starting a small Interior Painting Business (health insurance, debt, licenses, budget)
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Hello,
I am looking into starting a small interior painting business in southern New Jersey. I am 50 years old, have little debt and I am anxious to start the new chapter in my life. I am currently in a food production management position that I am prepared to leave. Can you please give me some advice on how to advertise the business? I was thinking about placing flyers in mail boxes but have heard that technically it is illegal. Should I go door to door and hand out business cards? The liability insurance is obviously a concern too along with the health insurance. Can you please give me some advice? I would greatly appreciate it!
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Check with the city or cities you will serve. It is illegal (federal law) to leave anything in a mailbox, but some cities like ours require a permit (with background check) to go door-to-door and it is enforced. Most people will not hire a painter or anyone else that comes to work in their house without references, licensing, insurance and bonding, and will also check Angie's List, Yelp and other review websites. When I had a business, my liability insurance was about $3,000/year. Perhaps start with friend or relatives and use them as references so you can say "references available upon request" on your advertising, along with your license #, and the words "Licensed, bonded and insured."
Hello,
I am looking into starting a small interior painting business in southern New Jersey. I am 50 years old, have little debt and I am anxious to start the new chapter in my life. I am currently in a food production management position that I am prepared to leave. Can you please give me some advice on how to advertise the business? I was thinking about placing flyers in mail boxes but have heard that technically it is illegal. Should I go door to door and hand out business cards? The liability insurance is obviously a concern too along with the health insurance. Can you please give me some advice? I would greatly appreciate it!
Keep your day job.....start painting part time to see if you can build a business. FYI, interior painting is something a lot of people think they can do (homeowner to handyman) so you have a lot of competition! Every time a big box retailer runs a paint commercial notice they promote the homeowner enjoying the benefits of their new paint at the end of the commercial?
Hello,
I am looking into starting a small interior painting business in southern New Jersey. I am 50 years old, have little debt and I am anxious to start the new chapter in my life. I am currently in a food production management position that I am prepared to leave. Can you please give me some advice on how to advertise the business? I was thinking about placing flyers in mail boxes but have heard that technically it is illegal. Should I go door to door and hand out business cards? The liability insurance is obviously a concern too along with the health insurance. Can you please give me some advice? I would greatly appreciate it!
The first thing I would do is find out the laws regarding contracting for work as a trade contractor. It is in fact illegal for you to go paint people's houses without proper licenses and insurance. I don't know about your state but California any work over $500 parts and labor total requires a contractor license.
License and insurance are a must, as already stated.
As for advertising, Craigslist is a good place to start. Set up a website for yourself including your contact info and some brief info about yourself and business. 90+% of people search for services online. Also, invest in business cards and flyers (Vistaprint is a good company for this). Talk to the owners of your local mom and pop hardware stores and see if they'll let you display your cards on their counter.
Fair warning: There is a good chance that you won't make a lot of money for the first few months, so either keep your day job and paint part time or have enough savings to cover your expenses for 6 months or so. Another warning: Starting a painting or handyman business is pretty much 24 hour work. When you aren't working you'll be looking for work, and when you get done working for the day you'll be looking for work. That being said, it's very rewarding.
You can start the business with a fairly low investment, basically your insurance, license, and basic tools. However, you will need to reinvest as time goes by for better equipment and things like lights and a good sprayer. Don't write off exterior painting either, as it can be a good money maker, and look into expanding into pressure washing.
Finally, word of mouth goes a long way. Don't try to get rich off of one customer, and treat every job like it's your first one. If you leave a trail of happy customers you will get great referrals. I had to shut down my handyman business about 3 years ago due to health and family reasons, and I still get 2 or 3 phone calls a week.
Feel free to pm me if you have any questions about starting off on a bootstrap budget.
My husband and I started up our own lawncare biz, but we had income coming in while starting it up. Consider door hangers, they can be good advertisement and afforable (staples does them I know) We got a good deal on biz cards, start leaving them everywhere and give to family or friends to hand out. Just need your name out there. We also bought, from staples, custom car magnets. 2 magnets cost only $20, again on sale. If your able to put signs in your/families yards, you can also do a custom sign for advertisement, which is great if you know anyone on a busy road. We havent done door to door, though we should but feel awkward about it.
yes, highly suggest to get insured as you are inside peoples homes and anything could happen. We also carry our own health insurance due to being self employed. Possibly you could get a subsidy though once your fully self employed depending on income. Also, from experience leaving anything in mailboxes is illegal (though we got business from it) a post office lady called us about it so we stopped.
Just startup small, work on getting the word out and as you build up then you can consider quitting that job of yours. Just dont quit to soon!
Thank you for the very helpful suggestions! I really appreciate it. I want to quit my day job in the worst way!
I would work for a Painting Company first to learn the ins and outs. The shortcuts to painting otherwise you won't make any money trying to learn it all yourself. This is what everyone does. Make sure to work hard, work for minimum wage or not much more since you are not qualified and later if that company gets too much work, maybe they will pass that onto you.
And after that, then you can go take your State Test. I think it's about $1000 or so dollars and you may need to go to a class or something to do that. I'd check on the cost of licensing and the bond you need
After passing that, I would go give estimates to people on business cards. I mean literally go to homes which seem to need painting and put a price on the back of your card. It takes time but costs nothing and I feel will produce more results.
Another thing you might want to do instead of painting is pressure washing. Either rent or buy a pressure washer, get a painting contractors license so you can say you are a painter, then go offer to water blast some mobile homes in a mobile home park. Do cement in the areas where mold grows...we haven't done this with our painting company yet, but when it was slowing down, we wondered if we'd have to resort to that. Instead I got a job 2 days a week, 18 hr shifts which is really easy and it gets me away from painting with my husband. I am paid $10 per hour to stay with a developmentally disabled female in her house. It's called Supportive Living and it's very easy, almost like not working. My hubbys been a painting contractor for about 25 years. I owned my own business for about 15 years and did public relations and marketing for our County prior.
He doesn't advertise, works off of referrals nor do we have a website. With the Affordable Care Act, at this point, we are not sure that he needs to work more than he does anyhow.
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