WILSON & LEVER
Insights / Marketing
THE PAINTING BUSINESS PLAYBOOK
Learn to calculate the lead generation requirements for your businesses revenue goal
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Know your numbers and never run out of work again.
Ft. Door-to-door marketing
If you've ever felt the anxiety of an empty production calendar, you know that relying on word-of-mouth is not a strategy. Door-to-door marketing, when executed as a systematic process rather than a random activity, provides the predictable lead flow required to scale.
Know the numbers
Create the plan
Build the team
Disclaimer: The figures below are examples. Use data from your own business to calculate your targets and projections. This information is also calculated with door-to-door marketing in mind. If you use another form of marketing replace the lead/hr ratio with cost per lead.
01 / KNOW THE NUMBERS
Start with your revenue goal and four inputs.
Revenue goal
$500,000
Avg job size
$4,000
% of leads that convert into estimates
60%
Est. closing rate
35%
Lead / hr ratio
1/2 (1 lead every 2 hours of marketing)
What does each number mean?
Closing rate = jobs booked ÷ completed estimates. Average job size = booked revenue ÷ jobs booked. Lead-to-estimate rate = completed estimates ÷ leads. Track every stage consistently, including cancellations.
02 / CREATE THE PLAN
Your revenue goal becomes a lead target.
Step 1. Revenue / job size = # of jobs needed
$500,000 ÷ $4,000
125 jobs
Step 2. Jobs / closing rate = # of estimates needed
125 ÷ 35%, rounded up
358 estimates
Step 3. Estimates / Est/lead ratio = # of leads needed
358 ÷ 60%, rounded up
597 leads
Step 4. Number of leads × time to attain a lead = marketing hours needed
597 x 2 hrs
1,194 marketing hours total
ADD A PLANNING BUFFER
625 leads → 1,250 hours
Include a 20% friction multiplier in your goals to account for rain days, no-shows, and equipment failure.
12.0
Leads
Weekly target / 52 weeks
7.2
Estimates
24.0
Hours marketing
Uses the buffered plan. Round up for weekly staffing. Schedule marketing ahead of the production weeks it needs to fill.
03 / WATCH THE COST
Track the cost of a booked customer.
Cost per estimate
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Marketing spend ÷ completed estimates.
Total marketing spend divided by total jobs booked.
Lifetime Value (LTV) / CAC
Total profit (NOT revenue) a client brings in / by the cost to atain the client
Click here to read how increasing your sales closing percentage impacts the economics of your business.
The power of your sales %
When is a sales % too low? Can it be too high? Click here to learn if your sales % is healthy and how it impacts the economics of your business.
Once you understand your acquisition costs, you can then begin layering in strategies for repeat purchases and long-term customer retention.
04 / CHOOSE YOUR CHANNEL
Why door-to-door?
Door-to-door is the one of the highest ROI marketing strategies for painting companies. You're not competing with the noise of Meta. You also have a chance to generate demand in person, you don't have to rely on someone already knowing they need painting. And the best part? It has incredibly predictable results.
The key is consistency. A neighborhood should be touched multiple times through lawn signs, flyers, and personal contact before you consider it "farmed." Our team would knock neighborhoods 7 times a summer before calling it thoroughly marketed.
How do I hit my weekly marketing targets when I still need to run the business?
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Build a Marketing Team!
05 / BUILD THE TEAM
You cannot knock every door. Eventually, you will need a team of marketers, as owners we simply don't have the hours in a day to do it alone after a certain point.
RELATED RESOURCE
The best teams aren't managed; they are led through clear expectations and robust feedback loops that evaluate performance honestly.
06 / CLOSE THE LOOP
Start knocking.
Information is not power; execution is. You have the numbers, the math, and the strategy. The only thing left to do is to get into the neighborhood and start the work.
Speaking from expereince, weekly tragets must be treated as requirments and not suggestions. If a plane flys a couple of degrees off course for a few hours it ends up in a different state, if your marketing preforms a couple of degrees off course you may just end up in a lower tax bracket.
Remember, sales and marketing is a long game. The leads you generate today are the fuel for your growth tomorrow.
Final Takeaway - Growth needs both acquisition and retention.
Know what it costs to win a customer—and what that customer contributes over time.
Making scaling unrestricted for trades companies through optimization.
Do you have questions about scaling your business?
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Submit them below.