Marketing

Marketing is the work you do to get people interested in your work.

First Gear = “Raving Fans”

Why you might be best off without a marketing budget

There is an old adage that says, "Every year we waste half of the marketing budget, but we can never figure out which half." I reckon that's true, so when I was in business, I never spent money on marketing. I figured the best thing that I could do was make every customer I dealt with a raving fan of my work.

It worked out well for me. In 2006 I bought a business that had existed since 2001 (I was bold enough to move half way across the country and go into a brand new trade that I frankly didn't know anything about. But not bold enough to try to start that from nothing.) I grew the business 30 to 50% every year, year over year, through a downturn or not, until it was 15 times the size in year 9 than it was that first year with this strategy.

I read a lot of books, and I'm probably annoying to be around because I'm always recommending a book for this or that, but "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt was really influential. That book helped me identify that my bottleneck was people to work with that would install coatings properly and not leave a mess anywhere. So I tried to apply the raving fan methodology to my company as an employer. I was less successful there because, again, I'm probably annoying to be around.

In addition to the practical success that I experienced, there are good theoretical reasons to grow your business aggressively through word of mouth alone. First off, it's free. Second off, there's nothing more disappointing than somebody that makes a flashy impression and doesn't deliver the goods. I think the ladies call that being a “douche bag”. It always felt better for me and for customers to be like a hidden gem of a restaurant. The last reason is I did a lot of decorative concrete work, which I grew to not like as much as coatings because it was always imperfect and subjective. I bring that up because customers' trust in me was really important when their floor was a different shade of brown than they were imagining, or there was a blob of stain somewhere that they weren't anticipating. If you're installing industrial coatings, this isn't an issue.

Second Gear = “Influencing Influencers”

If your company's ability to serve customers is exceeding the number of customers calling you, even with all of your past customers bragging about you at every chance that they get, you probably oughta target more influential customers. That is, the people that you want to coat floors for might already be paying designers, architects, and builders for their opinions. If their opinions include a high regard for you and your work, you'll have a lot more work to do.

The most common mistake people make when they're trying to make raving fans of architects, designers, and builders is discounting their work. Before you do that, ask yourself “Why a Mercedes Benz is so much more expensive than a Toyota?” I'm not going to go super deep here, but just understand that value is something that exists in the minds humans. If you're uncertain that your work is valuable, it's much less likely that anyone else will become certain that your work is valuable. Instead of providing a commodity at a lower rate, come up with something really clever that makes them look good to their customers.

Third Gear = “Own That Real Estate”

OK, let's say that every customer that you've got to work with thinks as highly of you as they could think of a floor-coating contractor. And let's say by now, all the best general contractors, architects, and designers know who you are and know that you're the best. If those things are truly squared away and you still have more space on your calendar than you have customers lined up, you may now start “marketing” in the classic sense.

Success leaves clues. Pattern what works. What one thing does every effectively marketed business have in common? They all occupy a specific piece of real estate in the mind of the customer. The best examples I can think of are in the car business.

Are BMWs really the ultimate driving machine?

Every year, BMW sells 5X as many cars as Porsche, yet there are more than twice as many members of Porsche Club of America than BMW Car Club.

Are Volvos safer than other cars?

15 other manufacturers earned more IIHS Top Safety Pick+ awards than Volvo in 2026

This is automatic when you're building the business via word of mouth. Every new person that you go look at a job for knows you as the company that actually worth trusting because of the referral.

Here’s my personal example: my core story I had as an installer is close to what I have as a manufacture: Expert.

I am more trustworthy because I work harder at becoming an expert than anyone else.

The CleanPrime Epoxy Process is unique, and clearly better than the industry standard when explained. That explanation can become part of the unique real estate you occupy in the customer’s mind. When you explain adhesion, you become the authority on it to them. But there has to be something worth explaining. Since customers hate dust and so do the physics of adhesion, can you see how little might differentiate you more fully than eliminating dust?

The last job I sold and managed at the company I sold, was for an old retired guy that had all the time in the world and no income. He got quotes from two other installers between when I met with them and when he signed my proposal because he had made his mind up he would get three prices. My quote was $1,800 higher on a 400 sq ft garage, and it was easy for him to understand why. My story was different, and it made more sense. More about that in the Sales section…