WARRANTIES, TRUST AND HALF A SECOND

I had an interesting conversation this week with another painting contractor. We were talking about warranties and guarantees that some paint manufacturers are offering on the performance of certain paint lines. There are benefits to offering warranties. It clearly communicates the confidence that a manufacturer or a painter has in their offering. It can also be a point of differentiation, a way of increasing the 'value proposition' when two similar products/services are priced competitively. If one comes with a warranty and the other does not, it's a powerful incentive.

The conclusion we came to was that a warranty is an effective sales tool. But what most customers are really looking for is a supplier they can trust. If you are a residential re-paint specialist, you are not in the painting business - you are  in the trust business. Working in someone's home as a painter is like joining the family for a week or two.  It is a very intimate relationship. You will be working around their children, their jewelry, their cash, their pets. You work on their most prized possession and likely their greatest investment. If they can't trust you, you won't get the job.  

A client has to have absolute trust in you to flip you the keys and security code to their home and take off on vacation while you rearrange their entire house in the process of redecorating. They have to have absolute trust in you to forward you thousands of dollars as a deposit on future work. They have to trust implicitly that you won't damage their home or hurt yourself (or them). It is a high standard that a painter has to meet.

Any guesses as to how long you have to establish that trust with a prospective client?...

There is compelling business advice that suggests you have 7 seconds to establish a first impression. Newer research is suggesting it's much less time than that. Apparently humans subconsciously make evaluations on the trustworthiness of other individuals in 500 milliseconds (1/2 a second)!! Which means we all have to bring our A-game the instant we meet someone. Non-verbal cues communicate far louder and quicker than the words we say. It's not so much what we say but how we say it that will make the biggest impression.  

Which leads us back to sales tools. Give thought to what you are communicating, what you are projecting. Those are the truly important and effective tools. Things like warranties and referral letters are good secondary sales tools that can be used to give someone rational reasons to trust what their gut is already telling them.  ​


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