plainpainter

Firstly, Scott, when I say testbed - let me give you some background about me. If I bought a brand New Chevy Express 2500 Van - I'd get so god darn cooky about the paint finish, I'd probably hire some college chick to buff the paint with her bare buttocks with pure carnauba wax in an attempt to maintain a flawless finish. So the thought of violating it with truck lettering - or the thought of changing the lettering would violate every inner workings of my soul. But when I buy a used POS - suddenly I get a healthy attitude of not caring that much anymore. And that's what I mean by test bed - my buddy comes up with an idea, 5 minutes later we're tearing the old stickers off, denature alcohol cleaning the side of the van, and slapping the new stickers on. It's exactly what I mean. The only thing I would consider Brand Naming with what I do is my company name - just the words - anything else in my opinion can change. I have this friend who is a decorator/designer and she starts telling me about how she wants to keep consistency about her 'brand' and I just roll my eyes. Brand Naming in an industry where you have 200 competitors in a 10 mile radius makes utterly no sense. As long as my company name doesn't change - I am cool with anything else - I'll change my message 10X a year if I have to. I am constantly thinking what the heck will a customer remember when driving down the road? Scott I have owned that truck/van for 5 years now {god has it been that long?} And the first 3-4 years I had magnets on the sides, then in the 4th year I had it 'professionally' lettered. And the truck lettering you see on the truck in the photos was done back in April of this year. I'll be honest - I haven't gotten one job directly attributable to my truck lettering until this year when this latest lettering style went up. That's 4 straight years, Scott. This year I got close to 15k in sales directly from my truck lettering alone. Coincidence? Absolutely not. My friend is a cooky kind of whimsical guy who had just survived moving his shop into a new location. He's the kind of guy that 5 years ago decided to go to work doing boat canvas and sign work after his other careers with just 4 boxes of tools and his built a freaking mad shop to this point. At the point I met him - I was helping him get to the next stage of doing his sign business, he still had a 32 meg computer driving his cutter - he bought a used 'server' for $100 - I networked his machines and even spotted him the money to buy new software, he didn't have a dime to his name at this point. Now look at how his business is progressing - it's like wow. So having him as my friend has been an extremely valuable asset to my business and has allowed me to really acquire a much higher understanding of marketing and attracting customers. We're constantly talking advertizing/marketing and constantly testing things out, his buddy is a huge sign guy who does all the billboard advertizing in Fenway park whom we tap for information all the time. All this has allowed me to really understand what's going on. So to finally answer your question, truck lettering can be huge source of income - I can't tell you how often this season folks have told me about my truck lettering and how they were able to find me even 3 months later online because of my truck. So to really answer your question, if you aren't getting the jobs from your lettering - DO NOT ASSUME TRUCK LETTERING IS NOT GREAT ADVERTIZING! Keep changing that truck lettering until something works. If you aren't getting jobs - then you aren't lettering the truck well. I don't know how to tell you how to go about getting it done well. I couldn't pay a sign guy to do what my friend has done - not to mention since he's a buddy he has a vested interest in my success, without him - I'd never be as successful as I have become.

Nah, I'm a ***** - I had my 24 footer on top of that deck resting along the gutter. That's a shed dormer roof with maybe a 2/12 pitch, it's so flat you could have a ballroom dance up there. But for some reason I was real winded and spooked to just get up on that roof that day and clean that gutter that way instead. I don't know why, I've done tons of roofing with roofs as steep as 16/12 pitch. But I've learned to respect my intuition so I didn't get on the roof and instead just walked that 28 footer the entire length of the house.

It's a magnet sign of a Mini Cooper with my buddies business name on it - he does all the marketing and truck lettering on my vehicle. He kind of slapped it on as a joke - and if you knew me, you'd understand my laissez-faire laid back attitude of not giving a hoot. But I did try to take it off a couple of weeks ago, and it seems it's stuck for good. Oh well, LOL. It's a wonder to me that Van still works to this day, it's going to be 15 years old next year. And it's still going strong. It's a test vehicle, so I don't really care at this point what's stuck on it.

blah, blah, blah - keep it coming Mike, this is the kind of nonsense talk I am talking about - this helps the market grow at a slow and steady pace. For your information, if anything the shopping #'s are off from last season - it's all the other data coming in. And the dollar is losing value compared to other currencies, and the fact the majority of junk that Americans purchase comes from China, and the fact that their currency value is locked onto ours unlike most other currencies - guarantees our dollar will buy the equivalent amount of goods as we were last year.

What are you calling a Cooper's hawk - the first set of photos, or the video?

I love you Chap Man. BTW - how's that florida market these days?

Those Red Tailed Hawks really are amazing raptors! Those critters weigh an honest 4 lbs. And for birds that's alot of weight. I didn't know you had Red Tails so far South in Arkansas - I thought they were a New England Hawk.

Here is an interesting viewpoint to consider. 80 Percent Chance of Market Crash Next Year, Says John Hussman: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

Check out this guy 'painttofish' covered porch restoration with Benjamin Moore Hardwood stain. He did this in August '08 Staining exotic hardwoods - Paint Talk - Professional Painting Contractors Forum Now check out his posts that he has just done recently and look at those boards over a year later!!! ipe deck staining - Paint Talk - Professional Painting Contractors Forum Does this stain look this good because it's covered, or is there something to this product?

Rick, I am not criticizing what you did - I was thinking out loud, that's all. My point of spread rates has nothing to do with cost, I am just wondering if the performance of the product is a function of far it's been spread out. I am just trying to reconcile this other guy's work on another forum - it seems to be way outperforming what my intuition would guess. Probably just a fluke, who knows. I look forward to you using Defy on your whole deck, if there is a waterborne that is a workable product and delivers a good life, I'd be more than happy to dump oils. I think water based stains have a lot more profit potential. I am looking forward to how you think it is to work with Defy, as I hear it's kind of flashy.

William - before you go making judgements about being overpriced - this is way different gutter cleaning than what you are use to - I have to scoop out freaking compost. And some parts were just dirt - this is what we deal with in New England.

Just did some gutters today that I priced $237 - total time on the job from pull-up to pull-out, 2 hours.

Rick, I'd be real interested if your tests were taken to larger areas with actual spread rates taken. This doesn't have to be you, obviously you've sacrificed your own deck far too many times for the greater good. But I'd really be interested to see how say Ben Moore performed over a larger area, so we could get a more accurate spread rate, let's say a spread rate of 175 SF/gallon over two wet-on-wet coats vs. those really tiny areas you did. Just wondering if perhaps those products under the conditions of those small areas aren't showing their true potential. For instance the last deck of the season I did on pressure treated came to like 190 SF/Gallon on the first coat - but by the time I had double coated all the floorboards - the total rate had sunk to 120 SF/gallon. I am sure if you could duplicate the deck I did, but kept one of them at only one coat - it wouldn't last as long as the double coated deck.

Huh, yeah that's the same stuff the other guy put down. And to boot, it's the 550g/l VOC version. Rick, I've never worked with IPE - but with Mahogany I can lambswool one full coat of A.C. stain onto Mahogany - and then 30 minutes later, lambswool a second coat and have it suck it all up. Can you do the same with IPE? Or it just wont' accept much more stain?

Remember when The Grime Scene was the hip place for pressure washing? Sorry Beth & Rod, not your fault. It seems after a while these forums don't get richer with more of them online - they seem to get diluted. Now you have the ***, *****, PTState, Scott's boards, TheWoodPros, Deckguide. There is just too damn many boards now.

Remember when Shane was actively posting his photos? Wow, made a lot of us double think the products we were using at the time - and thankfully motivated us to try other more 'sound' product offerings out there, before it was too late to resurrect our wood restoration businesses.

Rick, what's the product # on the Benjamin Moore you used?

I guess I was lucky to hit this board back up in '06, when loads of guys were super enthusiastic. Remember all the deck restoration photos that use to get posted here constantly? It was like smorgasboard for 'woodies'

The chemical he listed, F-10, is the same active ingredient - but far greater quality.

Are you serious? You joined this forum today, and I joined back in April of '06.

Michael, for a gutter job worth at least $189 for a lousy $60 - you can take that kind of customer loyalty and shove it, imho.

It's a myth you can get good quality working contractors for cheap. My folks have dealt with contractors for 30 years. And every cheap contractor has delivered bad service and cheap quality. The deal with painting - is that as a quality conscience minded contractor you are stuck with trying to solve all the hack jobs that preceded you. This is especially true of exterior painting. A paint job can look great, yet be lousy in reality. And when a quality contractor comes next time and does his best - and the paint bubbles everywhere, he's stuck explaining it has nothing to do with him, with angry homeowner doubting him.

Because you are promoting the idea that it's ok to have a whole industry living at the poverty level. When some guy goes out with 6 employees, his whole crew works the entire year, and then brings home 45k when all is said and done. That's cool when the wifey is already making a 150k salary as a superintendent of some school district. But for the rest of us that depend upon our industry to make good money - you can't work at these price levels.

Then you are part of the problem.

I think you're right on the money. I've investigated all those guys who keep busy by referrals only - like the very ones here talking about doing quality work and the whole nine yards. And in each case, these guys are what I would consider to be bottom feeding lowballers. I could be ultra busy too if I was willing to work for $8/hr. Heck a couple of weeks ago showed up to a customers house to clean her gutters, and ran into a painting crew doing her whole entire interior! And she never even asked me to bid - the guy doing the work has no van lettering, no lawn signs, never heard of him. He is being referred from one house wife to another because he is ultra cheap.