Since CWP started in 1993, fewer than 10% of our managers have had any previous painting experience. Your primary focus, as a manager, will be overseeing your painting projects. This includes ensuring your customers are happy and your painters are motivated. During your training seminars, you will be trained in every aspect of basic painting. You will also receive on-site training and continuous support from your experienced District Manager.

Fact: 10% of all homes are painted each year. After training, you will create your individual marketing plan with your District Manager. You will be furnished with all marketing materials required to execute your plan. This will include 5,000 high impact flyers, lawn signs, business cards and on-going direction from your District manager on how to reach your goals. By committing your Spring Break and several of your spring weekends, half of you summer should be booked before it even starts.

Painting is an easily taught trade so you spend your time managing, not learning the industry. Also, it provides hands-on experience in all facets of running a business. In most internships, your function is mostly clerical. Here you market your service, negotiate deals, estimate projects, source, hire, and manage up to ten employees, and manage profits by controlling costs. Lastly, painting provides a significant moneymaking opportunity in a short amount of time.

Once you have begun estimating and booking jobs, we will guarantee a line of credit for you with a major retail supplier. We will also furnish you with a list of suggested items to purchase based on the volume of business you have chosen to do. With this list and a line of credit, you will be able to purchase your paint and equipment without interrupting your personal cash flow.

At training you will learn how to price a paint job. You will be taught how to calculate wages, material, supplies and your profit. The average house will cost approximately $2700 and you should expect to earn 20% of this selling price per house painted. Remember as in any business, your profit margin depends entirely on how well you manage your costs. (Note: CWP cannot guarantee how much you will make, as it is dependent upon how you price the job and the costs you incur in delivering it. However, the average profit last year was 22.5%)

You must begin by recognizing what it will take to be successful. While your friends are relaxing on spring weekend, you will be setting up your summer. When exams are over, the hours will be longer than any job you have had before. Most of your evening and weekends during the summer will be consumed with marketing, estimating, and follow-up phone calls. You will be tired and stressed at times, but you will have to get up early every morning to run your business. Most businesses fail for two reasons: lack of financing and lack of management expertise. When you commit to a summer with College Works, we provide the financial backing and a proven system with continuous training and constant support. The only missing ingredient is you and your personal determination to be a success. You don’t know you will succeed, you can only think you might.

Let’s look at this question from both the intern and the customer perspective.

Interns: Like in any challenging pursuit, this program is tough and not everyone is successful at it. While the system works, it only works if you do. A majority of poor reviews come from individuals who found the workload was not for them and who did not even complete the program. In answer to these mostly anonymous online comments, College Works Painting commissioned an independent third party research company to survey past program participants to answer one basic question: Does being a CWP intern make a difference in a student’s career? Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes. We stand by our record and our results. We suggest you weigh the negative feedback from a handful of individuals, many who never completed the program, against literally thousands of past successful participants and an independent study that measure results and make your decision which feedback you find more useful.

Customers: CWP stands behind its reputation as one of the top painting contractors in the country and celebrates its A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. However, as we’ve grown to over 8,000 customers a year, customer service errors are bound to happen the same as in any industry. While it is our policy to escalate customer concerns all the way to the CEO level if necessary to satisfy a customer, occasionally a dissatisfied customer will only talk to their local operator and not notify the corporate office when issues arise. Even so, we’ve painted over 40,000 homes since 2000 and have less than 0.5% of those customers voice a grievance online. When this does happen, we actively seek out any customers who are unhappy with the end result of their paint job and do what ever is necessary to rectify any concerns. We’re not perfect, but we strive to be as close to it as possible.