by Ravi Backerdan on April 29, 2022

Local vs. National: Why Hire Close to Home?

Once you have made the savvy decision to hand over your interior or exterior painting project to professionals, you must then weigh the pros and cons of choosing a national contractor versus a painting company in your city. Yes, you may recognize those high-profile names from t.v. commercials, and even more impressive, be able to sing their jingles word-for-word, but the benefits of hiring a business that has taken root in your area are difficult to pass up. Let’s consider some of them:

1. A local company works extra hard to prove its value to your community.

When you are seeking a service, babysitting for your child or a landscaper for your scrappy front lawn, you ask your friends and neighbors for suggestions, right? Well, business owners in your hometown or nearby cities count on word-of-mouth to establish their reputation. They know that the pressure is on: one story from an unsatisfied customer can spread like wildfire. They also want to create long-lasting relationships with clients so that those clients will hire them again for services in addition to house painting, such as deck refinishing or pool powerwashing. So these business owners go out of their way to accommodate and to please, and ultimately to earn respect. A large company can rely mainly on marketing techniques and can afford to ignore an unflattering review or two.

2. A local company does local work, so you can check out the work for yourself.

As with any company trying to persuade consumers, a national brand will advertise its best craftsmanship online, in mailers, and in digital media. But if the brand is making promises it can’t keep, you will know only when you spot the bumps in your plaster or the white paint of the crown molding seeping into the cabernet of your dining room wall. Hiring local experts means that you can preview their craftsmanship just by hopping in the car and driving past it. You can determine that their company isn’t some corporate mystery somewhere out there in the world—it’s a real place with real connection to the community, and their employees produce quality painting and offer exceptional customer service.

3. A local company contributes to the local economy.

Remember the mom-and-pop hardware store of your childhood, the one on Main Street that you passed on your way to Candy Castle? A local painting company can help to keep that shop thriving. Not only will a small business owner purchase materials from suppliers that reside in the same town, city, or state, but he or she will also provide jobs to people in the region. Tax dollars from projects are invested back into the community and support the efforts of the public works. A nationally-known company, on the other hand, will probably order equipment and tools from other nationally-known companies. In that case, it’s easy to lose sight of where the profits are going. Another positive feature of local businesses is that they often donate their time and resources to organizations in the area that are fundraising or building awareness for a cause.

4. A local company consists of people, not departments and divisions.

It’s reassuring to know that if a problem arises, a homeowner has a higher chance of engaging in personalized communication—perhaps even an in-person consult—with local companies as opposed to national chains. Instead of pushing numbers on your phone to advance through automated instructions, hoping eventually to speak to a live human being, you want a human to answer the phone in the first place. After all, the answers to your questions about painting, plastering, and wallpaper removal may not be so simple (What will be the condition of those walls underneath three layers of paper and a topcoat of paint?). Ease of contacting a supervisor or business owner directly may be a perk of working with a residential painting contractor. You want to know exactly where and how to find the people you are paying and trusting to bring your vision to life.

A smaller staff, like the one you might find at a painting company in your city, doesn’t mean less training or expertise. In fact, you are sure to discover that a local company’s employees have learned their trade from extensive hands-on experience, and have inherited their dedication from family members who managed the business before they did. And while a larger company isn’t personally tied to a particular location, a local one is going to care sincerely about the aesthetic appeal of the community because its employees live and work in that community, too.

At MGP, our licensed and insured painters are committed to ensuring the satisfaction of homeowners across Rockland County, Orange County, and the Hudson Valley who want stellar results at a competitive price. If we have convinced you to choose a local painting business over a commercial company, please call us!

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