Systems for decorators

If you talk to a decorator about systems, then most will not know what you mean. If I asked them how they went about decorating a room then they would have no problem telling you. They would sheet up ad protect the furniture, then they would prepare everything and so on. These are systems that we are taught by our old boss when we were learning the trade. He didn’t call them systems, he didn’t call them anything.

As a trade we never really think about how we go about what we do, we tend to follow well-worn approaches that we have always done. Oil based paints are an example, I speak to a lot of decorators who still use oil-based paint and swear by it. They will never change and don’t see a reason too.

The way we apply our paint is another one, I speak to many decorators and they are roller guys through and through and would never do it any other way. They do not see any reason to.

All these are part of our system and our system is what gives the results that we are after. Mainly a happy customer and plenty of money.

If you decide that you want to double the amount of money that you earn there are a number of things that you could do. You could work 80 hours instead of 40. You could one coat everything instead of giving it two. You could double your prices.

None of these things are any good though. What we need to do is improve our systems and this is going to be the topic of my next 5 blogs over the next 5 weeks.