Painting Company

BUSINESS PLAN

KO-BAS PAINTING COMPANY

1700 West State Street
Hartland, Michigan 48353

The focus of Ko-Bas Painting Company is to provide high-quality surface preparation, finished painting, and refinishing services to residential, commercial, municipal building, and facilities clients primarily in the most-populated area within the tri-county communities defined as Wayne, Oakland, and Washtenaw counties.

• INTRODUCTION
• MISSION & PRINCIPLES
• GROWTH, MARKET, & CLIENTS WE SERVE
• SERVICE DELIVERY EXPECTATIONS
• ABOUT THE COMPANY
• BUSINESS OBJECTIVE
• BUSINESS CHALLENGES & ECONOMIC RISKS
• COMPETITION & MARKET POSITION
• MARKETING STRATEGY
• KEY PARTNERS
• LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
• CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Ko-Bas Painting Company was formed to meet the growing demand and ongoing need for professional-grade painting and refinishing services in Southeastern Michigan.

The focus of Ko-Bas Painting Company is to provide high-quality surface preparation, finished painting, and refinishing services to residential, commercial, municipal building, and facilities clients primarily in the most-populated area within the tri-county communities defined as Wayne, Oakland, and Washtenaw counties.

MISSION & PRINCIPLES

Ko-Bas Painting will be known for providing a high-quality service product. We will become known as a premium provider of custom and commercial painting and finishing services, operating at multiple levels within our prospect and existing client community.

To achieve our mission, Ko-Bas Painting will have to succeed at doing the following:

• Provide unique, practical, and professional services to our clients on a timely basis, applying and leveraging time-tested, and state-of-the-art techniques and practices. To succeed at meeting our goals, our first responsibility is to our customers.
• Maintain a strong financial environment to allow us to establish ourselves as a multifaceted service provider in the regional market we serve.
• Behave with the philosophy that our customers are entitled to a professional service that performs to above expectation satisfaction, in a reasonable, agreed-to amount of time and at a competitive, attractive price.
• Treat our partners, employees, and customers with fairness and consideration.
• Bring value to our business operations community and client community.

We expect that through the effective application of these philosophies and principles we will succeed in achieving our mission.

GROWTH, MARKET, & CLIENTS WE SERVE

Market factors have indicated a current trend of moderately increasing income and commercial budgets with a pent-up demand for convenience and beautification services. It will not be unreasonable for the number of potential residential and commercial customers to increase 10 to 30 percent each year.

Market and Prospect Client Base

Who: Ko-Bas Painting Company serves a marketplace made up of commercial and residential clients. Our ongoing focus is to develop and serve the correct blend of work to ensure ongoing revenue requirements. Our market focus is typically made up of an even split of residential and commercial clients. Our commercial clients are made up of municipal buildings, school buildings, and private businesses (manufacturing and/or retail).

Where and Why

We choose our clients in this market to ensure that we do not extend our operations beyond reasonable areas of service, primarily, to manage and moderate costs in drive time, customer follow-up servicing, quoting, and inspections.

SERVICE DELIVERY EXPECTATIONS

In order for Ko-Bas to attain its business objective, the following goals must be achieved:

• Acquire proper number of prospect clients for manageable growth
• Complete service at or below the price forecasted in the client financial quote
• Complete above-expectation service for the home or commercial client on or before the agreed-to deadline
• Leverage the customer as a reference for the next potential customer
• Utilize the recognition of the quality work to develop a demand for continued revenue growth

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Ko-Bas Painting Company was founded in 1997 by Karen and Ken Ko-Bas. The Ko-Bas Company sprang out of an idea—"We should make a go of this on our own!" Five years later, Ko-Bas is a highly successful, growing concern with all the unique business challenges faced by a locally owned, expanding business.

The founders of Ko-Bas Painting Company, Ken and Karen Ko-Bas, have served the Southeast Michigan business and residential community for a combined total of more than 18 years. Their experience and dedication to the service industry has provided a positive force on multiple levels.

Ken Ko-Bas has brought value to customers as a paint and surface-coating consultant at the retail management level as well as commercial coatings applications sales management. Karen has achieved multiple certifications in custom and commercial finishing and designer coating applications. She provides operational expertise and leadership to the company.

Ko-Bas Painting Company manages a focused team of highly experienced, professional painters and coating specialists to execute on any level of service required by a client. We select and manage our team to satisfy our ultimate goal, to treat each project as if it was our own. We pride ourselves on our legacy and service provided and intend to ensure ongoing satisfaction through quality service, operational management, and relationships with our employees, partners, and clients. We will continue to develop and leave behind a reputation nothing short of first class.

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Grow the company to a targeted achievement of more than 15 to 20 percent operating margin year-to-year.

We've maintained an objective view and take a conservative approach in developing and attempting to achieve our business goals. The financial data and business model provided is based on a year-to year running operational and growth plan that is developed on an as-needed basis, typically by quarterly review. Thus, the numbers provided are based on a blend of real and approximated costs using the most conservative expense expectations available (and are based on our considerable experience).

BUSINESS CHALLENGES & ECONOMIC RISKS

The basic risks that Ko-Bas faces on a day-to-day basis are not unique to the average small business owner. However, when considering local economic pressures we may need to change our mix of business to "flex" to market demands and fill market needs.

The following list outlines many of our ongoing tactical and strategic concerns:

• Maintaining client base to sustain growth
• Significant changes in the market demand for high-quality, premium services
• Ongoing ability to attract and retain qualified, dependable employees
• Significant unforeseen insurance event beyond reasonable expectations for on-the-job related injury

COMPETITION & MARKET POSITION

The competitive environment and the upswing of local and national economies put us in an enviable position for the last two years in terms of the demand for convenience services and client custom/commercial coatings requirements. This created a positive competitive environment, as there were not enough service providers to satisfy the body of available work. Needless to say, time changes everything, the economic downswing as of late has put moderate competitive pressures on the painting services provider community at large, creating a developing environment of cutthroat pricing and job leverage.

It is our position that by changing our mix of business, competitive client pursuit, and pricing practices we have been able to remain competitive and most importantly growing. Ko-Bas competes on service and price. We gather market-based information on an ongoing basis and develop our pricing and cost strategies based on market norms specific to our client profile and geographic considerations.

Our competitors range from the small independent 1-2 man painting service for residential and light commercial work to the medium-size 10-20 man commercial-only shops. To find out who to beat and who's getting the work, we need not look further than the local Yellow Pages and more importantly, by having those tough discussions with our client prospects that select another provider and asking them "Why weren't we chosen?"

We have found that dealing with reality and modifying our tactics with reality has helped us keep an edge when it comes to beating the competition.

On any given day, in our particular market segment we have to keep an eye out for an average of 10-15 competitors in our market, particularly in the commercial and municipal service sector.

MARKETING STRATEGY

Our marketing strategy is simple—use the available channels appropriately to impact growth, gaining considerable name recognition through word of mouth. Contracting for painting and finishing services in our commercial and municipal markets is not an impulse decision, so the primary thrust of the marketing strategy is to inform our prospective clients of reference work similar to the services they require.

In rank order we have identified where our priorities lie in developing market presence to acquire clients.

1. Word of mouth
2. Client testimonials
3. Local business associations
4. Traditional print media, Internet advertising, and miscellaneous promotion techniques

Market Perception & Positioning Strategy

Our marketing, advertising, and promotion strategy is to differentiate Ko-Bas Painting as a premium provider. The Ko-Bas Company's marketing strategy incorporates plans to educate and recruit potential homeowners and commercial prospects through several proven channels:

• Newspaper advertising targeting specific local buyers
• Direct reference channels from satisfied current and previous clients
• Direct sales contact with property management and municipal property portfolio managers
• Small business network community

KEY PARTNERS

We view our partners and network of business contacts as a reflection how we get business done. Without the partners and business contacts we could not operate as an operationally lean company and most importantly, leverage this network for continued sales and business growth. The following list provides a window into the depth and breadth of engagement required to make our business go.

• Paint product and supply manufacturers
• Commercial/retail suppliers at large
• Financial institutions
• Community-based business network
• Business associations
• Better Business Bureau
• Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC)

LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS

Ko-Bas Painting is a Michigan company, based in Hartland, Michigan. Ko-Bas retains and maintains relationships with legal representation experienced in contracting and building service provider industries. Our company is organized to minimize risk to our operations while providing for maximum safety and security to our employees, their families, and client community.

CONCLUSION

The future looks bright for Ko-Bas Painting and we fully expect to be recognized in the marketplace and we will be able to achieve growth and sustain profitable operations through reputation and adherence to our most basic operating philosophies for maximum competitive advantage.