Lying in bed the other night, just about dozing off I heard “Oh no!” from my fiancée’s side of the bed.
“Everything ok” I asked? Hoping she was talking in her sleep!
“I think I just started your next column!”
In our house, that’s code for “I did something really stupid and I know you’re going to tell the whole paint world about it.”
By way of background: my fiancée Guy had been complaining for a week or so about the quality of the prognosticating on the Weather Channel app. She checks it nightly so she knows how to dress the next day. For a week she’s been coming home after work; bitching. Because the Weather Channel app got the weather SO wrong, she: “was too cold, ruined her good leather shoes, didn’t have an umbrella” or had been victimized by some other weather related aggression.
Turns out, that if Guy had spent the last week in London, she would have been perfectly dressed each day! No shoes ruined with the umbrella always just an arms reach away!
I shouldn’t make fun; we all make mistakes! Trying to throw her a lifeline: we WERE in London last month (does that help?). But since Guy is the “single-index finger typing” technological laughingstock of the family, dressing for rainy and 50 degrees for a week when it was sunny and 80 here in Stamford, CT only adds to the legend!
Fortunately, I work mostly from home these days and my regular outfit is pajamas till noon and t-shirt with a baseball cap after lunch! So for those worried: none of my clothes were ruined in the making of this blog post!
Today in addition to this blog post, I uploaded a new podcast. Independent paint retailers are hearing all the time from the manufacturers we deal with, that the professional painter is an important part of the future of the independent dealer channel. I tend to agree with that assessment. They’re generally local to us, smaller businesses that are easier for retailers to connect with and while they do require SOME investment on a dealer’s part to service them, it’s not so much that it’s a barrier to entry into that space.
But just wanting to sell to painters will not get the job done and hope is never a strategy. If you want to sell to professional painters, you have to know what they want!
That’s where Mitch Berliner comes in! Mitch is the owner of a local Certa-Pro franchise. More than just a paint purchaser, Mitch impresses me with his level of study into the important topics that effect his business. When he told me he could help dealers understand what it takes to attract the attention of a painting contractor, I knew he could!
He was right!
So click the link below and listen to the most recent episode of the “Mark, My Words” podcast. It features me speaking with painting contractor Mitch Berliner and if you’re an independent paint retailer looking to grow your sales with professional painters, it’s a must listen.
Another addition to the MarkLiptonPaint.com blog is the “Guest Columns” section. Our first guest is a New England dealer: Harry Adler of Adler’s Design Center in Providence, RI.
I have known Harry for decades and he’s one of my favorites. Harry cares deeply about the industry and other independent paint retailers: I’m glad he offered to share his views on my platform. Harry’s views on branding your stores are really interesting to me and they get to the heart of an age old question: Is the independent dealer the brand, or is it the manufacturer’s name that carries the branding load?
I hope you enjoy this new feature. Just one note: Harry’s views and those of any future columnists are strictly his own! I did not write Harry’s piece and the only editing I did was just for punctuation or clarity. Otherwise, these are ALL Harry’s words. I pass them along for you to enjoy while passing no judgments on their virtues. Click on "Blogs" in the menu bar up top and select "Guest Columns". Thank you Harry, for being my first guest.
If you read this and feel like YOU have thoughts on your mind relating to any aspects of the independent dealer channel, shoot me an email or text (contact tab on MarkLiptonPaint.com for info) and we will get you up there! Whether you are a dealer or in the business of supporting dealers in some way, I’d love to hear from you. And so would the other few thousand people following along here.
And if you want to see if today is a good day for exterior painting, I’ll give you Guy’s phone number. I’m sure she can help you, she checks the weather daily!
https://www.markliptonpaint.com/podcasts