Admittedly, I am a bit slow about responding to questions… but I do try to answer all your calls for business help. I know it's stressful to start a new Faux Painting Business, it does take time, patience and the passion to succeed. I have been helping Jennifer again…
Hi Debra!! I just want to thank you for all of your advice. It's been really helpful.
I'm still in the process of converting my website but its coming around (slowly but surely)
And…… I FINALLY have my first mural job lined up. They actually found me through the pet portraits I do. It's for a doggie daycare franchise and they are opening one near me.
They are wanting their lobby painted. It's going to be a pretty extensive job because what they're wanting is really detailed. The biggest wall is probably about 25 ft long by 10 ft high and then they are wanting some side walls done too… I don't know even where to begin as far as the estimating goes!
photo credit: jason.lengstorf
I called around a couple of months ago to some other muralists in my area and they charge anywhere from $75-$100 per hour. Never have done something this big, I'm not sure how long it will take!!
Anyways, I went ther Monday for my "free 1-hour consultation", took some pictures of the wall, and am now planning on doing a "mock-up" of what the wall with look like using the photos I took.
When you are dealing with the payment is is best to have them pay 50% first and the rest when you're done. If so, how do you take the risk of showing them your ideas? How do you know they aren't going to just use you for the ideas and then go to another artist?
I'm so lost!!! It's overwelming but I know once I get this one done I'll feel more confident in comfortable in quoting prices and getting what I want out of the deal. I'm just afraid I'm going to do something I'm going to regret!
Like I said, you have been a great help and your honestly is much appreciated. Jennifer
And my answer……………………….
Hi Jennifer…
I don't charge by the hour… ever… it scares customers in my opinion.
I'm not a plumber, I am an artist… and it takes whatever time it
takes.
I charge by the job… if the job has more than one area… I give
estimates on each different area and then include a break in the price
if they have me do all the work at one time.
The idea of doing mock ups on actual photos is a great idea… my clients
loved that… they could really visualize the job.
I never asked for an up front fee… I know other artists that do… but
I always waited for payment until the customer was perfectly happy and
overjoyed to write the check.
Don't ever feel like you are risking anything by showing your ideas to
customers. You need to get over the feeling that someone is going to
steal something from you… it's not worth the energy… and makes you
seem shady.
I just helped someone do an estimate for her first "real" job and she is
doing about as much footage as you are… the fee is $1000, and she provides
all the supplies. The walls are clean and painted with a base coat and all
the art work will be off the walls and furniture removed from the area…
This is all part of the contract.
Congratulations on your Faux Painting Business!
Related Faux Painting Business Estimates Article.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I helped take a pavingstone company, Pacific Pavingstone from a small operation to a 200 employee INC 500 business, I know about about the home improvement business.
Some pointers.
1) get a BBB membership and have fantastic customer service. We used the fact that we had a AAA rating in our presenttion (along with our main competitors BBB reports that ranged from D to BB, sold the job off that alone 85% of the time
2) Use a website, but go local as if someone wants a fuax painting in New York and you live in Hollywood that is not going to help you. We spent money for google adwords (as you can focus it to only get clicks from certain cities) Just using that we increased our internet sales to 2.5 million a year!
3. Educate your client, this will always help versus pressuring your client, dont force the sale, get them interested in it. You can use all kinds of tools to get them interested, show profiles of your work, get them talking about what they want, give them a suggestion here and there, ask for their input, show them different styles of paint or themes