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The Estimating Tool Contractors Trust
When you're a consultant working with hundreds of painting contractors across North America, you see every system, every approach, and every tool that's supposed to make businesses run better. Molly Nolan, Marketing and Program Manager at Nolan Consulting Group, has that perspective. She works daily with painting contractors, helping them grow their businesses, solve operational challenges, and implement systems that actually deliver results.
In that role, Molly has seen countless software platforms and estimating systems come and go. She's watched contractors waste money on tools that promised transformation but delivered frustration. She knows the difference between marketing hype and genuine value.
So when Molly tells new clients that if they're using PaintScout, they made the right decision, and if they're not using an estimating app, PaintScout is the number one place to start, it carries weight. That recommendation isn't coming from someone trying to sell you something; it's coming from someone whose job is to guide contractors toward what actually works.
Seeing Results Across Hundreds of Contractors
Molly's perspective on PaintScout is different from typical user testimonials. Most contractors can only speak to their own experience. Molly sees something different. As part of Nolan Consulting Group, she works with painting contractors across North America at various stages of growth, from startups to multi-million dollar operations.
She sees patterns that individual contractors can't see. She understands which solutions deliver consistent results regardless of market, business size, or contractor experience level.
When you're a consultant, your reputation depends on the quality of your recommendations. If you consistently point clients toward tools that don't work, you lose credibility. The fact that Molly and Nolan Consulting Group actively recommend PaintScout tells you everything you need to know about the platform's reliability and effectiveness.
Watching Excellence Evolve
Molly's connection to PaintScout goes back further than most. Nolan Consulting Group has worked with Jon Bryant and The Urban Painter for years. That relationship gave Molly a front-row seat to something most people never get to see: the origin and evolution of PaintScout from its earliest days to the sophisticated platform it is today.
"I actually saw years ago the origins of this estimating app come to life," Molly recalls. She watched as Jon, a painting contractor facing the same estimating challenges every contractor faces, started building solutions for his own business.
But more importantly, she watched what happened next. Having a functional tool that works for your own business is one thing. Turning that into a polished, professional software platform that works for hundreds of different businesses is something else entirely.
"Jon made it a hundred million times better," Molly says. "I have had my hands in the app itself and it's crazy how much they have simplified and made the process so efficient."
This firsthand experience watching the platform evolve gives Molly confidence when recommending it to clients. She's not recommending something based on marketing materials or a sales demo; she's recommending something she's literally watched develop from the ground up.
A Game Changer Across the Board
When Molly says PaintScout has been "a game changer" for Nolan Consulting Group's clients, she's describing what she sees in practice across their client base. The development of PaintScout has fundamentally changed how many of their clients operate and estimate.
What that looks like in practice:
Faster estimating processes. Contractors who previously spent hours building proposals can now create professional estimates in a fraction of the time. That time savings compounds across every estimate.
More professional presentation. Estimates that used to be basic spreadsheets or Word documents are now beautifully formatted, comprehensive proposals that communicate expertise and professionalism.
Better customer experience. As Molly notes, PaintScout has "made it easy for customers to access their proposals and their scopes in a really professional way."
More accurate estimating. Production rate-based estimating means fewer costly errors, more consistent pricing across the team, and estimates that actually reflect real-world costs and timeframes.
Easier scaling. As contractors grow and add team members, PaintScout makes it dramatically easier to bring new estimators up to speed and maintain consistency.
Molly sees these benefits play out repeatedly across diverse client bases. Different markets. Different business sizes. Different specialties. Yet PaintScout consistently delivers value.
Education and Support
One aspect of PaintScout that Molly specifically highlights is something that goes beyond the software itself: the educational content and support.
"I've also had the pleasure of working with the PaintScout team, both through partnerships and the opportunities connecting clients to their webinars and content education," Molly explains. "They have been instrumental in helping other sales reps that we work with learn and be better at their roles, providing more resources in that space."
This shows that PaintScout isn't just a software company trying to sell licenses. They're genuinely invested in helping contractors succeed. Creating educational content, hosting webinars, and providing resources doesn't directly generate revenue, but it does help contractors get more value from the platform and achieve better results.
The partnership between Nolan Consulting Group and PaintScout isn't just about software. It's about both organizations working together to help contractors build better businesses.
Bringing New Sales Reps Up to Speed
One specific use case Molly highlights is particularly relevant for growing painting companies: onboarding new sales reps who don't have painting experience.
This is a common scenario. You find someone great at selling with excellent people skills, but they don't know the painting industry. Traditionally, bringing that person up to speed is a months-long process.
PaintScout changes that dynamic significantly.
As Molly explains, introducing PaintScout to a new sales rep who's great at selling but doesn't know the paint world has "made that transition, that onboarding into that business a little bit easier because they have a really great tool at their fingertips to kind of plug and play and learn a little bit quicker."
This means:
- Shorter training timelines
- More confidence for new hires
- Consistent results from day one
- Lower risk when bringing on new team members
- Faster path to productivity
For a consultant helping contractors scale, tools that accelerate onboarding and reduce hiring risk are invaluable. The ability to bring talented salespeople into the business without requiring extensive painting knowledge opens up the talent pool significantly.
You Made the Right Decision
Here's the moment that reveals Molly's true assessment of PaintScout: when she's talking with new clients or prospects and asking about their systems.
If they tell her they're using PaintScout, her response is simple: "You made the right decision."
That's not qualified praise. It's not "that's a good option." It's definitive. Confident. Based on seeing the results across a large sample size of real contractors doing real work.
When Molly talks to contractors who aren't using an estimating app, her guidance is equally clear: "I kind of say this is your number one place to start. Get PaintScout and your world's going to change."
Notice the confidence in the outcome: "your world's going to change." Not "this might help." That's the language of someone who has seen the transformation happen repeatedly and knows what to expect.
What Works Consistently
Consultants develop pattern recognition that individual contractors can't see. When you work with one painting company, you see what works for that one company. When you work with hundreds across different markets, sizes, and specialties, you start to see what works consistently regardless of those variables.
Molly has seen PaintScout work for:
- Small one-person operations professionalizing their estimating
- Mid-size companies scaling by adding estimators and sales reps
- Large operations needing consistency across multiple team members
- Residential specialists focused on cabinet refinishing or interior repaints
- Commercial contractors bidding on large-scale projects
- Full-service companies doing everything from residential to commercial work
The platform delivers value consistently across all of those contexts. That consistency is what gives Molly the confidence to recommend it without qualification.
Reputation on the Line
When you're a consultant, your recommendations put your reputation on the line. If you consistently recommend solutions that don't deliver results, clients stop trusting your judgment.
Molly and Nolan Consulting Group have built their reputation on giving contractors solid, reliable advice. They're not getting paid to recommend PaintScout. They're not affiliate partners earning commissions. They recommend it because they've seen it work, they know it delivers value, and they trust that it will help their clients succeed.
That kind of third-party validation from a respected industry consultant is worth more than any marketing campaign could ever be.
Listen to People Who See the Patterns
If you're a painting contractor trying to decide whether to invest in estimating software, or which platform to choose, Molly's perspective offers an important lesson: listen to people who see the patterns across many businesses, not just marketing claims from vendors.
Individual contractor testimonials are valuable, but they don't tell you if a platform works consistently. When a consultant who works with hundreds of contractors across diverse markets tells you that one particular platform consistently delivers results, that should carry significant weight.
Molly has no financial incentive to recommend PaintScout. Her incentive is to give her clients advice that actually helps them succeed. The fact that PaintScout earns her unreserved recommendation tells you that the platform delivers what it promises.
Your Next Step
If you're a painting contractor wondering whether PaintScout is right for your business, consider this: the consultants who work with hundreds of painting companies across North America and whose reputation depends on the quality of their recommendations are pointing contractors toward PaintScout.
When Molly Nolan tells contractors that if they're using PaintScout, they made the right decision, and if they're not using an estimating app, PaintScout is the number one place to start—that's not marketing. That's pattern recognition based on watching the platform deliver results consistently.
The question isn't whether PaintScout works. The consultants who see the patterns across the industry already know it does.
The question is: how long will you wait before experiencing that transformation yourself?
Ready to see why industry consultants like Molly Nolan consistently recommend PaintScout? Schedule a free demo to discover the platform that consultants trust to help their clients grow, professionalize, and transform their businesses.