Two pros talk MARKETING

A little more than 3,000 miles separate paint pros Don Easton of Easton Painting in Woodland, CA and Rodrigo Evangelista of Masterpiece Painter in Holliston, MA. For all intents and purposes, the distance between their approaches to marketing are equally far apart. For one, sticking to word of mouth—and only word of mouth—for more than 30 years has yielded the desired results. But for the other, a hunger to grow and a willingness to learn from others resulted in a lot of ups and downs, and, more recently, the creation of a future more firmly in his control.

We’re grateful to the two pros for sharing their approaches to marketing as well as offering some thoughts and takeaways on the other’s efforts.

The owner of Easton Painting in Woodland, CA, Don Easton has honed his craftsmanship skills over the course of 35 years Specializing in historic home restoration and preservation, he loves the challenge and learning opportunity that period homes present. Currently working with a crew of two—although he's employed as many as 21—the Easton Painting team has a reputation for meticulous prep, process and inspired color selection.

Easton Painting’s approach to marketing

When it comes to describing his marketing strategy, Don Easton answers honestly, “If there’s one at all, it’s about communication and connection.”

With a website absent of updates for six years running and zero social media presence beyond that, Easton is happy to let his work speak for itself. Well, he does a bit of talking, too.

“I am 100% a people person,” he explains. “Like the houses I work on, every owner also has their own unique and interesting story. “I connect with customers through an open and honest dialogue about colors, color placement, repairs and remedies. By being direct and demonstrating knowledge, they open up about their lives and trust us to preserve their homes. In most cases, I end up becoming friends with my customers— not just for the span of the job but for years. Seriously, years.”

When he’s not working, Easton is very involved in his community. He attends weekly Rotary meetings and participates in the club’s charitable acts. He’s also extremely involved in the local youth foster program. While Easton attends meetings for both organizations, he emphasizes that he never goes as a representative of his company. “These are organizations I support because I believe in their mission. It’s not a business strategy. That’s not to say my participation doesn’t result in a bit of name recognition for me, but it’s not because I’m tossing out business cards or key chains.”

Easton adds, “I’m sure my lack of systemized marketing is like nails on a chalkboard to some, but for what I want to do—work on gorgeous old houses in a particular area—what I’m doing is delivering results that far exceed the customer’s expectations.”

Rodrigo Evangelista basically stumbled into the world of painting in 2005 when a friend, who was a painting subcontractor, handed him his business including his one and only customer, a two-person crew, some equipment and a van. The van died a week later but thanks to Evangelista’s vision and business sense, the painting operation has continued to grow and evolve and now bills more than $3 million with a team that consists of a project manager, 14 painters and up to 5 exterior subcontractors. Operating in the suburbs of Boston, the company handles residential interiors and exteriors, cabinet refinishing, HOAs and some work for general contractors.

Masterpiece Painter’s approach to marketing

Easton frequently ends up befriending people from communities where he’s working as well.

“So often, the houses we’re working on are landmarks in their communities,” he explains. “Next-door neighbors, people walking their dogs, all kinds of folks will stop and watch us at work. I’m not shy about telling them what we’re doing. It’s probably more detail than they expected but I just love what we do, and I want them to know that we have a lot of respect for the integrity and history of every home. For people who share our appreciation and love for historic homes, that conversation is far more meaningful than a Facebook post or print ad. I honestly can’t put a number on how many of those conversations have turned into jobs.”

While Easton doesn’t do any online or print advertising, his crew members do sport company shirts on the job and he puts up a lawn sign at every project. “It has our company name as well as my name and number. It’s not much but it does seem to work. I recently got a text from a lady to paint her home without ever meeting me. She chose us based on our work on a neighbor’s house and speaking to that customer. When I told her it would be two years, she said she’d wait.”

While Evangelista was new to the painting industry when he was gifted the company, he was no stranger to business. “I had been running a cleaning business for three years before I got into painting,” he says. “I operated that business following the marketing principles of business coach Brian Buffini, which is all about generating referrals by building relationships through a combination of personal notes, phone calls and pop-by visits to existing customers. That worked well for the cleaning enterprise, so I just went with the same approach for the painting business and leaned on my existing customer database. Plus, always, always, ALWAYS asking for referrals. What I told people then and still do today is this: I’m never too busy for your referral.”

For 10 years Evangelista stuck to that marketing approach and managed to steadily grow his business through referrals and a few marketing efforts. “We sent holiday cards to our database, had yard signs and lettered trucks. But I stuck close to the relationship approach.” In 2016 and 2017, he worked with two different business coaches who helped him hone his customer relationship management (CRM) business systems and introduced him to a few different marketing ideas.

“We left paint cans full of cookies at the close of every job. I created a gift bag that included a Magic Eraser cleaning tool with a note that read, ‘If this won’t clean up your wall, call us and we’ll come do it.’ We had mugs filled with goodies that I’d drop off at the houses neighboring the property we were working at with a note that read, ‘Sorry for any inconvenience created by our working to improve your neighbor’s house.’ I didn’t ask for business. I just let them know that, even as I was working on the house next door, I was aware of and respectful of them.”

Then, in 2019, Evangelista built a website, established a presence on Facebook and Instagram, and dabbled in some search engine optimization (SEO). “I did it because we had to, not because I had a master plan for it.” In 2021, he brought someone on board to grow their exterior painting business and near the close of the year, added a roofing company to his holdings.

In 2022, Evangelista tested the waters with Angie’s (which he describes as a ‘complete disaster’) and three different paint-industryspecific marketing agencies. “I tried reactivation campaigns, newsletters and campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Google. In some cases, we weren’t ready for what they had to offer and in others, our styles simply didn’t mesh. But the real takeaway was that again and again, the results fell short of the expectations set.”

Frustrated by his experiences, Evangelista sought to take things into his own hands. When someone mentioned a powerful all-in-one sales and marketing CRM platform, he did some digging and landed upon the same software used by all the marketing agencies he had previously used. Shortly after that discovery, he hired a full-time marketing person with some SEO experience, writing talent and passion for tech.

With his ‘tech nerd’ in place, a powerful platform at his disposal, and the help of a great friend and mentor in the form of Jason Phillips of Phillips’ Home Improvement, Evangelista is now successfully implementing the best of the efforts he previously tried plus some new approaches.

“The CRM automates all our processes and communications and allows us to see who visits our Facebook page, website and Instagram page, and we can see who opened our email campaigns. This lets us focus our messaging and marketing very narrowly on them,”

Points & counterpoints on marketing approaches

In compiling this article, we shared each pro’s approach to marketing with the other and invited them to comment on what they appreciated about the other’s effort. Here’s what they had to say:

Rodrigo on Don’s approach:

Both Don’s business and marketing approach are pretty unique. He’s clearly carved out his niche and earned a reputation so strong that people are willing to wait two years for him to do a job. He is—and should be—proud of that.

It’s clear that his skills as a craftsman make it possible to basically not do much in the way of active marketing. That’s really phenomenal and I think a lot of people would like to do that, but to have the combination of craftsman skills and relationship skills that he has is rare. I also appreciate that he’s clearly passionate about his work and just truly enjoys it. People want to work with people who love their jobs. I also appreciate the service aspect of his life and what he does for foster children. Service is also important in my life. The fact that Don understands that you get from giving makes me respect him all the more.

Don on Rodrigo’s approach: he explains. “Every week we analyze what we’re doing and how it’s working and just keep tuning things for better results.”

Wow. I have huge respect for what Rod is doing and how he’s gone about acquiring his knowledge through trial and error.

I really appreciate how he’s found a way to be in constant contact with his customers. I’d like to do that, but I’m not interested in taking on a lot of what he’s doing. His business goals appear to be more about expansion and acquisition, so this approach really works for that. But I’m in a different camp when it comes to how I run my business and what I do and don’t want to do. I just love what I do: being a craftsman. I’m not looking for big gains in terms of hitting big billings goals or taking on a bigger crew. But, again, I get what he’s doing and I really admire the steps he’s taken to get himself exactly where he wants to be at this moment.

As for new efforts, the company is now sending monthly emails to their database and pushing out regular ‘we’re in your neighborhood’ postcards that reach homes within a 1-mile radius of every job. It mentions a 10% discount and includes a URL for a specific landing page, allowing them to track what’s working and where. In addition, the company mailed its first-ever flyers for exterior paint work in February, and later this year will be participating in the Valpak coupon program and appearing in Best Pick Reports magazine.

Evangelista is also considering a billboard and plans to launch a ‘Club 50’ initiative that will reward anyone who makes a referral that converts into a job with a crisp $50 bill.

“It certainly hasn’t been the most direct path to our current marketing approach,” he says, “but I did a lot of learning along the way. I’m grateful that I was able to accumulate all that knowledge and I’m excited to see what God has in store for us.” ■

Q: How do I know when to change my cartridge and/or filter on a reusable respirator?

A:This is probably one of the most common questions we receive. While there are many factors unique to each situation, I can, however, offer you a general framework for how an answer can be found.

The first step is to make sure you have an OSHAcompliant respiratory protection program put together for your jobsite. This is where you need to record how and when to replace respirator cartridges and filters. Not only is this required by OSHA, it also takes the guesswork out of figuring out when to change a cartridge or filter.

Let’s start by defining filters and cartridges since they have vastly different methods of determining when to replace them. Filters are designed to help remove certain particles from the air such as dust, debris, and spray paint mist. To determine when you need to replace a filter, apply the ‘three Ds’ rule: If the filter is dirty, damaged, or difficult to breathe through, it’s time for a change.

Cartridges, on the other hand, are designed to help remove chemical vapors or gases (or a combination of those) from the air you breathe. This could be organic vapors from paints or perhaps acid gases from cleaning agents. To determine when to replace a cartridge, you need to find out how long it will last—also known as its ‘service life.’ This can vary based on factors such as the contaminants you are being exposed to, what the concentration levels are, the temperature and humidity, and even how heavy you are breathing.

To determine the cartridge ‘service life,’ you first need to know what you’re being exposed to, so start by consulting the Material Safety Data Sheet for potential airborne hazards. You’ll then need to conduct a hazard assessment to determine concentration levels. A hazard assessment should be done either by an industrial hygienist, your insurer, or through OSHA’s free On-Site

Consultation Program, where an OSHA representative will visit your jobsite to assess it at no cost. I frequently recommend this service to contractors since it’s free, plus OSHA is not there to issue citations.

Once your hazard assessment is complete, enter that information into the 3M Select and Service Life calculator. The tool is free and can help calculate the number of hours of use your specific 3M cartridge will offer before requiring replacement (note that the software can only be used for 3M cartridges). You can use this service life to create a ‘change schedule,’ which is then recorded in a respiratory protection program. Keep in mind that airborne hazards may contain particulates and chemicals. This would require a combination cartridge, which means a carbon cartridge with a particulate filter attached to it. Some cartridges have a filter attached to it that cannot be removed. If that filter needs to be replaced, you’ll need to throw out the entire combination cartridge, even if the cartridge portion has not met its service life. Other combination cartridges have detachable filters. On these, when the filter needs to be replaced, you can simply change the filter and continue to use the cartridge while it’s still within its service life.

And on one final note, situational or environmental changes may require changing a cartridge sooner than expected. If you are following all of the guidelines in your respiratory protection program but still smell, taste, or experience irritation from a gas or vapor on the job, leave the jobsite immediately, replace the cartridge or cartridge/filter combination, and re-check the seal of the respirator to your face.

To learn more, visit: 3M.com/RespiratorsReusable For the 3M Select and Service Life Calculator, visit: 3M.com/ServiceLife

JASON LUNN is a 3M application engineering specialist for safety products. He oversees the training and education for a wide variety of safety products, including respirators. Here, he tackles a question that painting professionals often ask about reusable respirators.