: If you hire any kind of employee, you may be required to carry this kind of insurance, which provides financial support (like paying medical bills) if employees are hurt on the job.
Business insurance: This insurance protects the physical aspects of your business, so you have recourse if your tools and materials are lost or damaged.
Auto insurance: Given that most painters transport their tools—and themselves or staff—in a vehicle, most states require painting business owners to keep auto insurance.
Finally, make sure to create a separate business bank account and credit card for any finances related to your work. Not only will this make the tax season easier, but this can also protect your personal assets from legal action.
Note: This article should not be construed as professional financial or legal advice. Refer to local regulations and a legal or financial professional to understand your obligations.
6. Crea un sito Web
A dedicated website for your business conveys a sense of professionalism while also allowing people to find and hire you. Having a web presence also makes your business easier to discover online and helps clients feel more comfortable working with you.
Things to include on a website include:
Your services: Focus on the value and outcome of your services and be clear about what clients get with each option you offer.
An About Us page: This is an opportunity to highlight your experience to build trust with potential customers.
Testimonianze: Validation from past clients can make someone feel more confident working with you.
Area(s) where you operate: It’s also helpful to create a Google Business Profile for yourself, so clients can discover you in local searches.
Examples of your work: Like testimonials, photos help add legitimacy to your business.
Your contact info: Whether an email, phone number, or contact form, give visitors a way to reach out.
As your business grows, you might add separate pages for a blog or add a newsletter sign-up form.
7. Work on your branding
Your brand conveys your mission and values and communicates what your business stands for. This includes tangible things like your:
Many businesses also come up with a brand slogan, which is a short phrase encapsulating what makes your business stand out. Branding also includes things like how you speak to customers and about your business. Each of these elements give your brand a personality, which makes your business more unique and memorable and builds loyalty and trust.
Prova il generatore di nomi aziendali gratuito
8. Define your pricing
Pricing your services is one of the most important steps for any business. You want to charge enough to make a profit, but not so much that people will hire a competitor that charges less. You also need to make sure to take certain things into account, such as:
Cost of materials: Don’t forget additional expenses, such as website hosting or painting equipment.
Location: Pricing can vary based on where your business is based. Painters who work in New York City or San Francisco, which have higher costs of living and real estate prices, can charge more.
Business structure: If you need to pay additional workers’ wages and account for things like payroll tax this will require you to charge clients more.
Scope of services: Painting a few rooms in a house will require less labor and materials than an entire house.
Consider offering packages at several price points or custom packages, so a customer can choose pricing that best suits their needs.
9. Establish your marketing tactics
Promoting your business in an intentional way will help to grow your customer base. Keep your target customer in mind when making a marketing strategy. Some easy marketing activities to start with include:
Tapping into your personal network: Word-of-mouth recommendations are one of the best ways to get clients.
Soliciting testimonials: Sharing positive feedback from satisfied customers on social media or your website shows prospective customers proof of the quality of your work.
Launching social media channels: For painters, visual social media channels like Instagram or TikTok are great ways to demonstrate your skills.
Creating an email newsletter: Keep in touch with customers or potential customers by sending out periodic newsletter updates about your business. You can also include coupons or discounts on future work.
See more tips for marketing your services
10. Define opportunities for growth
Once you’ve launched your business and worked with a variety of customers, you’ll likely come across opportunities for growth. These can include:
Providing workshops or classes: One of the best ways to grow your business is to share your expertise with others. You can schedule virtual or in-person workshops or classes on topics relating to painting, like “How to choose the right paint color” or “How to weatherproof your deck.”
Creating guides or case studies: Written materials can also establish your authority in a certain area. You might put together a guide to choosing kinds of paint for different surfaces or a case study describing how you tackled a challenging situation and made a client happy.
Content creation: Create a time-lapse video of you painting a room or a mural, or take before and after photos and describe how you transformed a space for the better. Post these on social media to grow your audience and partnership opportunities.
Adding services: Working with customers is a good way to determine ways to expand your business. You might naturally discover niches in decorating or painting in which you excel. Or survey your customers to see what services they’d like to book.
Expand your team: If all goes well, you might need to hire additional employees or subcontractors so you can fulfill customer demand. Keep in mind that governments often have strict laws around what constitutes a freelancer and businesses can be held liable if they misclassify a worker.
It’s perfectly normal to find yourself refining your business plan or goals in response to new information. For example, you might discover that people are more interested in you installing wallpaper than they are painting, or gravitate toward your color consultations. Being open to adjusting your business is a great way to keep your options open and build a successful, lasting business.