Author: Emily Howard
Exponential Growth
Lee Armstrong is the second-generation owner of Sparkle Painting, a commercial painting contractor serving the Mid-Atlantic. He recently joined the CPIA and sat down with Emily Howard to discuss some of his company’s most exciting projects, the challenges they are prepping for in 2026, and the strategies they’ve used to attract and retain a growing workforce. Emily Howard: Tell us about Sparkle Painting. Lee Armstrong: We are a family-owned business started by my mother and father with the help of my aunt in 1979. I started with the company in 2009 after working for general contractors. I originally thought I would stay on the GC side, but my father helped me see the opportunity in the painting business. Since then, it’s been a pretty fun ride. My father grew the company into a reputable player in the commercial space throughout the Washington, D.C., market, growing the team to 20 to 40 employees. Today, we’ve grown to 400 strong, and we’ve expanded geographically to serve Maryland and Southern Virginia. We’ve done some work in Raleigh as well. EH: What type of work does the company do? LA: We’re known for our larger, more prominent projects. That’s where we feel like we thrive. Some people might know us from jobs like the Amazon HQ2 in Crystal City, Virginia. It’s the largest job we’ve ever completed. We did an eight-year project for the Air and Space Museum, and one for the African American Museum, when that was brand new. I actually got to negotiate with Donald Trump when we did a Trump Hotel, and that was a pretty fun experience. He tried to beat me down 20% on my paint and wall covering number. The fact that he himself found the time to do that was pretty funny. We worked on the second-largest urban development in the nation, called The Wharf, in D.C., and we had a large part in the MGM National Harbor Casino in Maryland. We also do a lot of industrial work. Being in the backyard of Data Center Alley allowed us to be one of the first ones to do a data center project when that became a thing. We’ve built a good name in that space, and that’s where a majority of our work comes from now. EH: How else have you set yourself apart from competitors? LA: Something unique about us is that we’ve grown different verticals, and that we offer more services than a typical painting and wallcovering company. We offer joint sealants and waterproofing. We also do a large amount of industrial flooring, including concrete polishing and resinous flooring, as well as intumescent coatings and fireproofing. Our goal is to be a problem solver. It helps us grow the revenue in the types of work that we like to do. And it helps our customers, because it’s fewer trades to manage, and they have somebody they can trust and count on. EH: As you look to 2026, what are some of the challenges you are preparing for? LA: At this point, 2026 looks like it will be a pretty strong year in the industrial space. We’re finishing up some fun jobs. One is the largest indoor water park in Virginia, called Kalahari Resorts. We’re also finishing up a large manufacturing plant for Lego, which is a really cool job. It will be the second-largest job we’ve ever done as a company. The challenges we see are that, as power and land become scarce in our area, we have to travel more than we used to. A large portion of our revenue and contracts used to come from building in urban settings like D.C., Arlington, and Bethesda, but those areas have never really recovered from the pandemic. Office space has also seen a decline, so we go further into Virginia and the surrounding states. But even with those realities, we see a strong backlog in industrial and tech work, so the future looks good. We’ve been able to grow over 40% last year, and we hope to grow exponentially in the future. EH: How are you dealing with the operational challenges that come with being more spread out geographically? LA: Like many others, one of our biggest challenges is getting enough manpower to continue the growth we’re looking for. Our compensation and benefits packages have brought us a lot of recruiting success. We’re intentional in creating good compensation packages for new employees, and we have significant bonus opportunities for current employees. Being around for 47 years also helps, and we have a lot of employees celebrating 10-, 15-, and 20-year anniversaries. We know we’re fortunate to have people commit their lives to our company, and it’s important to us that we make a good home for them. They give us the responsibility to do right by them, and we take that responsibility seriously. EH: How are you utilizing technology to ease the transition to a more geographically diverse workforce? LA: We definitely rely on technology, are open to new things, and investigate anything that we think can be a big help. Right now, we’re focused on new technologies to make us more efficient on the project management and accounting side. We’re also willing to invest in new technologies and equipment in the field, from different spraying machines to mixing machines to high-tech floor grinding machines. We’re keeping an eye on AI to see how that can change project management, estimating, and anything else. EH: You are a new member of the CPIA. What are you hoping to get out of the group? LA: I initially saw some postings on LinkedIn, and it caught my eye. I’m part of the Young Professionals Organization (YPO), which has some peer groups like the CPIA, and I’ve found growth in that personally and professionally. It’s been great to talk with other trades with similar problems to understand customers, opportunities, and technology that’s out there. Then I thought, what would be better than meeting with people going through the exact same problems as me? Each trade has its own unique set of issues, and I think it will be fun to see how different painting companies are handling things. Welcome Lee!
Key Takeaways from “How AI Search Is Reshaping SEO for Commercial Painters”
AI-powered search is changing the digital visibility of commercial painting contractors. To ensure that CPIA members are up to date on the latest strategies for optimizing both traditional search and AI-powered search, Aaron Hockel of Alta Vista Strategic Partners hosted a webinar for members to shed light on the evolving online landscape.What is the difference between AI search and traditional search? In short, traditional search delivers a list of links, whereas AI-powered searches serve up more conversational, direct answers.The shift in format is not as important as the increasing number of places potential customers can search. Instead of simply optimizing for Google’s algorithm, commercial contractors will have to optimize for multiple AI-platform algorithms as well.Hockel tested results across Google, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini, specifically searching “painters near San Diego Airport.” Searches on four platforms resulted in four different lists. Only one company ranked in all four searches.The consistent performer had strong traditional SEO metrics, including high domain authority and significant backlinks. Why does AI search matter to commercial painting contractors?AI platforms are growing exponentially. The good news is that traditional search engines are still commanding more traffic with Google and YouTube in the lead (for now).That said, the younger generation is increasingly turning to ChatGPT over Google. What kind of content should commercial painting contractors publish to rank in AI?Ranking in AI is still relatively new. While no one has the silver bullet, there are some clear patterns.Write FAQs. Because this style of content is easy to parse and summarize, it’s favored by AI. By adding FAQs to service pages, using clear, direct language, and including numbers and price ranges where appropriate, you make it more likely that AI will take notice (note the subheads in this very article).Demonstrating credibility is also extremely important. Hockel recommends using the acronym EEAT — Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trust — as a guide: Expertise – Include author bioswith credentials and years of experience.Experience – Use project profiles to demonstrate your experience.Authoritativeness – Publish industry recognition, awards, news stories in industry publications, and certifications. Publishing your involvement with industry associations, like the CPIA, can help with authority.Trust – Highlight that you are insured, and bonded, and blog about your safety standards and safety records. Don’t forget your service area. Local business information is important for both traditional and AI search. Setting up local service pages that have examples of projects done in those areas is a great way to highlight the areas where you are active.Make sure your information on the yellowpages.com, 411.com, Bing, Yahoo, and chambers of commerce directories is up to date and consistent. How important are online reviews for commercial painting contractors?Reviews are a major factor in establishing visibility and credibility. AI systems rely heavily on publicly available third-party signals.Commercial clients like GCs, government agencies, and corporations don’t typically leave reviews (some are not permitted to leave reviews); however, that doesn’t matter to AI platforms. The bottom line is that reviews are a major signal to algorithms that your brand is trustworthy, so it’s wise to make a plan to keep those reviews coming in.Let clients know early on that you will request a review once the job is complete. Adding a step to your final walkthrough to ask for the review (you can give them a QR code) is one option, and you can also include review links on invoices and email signatures. Hockel also noted the importance of sending reminders, as they can greatly increase the likelihood that a client will leave a review.When you are asking for reviews, consider that platform diversity matters. Google reviews are still king, but it’s important to get reviews on other platforms as well. Staying Ahead of the CurveIn the end, you want to continue to follow strong SEO practices to ensure that you are not only showing up in traditional search but on the plethora of AI platforms popping up. Investing now in the tactics that help you rank across all search engines is essential to your online marketing success.For more insights and strategies, listen to the full webinar here. Aaron Hockel is a partner at AltaVista Strategic Partners, which specializes in helping commercial contractors stay visible, relevant, and ready to win. Learn more at altavistasp.com.
How AI Search Is Changing How Commercial Painters Get Found
Knowing whether you are compensating employees fairly and competitively is critical to creating an equitable workplace where people want to stay and give their best effort. Supervisors and managers need a baseline understanding of compensation methodology and tools for communicating with their employees, especially when pay is linked to performance. This webinar discusses how employers can develop their compensation strategy and pay structure, so employees can feel confident that their knowledge, skills and performance are valued and rewarded. Presented by Suzi Wear, VP of People Development & Culture; Xenium HR.
Painting Company Helps Schools In Need
A&K Painting Company wrapped up its 17th year coordinating a massive donation of essential school supplies to local students, schools, and teachers in need. The effort went beyond a simple cash donation as participants dedicated their time to assemble 400 five-gallon supply-filled paint buckets dubbed “Buckets of Love.”Each bucket included roughly $80 worth of school supplies, including pencils, notebooks, glue sticks, highlighters, and more. Two hundred buckets were allocated to Classroom Central, a Charlotte-based nonprofit that provides free resources to teachers and students in need, and the other 200 buckets were distributed to local schools selected by the company. “In our Buckets of Love program, we really just want to show that we’re a family-oriented bunch who cares about our local teachers and kids. It’s all about giving back to the community that’s like family to us,” said President Kevin Robbins. A&K Painting Company is not alone in this venture. Partners and clients joined in by donating to the cause. Sherwin-Williams, for example, provided the buckets and $2,000 for supplies. The project began with a pre-planning phase, during which the donated materials were selected, followed by multiple days of labeling buckets, filling pencil pouches, and presorting stacks, and culminating in a community service day where employees filled all the buckets. The donation program was initiated in 2008 and has steadily gained steam over the years. Two years ago, A&K started its non-profit, A&K Cares, to deepen connection and commitment to the local community and further foster a culture of caring. For information about A&K, visit akpainting.com.
Email Marketing Best Practices
Email Marketing has the highest ROI of all digital marketing channels. With an average ROI of 42:1, there is no reason your Commercial Painting Business shouldn’t be investing in this marketing strategy. Currently, many of the commercial painting contractors that come to use email marketing in some form; however, most are not seeing success. When it comes to email marketing, the devil is in the details. Practice the ABCs of email marketing to ensure your time and money are well spent, and you don’t end up in Gmail jail. Adhere to Responsible Sender Practices Email may seem like a cheap and easy way to reach prospects, and used properly, it can be. However, even though sending emails generally costs a fraction of a penny, it can quickly turn into money and time down the drain if your emails just go to spam.Rule One: Only send to validated emails. Fake, mistyped, or outdated emails are the silent killer of any email strategy. Not only do these invalid emails bounce, but those bounces send a big red flag to email clients, like Gmail, that you are sending spam. Most email sending platforms have a feature built in that checks emails and automatically filters our invalid emails. If yours doesn’t, check out NeverBounce. They can confirm which emails are valid and which are unreachable.Rule 2: Warm up your IP and don’t let it go cold. If you are just beginning to send emails or if you haven’t sent emails from your email sending platform in a while, it’s important to plan a warming period. During this period, you’ll send your emails in small batches starting with your most engaged list with the goal of nearly perfect deliverability and high engagement. Done correctly, you’ll keep a good reputation to email clients and land your emails where people can actually read them.Rule 3: Comply with all local and federal laws.The FTC has a federal law called CAN-SPAM that sets rules for email marketing. In short, this act prohibits businesses from using misleading information in the subject or body of the email and requires easy opt-out/unsubscribe options for the recipient. Be sure that your emails are relevant to your audience and contain an unsubscribe link. Build High-Quality Email List Most painting contractors we talk to do not have an organized contact list, or if they do, it’s extremely small (only a couple of hundred contacts). Spending some time building out these lists can pay back in dividends if you do it smart.First-party contacts: Any lead you directly capture is a first-party contact, and they are the most effective and highly converting leads you can get. They can be customers, sales prospects from networking, or anyone who has filled out lead forms you build for your website or social. Think of your first-party data as the list of people who have already bought or established buyer intent.Second-Party Contacts (JV Partnerships): There are two ways to get second-party contacts. 1.) As you’ve built your business, you’ve likely built some solid relationships with other trades serving the same market. Building a partnership where you can refer each other or share prospects or customers can be beneficial to both parties. These are generally high-quality contacts, but they can take a lot of legwork as you’ll need to negotiate a partnership agreement and both parties need to deliver. 2.) Another place to get second party contacts is through tradeshows where the operator shares a list of attendees.Third-party contacts: You can purchase third-party email lists from data aggregators to quickly build up a mailing list of prospects (other business owners) in your local market. This option expedites the process, but you’re purchasing cold leads, so response rates will be lower and bounces likely higher. Because of this, we recommend a minimum volume of 10,000 cold contacts to see a return. Create Content People Want When They Want It In email, quality wins the day. Emails that get opens, engagement and truly speak to your customer are what ultimately drive results. Keep a close eye on content, frequency, and KPIs.ContentThe best emails have the following traits:Captivating Subject Line: Spend most of the time on this. Keep it to 30–50 characters or 4–7 words.Personalization: Don’t send to anyone if you don’t have their first name. You MUST call this out in the opening of the email body.Body: Keep the body of the email short and sweet. A few single-spaced sentences will do!CTA: Your call to action should only request that they call or reply to the email. Avoid estimate links (see below).Avoid Overusing Images & Links: Using these elements can increase the likelihood of ending up in a SPAM filter.Simple Signature: Include your name, business name, and phone number. That’s it.Watch Your FrequencySending too many emails leads with low open and engagement rates, ultimately lands you in the junk folder. We recommend sending no more than once or twice a month, especially in the beginning. Consistency over an extended period of time is the key to success here.Measure Email Marketing ResultsOf course, you’ll only know what works for you if you test and measure. Here are some metrics to keep an eye on:Delivery rates = quality of your domain.Bounce rates = quality of your mailing list.Unsubscribe rates = if you’re sending emails too often, or sending a message that does not resonate with contacts.Open rates = subject lineResponse rates = effectiveness of your email content.Reply/Conversion rate =overall effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. Assess number of replies or outreach requests over a 12-month calendar year.Most painting contractors overlook email marketing as an effective tool to drive leads, brand, and sales. Don’t miss your opportunity to leverage this.About the AuthorAustin Houser is the founder and Chief Brainiac at Base Coat Marketing, a marketing agency dedicated to serving painting and coating contractors with unmatched digital marketing experience. To find out more about how Base Coat Marketing can help in your business growth, email basecoatmarketing.com/call
Leslie Nash West On Community
Leslie Nash West is no stranger to the painting industry. Known for her friendly presence, sound advice and servant leadership, she has earned tremendous respect over her nearly 40-year career. In addition to her work with W.W. Nash & Sons in Richmond, Virginia, West has been a valued asset for many painting associations and publications advocating professional excellence and raising the bar for painting companies across the nation. In January 2026, she retired from W.W. Nash & Sons. Emily Howard sat down with her to discuss how it all started, the challenges she faced along the way and the role her CPIA peer group played in shaping her decisions and processes over the years. Emily Howard: How long have you been in the painting industry? Leslie Nash West: I’m the third generation in my family, so I was born into the painting industry. My grandfather started the family business in 1946 when he came home from World War II. First, he started with paperhanging and then added paint to his services. In the ‘60s, he incorporated and started doing commercial work. After he passed in 1969, my dad, his older brother and my grandmother took it over. They were already all working there. Later, their younger brother joined the business and in the ‘80s my aunt joined as well. I started working for W.W. Nash & Sons cleaning the office when I was 16 and became the assistant controller after college. In 1994, after I had my daughter, I took a break and went to work for a general contractor one day a week. In 1997, I started working for the Richmond Chapter of the PDCA and did that for 19 years. In 2009, I went back to work for W.W. Nash & Sons. Then here we are in 2026, and I just retired. EH: What’s are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in the painting industry over the years? LNW: The toughest I recall going through was in 2008. The Great Recession didn’t hit commercial construction until late 2009 or 2010. Our management staff took a 10% pay cut and senior management took a 25% pay cut. We didn’t cut painter pay. The woman who had my job, quit, and that’s when I came in. By 2011 or 2012 all pay cuts had been restored. When I look back over the many painting contractors I’ve known over all the years, survival and success through those tough economic shifts have always been about who can adjust to the market conditions. EH: When did you join CPIA, and what did you gain from the experience? LNW: I joined early and was at the first Leadership Conference. By the following January, I brought in Jim McBrayer (now Mikszan McBrayer & Associates, LLC), one of the Industry Partners, for sales training. We felt that we really needed an outside voice to teach some of the sales strategies. I also joined a peer group, which has been so valuable. If I ever had a question like what to pay for travel time or how to handle per diem, I have eight other companies who can share how they did it. Sharing has really saved me a lot of time because I don’t have to create everything from scratch. Even when I decided to take a buy out, my group dropped everything at that meeting to advise me. So many of them had already gone through it. I am definitely better for having known them, and I am a better contractor for having my peer group perspective. Just having people to bounce things off of has really made so much of a difference. Even in retirement, I didn’t want to give up these people who are lifelong friends now. Luckily, Leslie won’t be giving up her relationships with members, as she has just been announced as the new Peer Group Liaison. Stay tuned, as we know she will bring great things to the role and the membership in the future!
CPIA Announces New Liaisons
The CPIA leadership team is excited to introduce two new roles within the association: Peer Group Liaison and Membership Liaison. These roles are designed to further the CPIA's commitment to its members and industry partners by strengthening connections, ensuring communication continuity and enhancing member experience. “One of the things that has always set the CPIA apart is the people behind it. As our organization continues to grow and mature, it’s important we find meaningful ways to keep experienced leaders engaged — especially those who have poured decades into this industry and still want to contribute,” said Aaron Moore, President of PPD Painting and Co-Founder of the CPIA. The CPIA is privileged to announce the appointment of Leslie Nash West as Peer Group Liaison and Burt Whitenight as Membership Liaison. “I’m especially grateful that Leslie and Burt — both long-time industry leaders who are transitioning out of day-to-day business ownership — have agreed to step into these roles,” Moore added. Their experience, perspective and commitment to this industry make them a tremendous asset to the CPIA and its members.” As the third-generation owner of W.W. Nash and Sons, West has earned her status as a distinguished leader. Through her involvement with industry associations and publications, she is known as an advocate for professional excellence and for raising the bar in the painting industry. West has been a member of the CPIA since its inaugural event and has ensured her family’s legacy remains at the forefront of modern trends and best practices by actively participating in her CPIA peer group. In her new role, West will act as a key resource for peer group leaders looking to increase the efficacy and value of their meetings. In preparation for the role, West received training and certification from the prestigious International Facilitators Organization. Groups will enjoy access to newly curated tools, exercises, and frameworks, enhancing the impact of each meeting. She will also assist individual members who wish to join a peer group, ensuring they are placed in the best-fitting group. Whitenight brings more than 30 years of experience in the painting and waterproofing industry as a sales leader, executive and coach. Known for his relationship-driven approach and practical sales execution, his career spans leadership roles with Flex Bon Paints, The Sherwin-Williams Company and Service Contracting Solutions, where he rose to Executive Vice President/Partner and led high-performing sales teams on complex commercial projects. He remains deeply engaged in the industry through board leadership with the Gulf Coast Builders Exchange and ongoing coaching work with McBrayer & Associates. In the age of AI, Whitenight is bringing a personal connection to members and those interested in membership as CPIA’s new Membership Liaison. By connecting them with appropriate people and the educational tools they need, current and future members will have a trusted resource to navigate membership benefits and gain peak value. If you’re a current CPIA member looking to explore peer groups, reach out to Leslie West at leslie@thecpia.com. If you are looking to make the most of your membership or considering joining the CPIA, contact Burt Whitenight at membership@thecpia.com.
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