Provides an overview of color basics, including terminology, color perception, the psychology of color, how light affects color, and current styles and color trends.

Provides an overview of the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, including details regarding structural issues, moisture intrusion, roof and terrace restoration, and interior and exterior coatings.

Provides an overview of the classification of paints, advantages and disadvantages of latex versus alkyd coatings, surface preparation and priming techniques, and causes and solutions for common paint problems.

Provides an overview of the use of coatings on both new and existing commercial roof systems to achieve sustainability objectives, such as lower energy costs and increased durability.

Provides an overview of preventing and managing moisture in walls.

This program provides an overview of the basic characteristics of concrete as a floor substrate; floor coating types and the selection of appropriate materials; proper coating application; and, the importance of preliminary inspection and surface preparation.

Provides an overview of problems water creates for masonry structures, and how water repellents can help to prevent those problems.

Provides overview information on types of paint, paint finishes, surface preparation and primers.

Provides an overview of Intumescent Fire Retardant Coating (IFRC) products including coatings for engineered wood products, latex paints, sprays for interior furnishings, and dual action products that also inhibit mold growth.

Provides an overview of LEED® rating system, its uses, background, current trends, and future implications, focusing on how paint and coating products can contribute to LEED® rating.

Provides an overview of advances in antimicrobial mold and mildew-proof primers, paints, wallcovering installation systems, waterproofing coatings and remediation cleaners. Permeability of wallcovering and coatings to install them with, plus green building specification information for high performance, low VOC coatings for the prevention of mold and mildew are also reviewed.

Provides an overview of methods of reducing moisture intrusion in concrete and masonry walls with an emphasis on the role of sealers and coatings.

Provides an overview of decorative concrete solutions, focusing on the features, benefits, decorative techniques, applications, and methods of acid staining.

Provides an overview of sustainable design and the creation of healthier environments in reference to architectural paints. Included are discussions regarding the components of paint; independent testing methods and standards; categories of LEED®; and specification of paint systems for today’s designer.

Provides an overview of color, light, and metamerism and how they affect design choices.

Illustrates how the use of color can express our individuality and culture, and how the past can inspire us with fresh ideas for using color in the present. Highlighting the prevalent colors of more than ten decades, this course also looks at the societal, political, technological and cultural influences which impacted and defined the personality of each decade.

Provides an overview of the key reasons to apply a primer to every surface before painting a topcoat. Surface preparation, typical primer applications, stain-blocking and functionally specific primers are discussed.

Provides an overview of the sustainable benefits of integral concrete waterproofing and analyzes traditional waterproofing methods as compared to integral methods in terms of durability, risk, cost, and construction timeline.

Provides an overview of diverse cultures and their perception of color with a focus on historical cultural effects, cultural similarities and disparities among color families, and specifying appropriate paint colors in a multicultural global environment.

Provides an overview of the importance of planning and installing a proper drainage system in masonry cavity wall construction to prevent moisture penetration and the formation of cracks.

Provides an overview of the characteristics, features and benefits of engineered quartz surfaces, as well as a discussion on the related green certification programs.

Provides an overview of ingredients of paint, how these ingredients can affect paint quality, and what to consider when specifying paint for a project. Included are discussions on how to compare paints across different manufacturers and tips to avoiding problems with a project down the road.

Provides an overview of climate change and the sustainability movement, building material selection and material attributes and operational energy.

This course covers common on-site exterior paint failure issues and their causes and describes the factory coating process for exterior woodwork, substrate materials, installation tips and its many other benefits.

Provides an overview of types of paint, paint finishes, surface preparation, and primers.

This course provides an overview of types of paint, paint finishes, surface preparation, and primers.

• This course explores a new way to look at high performance. Here, behavior is revealed as the key to achieving performance improvements.
• This course will expose what most affects the behavior of individuals. The power of group behavior will be examined and indentified, giving you a real key to success.
• Here, the major drivers of team performance are illuminated and explained in a comprehensive manner so that you can improve performance in your organization.
• And, step by step, the methods to employ the performance mechanism to help you shape your organization for sustainable high performance improvement.

This course and the corresponding exam are required for PDCA Accreditation

• This course provides you with the knowledge to design and implement a powerful strategic business plan and know what to expect from it.
• Aimed at a high return on investment, processes are revealed that will help you succeed in a truly efficient manner.
• The best practices for strategic planning will be uncovered starting with process that includes concepts and techniques to materially enhance your organization’s results, your capabilities, profit and company value.
• Discover the high impact/high success elements of strategy and strategic business planning.
• Using your core purpose as a business, this course will assist you in developing an action plan for real success.

This course and the corresponding exam are required for PDCA Accreditation

• Discover how a rigorous, disciplined process for managing the performance of people is a critical part of every manager's job.
• Realize how to ensure the "right: talent is in place and cover how setting individual goals linked to business strategy and priorities is a key for success.
• Examine how weaving company development into goals is a key way grow real company talent.
• Learn how providing frequent and candid performance feedback can assist in measuring individual contributions and how to differentiate levels in individual performance.
• Finally, you will see how the combination of the people and the disciplined processes result in a culture that seeks to produce sustainable results.

This course and the corresponding exam are required for PDCA Accreditation

• This course provides you with several methods you can use to obtain a return on the investment made in your business.
• Answering questions concerning retirement, this course looks at potential areas of personal income.
• Comparisons between various retirement planning areas are reviewed and examined.
• You will learn the differences between employment packages that suit employees and business owners.
• The four cornerstones of success are identified in this course helping guide your decisions in the areas of leadership and support for your personal goals. You will discover even while you are at the top of an organization, you are not alone in the decision making process that guides your profitability.

• This course addresses the challenges of negotiating and discuss multiple negotiating strategies.
• Here, you'll learn about the seven deadly sins that can destroy a great negotiation opportunity.
• This course will expose the buyer so that you can identify multiple buyer types including the average buyer and the savvy buyer.
• Comparisons are offered so that you can differentiate between negotiating strategies and identify the 12 common buyer ploys.
• Here, critical areas common to all negotiations and learn the real difference between win/win and win/lose.
• Finally, you are challenged with making changes to your own methods for negotiating in a sales situation.

• Discover a detailed and disciplined process for discerning when to bid or not bid on a scope of work.
• You will realize how profiling your customer and your company will keep you on track for developing the right bids and proposals suitable to your operation.
• You will examine how to fine tune any bid to ensure you can avoid cutting into profit when you cutting price.
• You will learn principles that will allow you to maximize production rates, increasing crew performance on any job.
• Finally, we review methods to evaluate the buyer and the job to ensure that bids are valued engineered leading to successful operations.

• Examine standards for scope and quality of work for financial responsibility.
• Learn how effective use of the PDCA Standards will help avoid many day-to-day problems.
• Walk through common bid document terms so that bids accurately reflect the intent of the documents.
• Detailed "quality of appearance" specifications are examined so that reference standards are controlled by sample review and approval.
• Learn why you should incorporate PDCA Standards into your proposals.
• Learn how PDCA Standards can establish procedures for measuring and testing to determine compliance with a manufacturer's specifications.

• This course addresses the challenges the sale proprietor faces in retirement planning.
• Here, you'll learn various methods you can take advantage of to save money.
• This course will expose retirement plan options in easy-to-understand terminology.
• Comparisons are offered so that you can differentiate between a myriad of options.
• Here, critical areas common to all small and medium sized businesses are examined.
• And, step by step, the vehicles that support the accumulation of retirement assets are discussed in detail.

• Here, you will gather the tools to discover where you stand in relationship to your wealth accumulation, retirement funding, estate planning, and financial goals.

• This course presents clear and easy to follow presentations on retirement planning, education planning, investment planning, estate planning, insurance planning, tax planning, and business succession.

• Valuable tools will be reviewed including an examination of the amount necessary to maintain ongoing desired lifestyle during retirement.

• Expert and easy-to-follow assistance is provided so that you can determine the amount necessary to fund your children's or grandchildren's education costs.

• You will find critical information concerning the appropriate asset allocation and investment alternatives to meet your financial goals while simultaneously minimizing risk to the extent possible, and help with the identification of those risks that could impair a successful financial plan and the acquisition of the appropriate insurance products to mitigate such risk.

• This course explores employer and executive needs that will result in a truly effective compensation strategy for your company.

• Here, you will develop the best tools to retain and grow your finest asset: your employees.

• This course will expose the value of high performance compensation strategies.

• The power of a stable workforce is examined providing you the knowledge to increase sales, achieve better customer service, and increase profits.

• Here, the criteria for selecting an appropriate strategy will be examined with a goal of understanding the accounting and taxation issues that may impact your compensation decisions.

• And, step by step, we review the methods that will ensure that your employees or executives are highly motivated for years to come.

How to identify, qualify, and hire top performers!

• Learn concepts and techniques to materially enhance your organization's ability to find and hire top performers.
• Discuss high impact/high success recruiting strategies and concepts.
• Provide information that you can use to improve your organization's results.
• Examine the obstacles to hiring top performers and the cost of miss-hires for your company.

• This course explores a new way to look at the hiring process.
• Here, your best employees are revealed as the key to hiring new employees.
• This course will expose the seven steps to creating first class employees so you can avoid the “fire them if they don’t work out” principle.
• The power of a stable workforce is examined providing you the knowledge to increase sales, achieve better customer service, and increase profits.
• Here, the critical areas of interviewing and testing employees is thoroughly covered, demonstrating an innovative method for you to make the right decision.
• Step by step, the methods to create orientation and assimilation programs are outlined helping grow your employees into the leaders you expect them to be.

This course explores a new way to look at the marketing process. Aimed at assisting with answers to questions concerning effective marketing, this course digs into successfully competing on many levels.

• You will be walked through the 7 most important principles of marketing, providing a broad understanding of what it takes to increase revenue.
• You will learn new ways to examine and mine your target market for business.
• If you find yourself competing on price, this course is for you! It will provide your with options for higher margin opportunities.
• You will discover the processes that will map your marketing plan to your business and financial goals.

• You will learn why "brand awareness" is linked to sales leadership in any category.
• Examine media solutions that are right for your business and prioritize them for cost effectiveness.
• Discover how not to "box yourself in" when branding your company's products and servers.
• Branding and personification will help you identify the attributes that shape the percetions of your brand personality.
• You will learn to visually plot your product and your competitors' product or service position.
• Insightful methodologies are defined, giving you ways to improve information extraction, organization and ideation techniques. You will learn to build a comprehensive cornerstone-marketing communications document, allowing you to plot your marketing success.

This course and the corresponding exam are required for PDCA Accreditation

• This course covers Full-Circle Marketing, showing you how to create sales through seamless integration.
• Building upon principles uncovered in Marketing I, this course will assist you in developing an integrated Full-Circle Marketing Matrix.
• Discover your marketing opportunities, your strengths, weaknesses, and position your vis-à-vis competition.
• Here, we review and identify in order of customer importance all factors that separate your brand, product, or company.
• Identify and implement the action steps necessary to create the "brand footprint" that will open and exploit your market opportunities.

This course explores an extraordinary new way to look at selling.

• Aimed at getting beyond the traditional methods of closing business, you'll get answers to questions concerning important details of the sales cycle.
• You will be walked through the buyer-seller relationship.
• You will learn new ways to exploit the common and traditional elements in customer relationships.
• If you find yourself competing on price, this course will demonstrate that control is the key to recurring success in sales.
• Here, the relationship between quality and price are examined for their direct relationship to value and how to translate the combination into sales.

• In this course, you will see how a good marketing and communications buzz assists your business during expansion.
• You will learn where to look for new contracts and how you can take them from business suspect to real prospect. We examine the details that will allow your company to become a public relations engine, providing continual marketing and communications.
• Attention is applied to the possibilities you may find in becoming the neche expert for a new marketplace, allowing you to gain considerable ground on the competition.
• Here, you can review methods for sharing your expertise that will cause you to become known for your depth of knowledge.

Setting standards of excellence, being memorable and implementing innovations are the hallmarks that successful painting companies carry out every day. Surprisingly, most of these strategies and tactics can be easily implemented by any painting company regardless of size. Every honest and ethical business is doing some of these but may not realize how important they are to their buyers.

Want to grow your business in a shrinking market? Does it seem like the market for your services is smaller than it used to be due to consumers spending less on painting than they used to? Or is your market just fine, but you are looking for more ways to grow your business?

Diversification is a strategy that many companies use to grow sales. Diversifying your business offerings can increase profitability through greater sales volume obtained from selling new services to an existing market or finding new markets for your new or existing services. In this webinar, you will learn:

• Different ways you can diversify your business
• Things to consider when using diversification as a strategy
• Diversification ideas and strategies for painting contractors
• How to market your new services

While you may be good at playing an air guitar, you’re probably better at running a painting company. So, how do you satisfy that desire to have a caravan of groupies? Become the "Go-To Guy/Gal" for clients and their friends by following a very simple plan for the off season — without breaking the bank!

Steve Burnett of Burnett Painting and Josh Abramson of A.Allbright Painting reveal their tested methods for being the ultimate service professional.

Many contractors struggle with the pricing of jobs. On one hand, you’re in business to make money and on the other hand, you need to be competitive.

PDCA provides many tools to help contractors understand the cost of providing the work and these tools can help you determine your hourly job costs, but what about overhead costs of running your business?

In this session, we will use tools that allow you calculate your overhead that should be added to your hourly labor charges to make sure you’re not conducting business at a loss.

You can identify your revenue and profit goals for the year without developing a real plan to achieve them. This almost always means you will fall short of your expectations. Putting together a detailed and strategic profit plan or budget for the year gives you a framework to achieve success.

This PDCA Contractor College webinar provides techniques and tools to help painting contractors to create a realizable profit plan and budget for 2012. Put your plan in place now so you can hit the ground running in January, implementing action steps that will give you the edge over your slower moving, less organized competitors.

Being an employer can be tough, especially in the compliance landscape that we are in today. Having employees means more than just making sure that they are paid on time. In this webinar, members will learn about payroll and payroll tax laws, compliance with the Department of Labor, HR responsibilities and how to protect their business in the event of an audit.

In this upbeat presentation, PDCA CEO Richard Greene walks you through easy-to-implement marketing concepts that can help you get more business by "mining" your prior customers, "cultivating" your current customer list, and "digging" for new customers. He will remind you of the 7 most important seconds of the customer relationship. He will tell you how home-made pie grows revenue. He will explain how thinking about your dentist can result in repeat business. This will be a fun-filled hour of reviewing old tricks and new tips to help market your unique business expertise.

Click here to download the student workbook!

Approximately 85% of all website traffic and 70% of all online purchases originate from a search engine. There are several aspects to search engine optimization and marketing that business professionals should be aware of to increase their companies' online profile, ensure that they stay competitive, and be found online by potential customers.

• This course provides real insight on using the right tools, including picking the correct application tool for the job.
• Spray systems are identified and examined for their differences and unique characteristics when spraying.
• Learn important facts about equipment, application methods, and procedures.
• The various classifications of brushes and rollers are covered, including methods of application and the situations where they are best used.
• Principles of spray painting are reviewed, covering the skills required for great work.
• Get tips to improve your speed and efficiency.

• Having a basic understanding of colors can be very helpful in working with customers as they choose the color or colors to use, whether interior or exterior.
• The idea is not necessarily to make the color decision for the customer, but rather to aid in working through the color decision. For example, knowing what colors go well with a customer's favorite color will help identify a pleasing combination of colors -- that is, a suitable color scheme.
• Knowing how different colors tend to affect people can really be helpful in guiding customers in making their choice.
• The objective is to help make you more comfortable in "talking color" with the customer, which in many cases will be appreciated very much!

• This course covers the basic aspects of exterior paints, stains, elastomeric wall coatings, and clear coatings.
• There are number of key exterior paint properties and related modes of failure. These are categorized as either protective properties or decorative properties.
• A quick reference piece on paint failures is provided as well.
• You'll learn about the PQI Remedies for Common Paint Failures.
• We'll cover the painting of newer substrates, such as aluminum and vinyl siding.
• Conditions to be avoided when painting are included as well.

• This course covers the objectives of surface preparation in detail.
• Important aspects of adhesion, from the finish coat and loss of adhesion by blistering, peeling, or flaking are reviewed.
• A key element of this course is found in proper surface preparation, including ways to eliminate discoloration.
• With a goal of great preparation, this course identifies methods to ensure maximum uniformity of sheen or gloss – and uniform hiding, too.
• The how and why of priming and corrosion resistance are covered to help your team get the desired results.

• This course gives you the tools to create a great paint job.
• The goals and information supplied with this course are targeted at adhesion to the surface without peeling, flaking, or blistering.
• Learn how to professionally prepare the surface to prevent the paint and your paint job from failing.
• This course also covers the preparation of glossy surfaces and lead safety.
• Learn how to select top quality paints and how apply them to ensure the maximum adhesive of the paint.

• Proper surface preparation is an essential part of a quality paint job, and this course is a key to obtaining great long term performance from paint and fantastic initial appearance.
• Difficult surfaces such as plastics, ceramic tile, old gloss enamels, and wet areas are covered in detail.
• Discover the key role preparation plays in obtaining a uniform final coating.
• Learn about mildew growth, its interaction with interior paints, and the preparatory steps that can often prevent mildew, even in extremely damp areas.

• The ingredients of paint, what they are, and their impact on paint properties.
• Learn why you need to be familiar with paint ingredients.
• Learn to better interpret paint data sheets and labels, and be better equipped to explain differences in paint performance to customers.
• Gain a better background for solving paint performance problems.

• This comprehensive course covers many important issues and proper safety precautions for surface preparation and application of paint, stain, primer, and other coatings.
• Key to your sucess as professional painters, the information in this course will demonstrate methods to protect yourselves, coworkers, facility managers, and all those who want to ensure the safety of workers and tenants alike.
• Your customers will appreciate your true concern about their personal safety and will be receptive to your guidance on equipment and procedures.