We are a family owned residential and commercial painting company located right in here in Longmont, with over 30 years of collective experience.  We are young, ambitious and focused on quality and customer satisfaction. My brother and I grew up right here in Longmont learning the residential and commercial painting trade from our father at a very young age, and through the process, we have learned the importance and value of offering  the highest quality painting services at a very competitive rate.  We get most of work from referrals, so we never sacrifice on quality, reliability or our integrity for anything, even if that means spending additional time on the  job to make it right for our customers.

Our painting quality, efficiency and customer satisfaction are a direct result of the way we do business.  We have implemented and consistently follow well defined processes that  result in superior quality and efficiency that keeps our prices low, and makes our customers thrilled with the results.   See our Exterior Painting Process and our Interior Painting Process pages for details.

We take great pride in what our customers say about us, so please visit our Testimonials page and see our Google Reviews. Also check out our Painting Projects page to see before and after photos of a few projects.

Thanks for taking the time to visit our website, and we hope to hear from you.

Call our Longmont office at your convenience for a free estimate!

People don’t think about their plumbing, heating, and cooling systems until there is a problem. And it always seems that your water heater leaks, or the furnace or air conditioner breaks at the worst possible time. That’s why it’s important to use a service company who is always available to handle those situations when they happen.

Rutherford Plumbing, Heating & Cooling is a family owned company who can repair, service, or install any aspect of your furnace and air conditioning system. We are also a full service plumbing company that can handle leaks, drips, clogs, and floods. We have over 16 years of experience serving the Murfreesboro area. We back all of our plumbing, furnace or air conditioner repairs and installs with an ironclad 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.
We offer the following:

• 24 Hour Service, Evening, Weekends & Holidays
• Same day service
• NO after hours or holiday fees.
• Servicing of all brands, makes and models

Be sure to ask how you can save 10% off any service or repair today!!!

100% satisfaction guaranteed on all repairs!!!

Call our Murfreesboro office today at (615) 809-4746.
Rutherford Plumbing, Heating and Cooling
132 Melstone Ct
Murfreesboro, TN 37127
(615) 809-4746

Looking to build a multimillion dollar stone mansion in the foothills, or a simple cinder block retaining  wall?  R. Campos Masonry does it all! Rolando Campos, founder and owner of R. Campos Masonrystarted his business back in 1988, and has built a successful business and an impressive portfolio of incredible stone and brick homes, as well as cinder block commercial buildings along the front range.

When asking Rolando his key to success, he said “there are several things, but besides the obvious of doing top quality work at a good  price, I always listen closely to my customers and make sure they get what they really want. “  “It’s also important that I make myself available to them, and always have an open line of communication.”    “I don’t care what time it is, if it’s one of my customers trying to get a hold of me, I will stop everything to talk to them.”  “If it isn’t possible at that moment, I will call them back as  soon as I possibly can.” “Customer Service is the key.”

R. Campos Masonry specializes in custom Stone homes and custom Stucco homes, but they also do brick and block construction.

For more information, see: http://rcamposmasonry.com

R. Campos Masonry
1727 15th St
Boulder, CO 80234
303-775-2950

We are members of multiple Chambers of Commerce and regularly attend chamber events. There is a lot of good that comes out of chamber activities, but I am regularly disappointed by the chamber’s inability and/or unwillingness to address political issues that impact small businesses.

Local Chambers of Commerce have an opportunity (and in my opinion an obligation to membership) to do everything they can to increase commerce in the communities and markets they serve – but from my perspective seem to spend a vast majority of time and resources focusing on membership business card exchanges. Nice, but this relegates local chambers to only a fraction of their potential for making a real impact on local economies.

What companies of all sizes, from Walmart and Microsoft to Jane’s Antique Store on Main Street need is political stability. And right now in the United States we do not have it. We do not have stability and clear focus at the national level, state level, or city/local level. The idea that Chambers of Commerce, representing all businesses that participate in local commerce (even multi-national corporations) feel that they cannot or should not try to influence politicians into making decisions that make business conditions and markets more stable is a real missed opportunity for all of us.

Regardless of whether you are a liberal or a conservative, vote Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, Libertarian, or have another affiliation, we can all agree that political and economic instability is bad for business. Right now, our governments (national, state, and local) are making it more difficult for business to make commitments into the future. We (all companies of all sizes) do not know what our future liabilities will be for taxes (income and investment), staffing (healthcare, third party participation…), or energy (emissions) – among the many other items that impact our businesses. And from what I can tell the local Chambers of Commerce are doing nothing to influence this. Again – I am not saying local chambers need to take specific political positions, but certainly working with politicians to get to a stable playing field should be in the scope of any organization presenting itself as a champion of commerce.

By standing on the sidelines, our local chambers render themselves impotent. They prove that they are not capable of leading an organization of small and large business owners and stakeholders, and that they are not fully committed to the growth of commerce in our communities, states, and nation.

True Security of Denver, a security guard services business located in downtown Denver recently opened their doors for business.  Thomas D, spokes person for True Security, is very optimistic about their future.  “We found a niche in the Denver security guard services market where we can deliver the highest quality security services at a competitive rate.”

“Our main focus is on delivering superior quality services to our customers”, said Thomas. “We accomplish this through an extensive evaluation and training program of our security officers. Our Officer quality is the heart and foundation of our Corporation; therefore, we strive to continuously maintain and upgrade this important topic. First, our employee selection process is completely unique and specialized to hire the people best suited for the various post(s) assignments. Although our interview, screening, and testing process is long and involved, we enjoy a higher employee retention rate and greater client satisfaction, from our detailed and rigorous hiring efforts; which over time lowers our operating costs, that allows a more affordable rate and premium Officer quality service for our clients.  Our goal is to have our officers recognize potential security incidents and diffuse them before they occur.”

True Security of Denver plans to expand operations to service Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Boulder, Longmont, and most cities along the Colorado Front Range.

—

True Security of Denver
999 18th St. Ste 3000
Denver, CO 80202
303-927-6926
http://devnersecurityguardservices.com

The Gold Market Jewelers at 16th & Pace Street in Longmont are now offering a high-tech  jewelry design service that is interactive and fun for the customer.

“We now have an innovative 3-D custom design studio that is cost-effective and user friendly so you can be part of the design process” said Joe Faissal, owner and operator of the Gold Market Jewelers.  “Jewelery is very personal, and an expression of one’s self, so it makes sense that some customers would like to put their special touch on a jewelry piece”, said Faissal.  “With the 3-D custom design software, the  process is amazingly simple and fun.  We’ve been getting great feedback from our customers so far, so we’re really excited about the future of custom design jewelry, right here in Longmont”!

The Gold Market Jewelers
1610 Pace Street, Unit 1000
Longmont, CO 80504
(303) 834-8981
http://longmontjewelers.com

Recently LBM had a brief discussion with Steve Smith, owner of Carworks of Longmont Auto Repair who is quite excited about their future. “It’s great to see our company grow in such a difficult economy”.  Carworks of Longmont has seen solid growth for the last couple years. We attribute our growth to making sure our customers receive quality auto repair services at a reasonable rate.  It’s our top priority. This way they will come back to see us when they need auto repair services in the future.  Keeping customers happy in a small town like Longmont is not only good for return business, but we anticipate our customer base telling friends and family about having a good experience at Carworks. That’s where we see ROI on our customer satisfaction efforts.

Carworks of Longmont Auto Repair
1406 Coffman Street
Longmont, CO 80501
(303) 776-1888
http://carworks-longmont-auto-repair.com

Scarlett Neal, owner of Radius Real Estate of Longmont is realizing the value in video marketing her Longmont real estate listings on youtube.  “When you’re selling real estate in this economy, you want to leverage every opportunity for potential customers to find your listings”, said Neal. Youtube is a great way to advertise for free. I’ve had several views of my listings on Youtube, and with the help of Longmont Business Marketing performing search engine optimization of those videos, we’re starting to get more traction”.  “With all the smart phones out there, and the younger demographics that use internet multimedia, it’s just one more way for me to reach more customers.”

You can visit Radius Real Estate’s website at http://radiusrealestate.agor see some of their videos at:http://www.youtube.com/user/RadiusRealEstate

Radius Real Estate
929 Main Street
Longmont, CO 80501-4512
(303) 862-3232

IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT PROFIT. The ultimate goal of marketing (or anything your company does) is profit. Tracking awareness, number of customers, and revenue are meaningful exercises, but your ultimate goal and business driver is profit for your company.

You must understand your margins. You should be measuring profit for each of your products/services:

1. Determine variable costs for delivering each product/service you provide (materials, labor, etc.) – Note that it may not be necessary to track costs for each product. In some cases products can be grouped.
2. Determine fixed/overhead costs for running your business
3. Allocate fixed costs across products or product groups (estimates are OK)
4. Add variable costs for each product/product group to your fixed cost allocation to determine total cost for delivering each product/service
5. Subtract the total cost for each product or product group from the price you charge. This is your product-level margin. This is an extremely valuable piece of information.

Using your product level margin data, you can better focus marketing activities:
* You will know how far you can discount products through campaigns/coupons/etc.
* You will better understand how to focus marketing activities to drive your customers to higher margin products/services

In my next post we will take this margin ‘knowlege’ and link to the marketing mix and sales funnel information.

There are a number of variations of the ‘sales funnel’. To keep it simple, the sales funnel is a visual representation of the sales cycle – how customers find you (or are drawn to you) and then how they work their way from the initial contact to becoming a paying customer.

Many large companies spend vast resources measuring each step of the funnel and determining why prospects/leads/etc. stay in or drop out. As a small business owner, the important thing is to understand where your paying customers are coming from – and link that to your marketing investments (see my earlier post: ‘Understanding Your Marketing Mix’).

You should be collecting customer information:

At some time during the transaction (sale), ask your new customer how he/she heard of your business.There is no right or wrong way to do this – the key is to collect the information and get it into a standard format (spreadsheets work nicely). Note that for many small businesses a lot of customers come from ‘word-of-mouth’ – ask these clients who referred them to you. You may be able to work backwards to tie this new business to one of your marketing efforts.

Organize the information in a spreadsheet. It could be as simple as listing the customer name in a column and then in the next column noting how the customer heard about your business (what brought them into your sales funnel).

In my next post, I will talk more about linking this customer information with your marketing investments.