Paintless repair always gets good reviews. Touch up does not. Is there something we are doing to cause problems for our customers? What can you do to protect your business? SHOWNOTES
By the time the storm was over and they fixed all the cars, Jim and his partner lost $25,000. Each. The worst part? It didn't have to happen. Jim even saw it coming. At one point, he suggested the body shop should sign the invoices on all the cars. “Oh no, Dusty always pays.” Only this time, Dusty didn’t pay. Why did Jim Sullivan tell us this story? Because he provides PDR estimating software. The program which could have stopped this huge hail storm loss. Listen to find out how you can: protect...
Customers are the lifeblood of your paintless business. Would you trust your interactions with them to artificial intelligence? Only if you were certain it would result in a better experience for them. Have we reached the point in tech advancements to allow for this? Yes, we think so. Listen to see how we are implementing a better start to the pdr estimating process using bots and believe it or not, facebook. SHOWNOTES...
Your dad liked them. You liked them. Now your kids like them and they are telling all their friends. Something which appeals to three generations or more, this is what we call timeless. Baseball? Yeah, but its really a pastime. We’re talking about things which seem temporary, like popular music. Music is popular for a small window of time, then it falls off a cliff into the realm of yesterday. But not all. Led Zeppelin to wit. Each new group of teenagers “discovers” this group and their world is...
Robo calls. Always an interruption when you’re in the middle of a dent repair. Every call starts with a lie, too. “You’re listing is not correct…” or some such nonsense. But there really is a way for a well meaning person, or worse an evil competitor to alter your listing. If you’re not careful, you may not even know about it for a time. Also, year end, we talk tax planning again. Finally, the best way to negotiate with an insurance adjuster, and exactly when and where you will need it. SHOWNOTE...
You sell dent repair services. This customer has a dent. Naturally, you start selling your dent repair service. Oops you missed it. Fixing the dent is only one of the things they want (and its the last they want to talk about). Listen to uncover the six things your customer really wants. Then check out the shownotes for the list which will help you sell more, and write unbeatable ads.
If you’re like every PDR tech who ever pushed a dent, you love new tools. We love seeing the new stuff too, even when its just for using around the office. Over the years, we’ve found some apps or software which makes life easier. Listen to the tools we use in the dent repair office. SHOWNOTES You're going to want to click above, lots of links to these great tools!
They say every idea worth spreading starts on the West Coast of the USA. Not this time. PDR started two different places at the same time. Neither of them have a zip code starting with 9. Listen to how paintless began according to all the mostly true stories we’ve heard through the years. Also, why the changes coming in PDR will totally catch you off guard. SHOWNOTES Links Mentioned: Ep. 21 Should You Design Your Own PDR Tools...
Ninety days from starting. All the time needed for you to realize running a PDR business is not as great as you thought it might be. You get more deductions, but also find you pay higher personal taxes. The competition are fools and are ruining the business with unsustainable pricing. The state government is threatening to pass a law which will take away a good part of your business. Somebody's gotta do something about this industry! What is the single most important thing to remember about your...
Imagine coughing up money for a new car only to find it has hail damage on it. The underhanded way the dealer treated this customer would make Bernie Madoff blush. Herein lies the reason for becoming more than just a metal pusher. Consumer education builds trust.Trust builds sales. The stories you hear and experience can become public service announcements. You’ll see how to forearm your clients against dealer fraud and other shenanigans. SHOWNOTES...
Want to make more money in your PDR business? Raise your prices. Easy for you to say, friend. We are first to admit, charging more is scary. At first. When you hear what happened to us in this episode, you’ll see why it gets easier. Listen for a real example of a low price scaring a customer right into our shop. How to get to the most important thing in your customer’s mind Where the money is coming from is important Do your customer’s brag about your pricing? Amazon is all about price, right? T...
The best thing you can do for your PDR business website is make it google, or search engine friendly. Once your site is fixed up, the next best thing is to build links coming in to it. Google counts these as votes for your content and give you authority in the form of better placement in the listing. Local businesses can be easy to build links to if you know where to start. We found an article from Moz with some great suggestions. Listen as we tailor it to your PDR site. SHOWNOTES Also in this e...
Your customers are smart, that’s how they wound up in your shop or on the phone with you. From you they need guidance, but what’s the best way to give it? Come right out and tell them what to do? Might work sometimes. Better if you help them in a way which makes them feel as if it was their own discovery. What follows will be their own decision. For this, you need influence. The ethical means to build the bridge to your business. This is part 2 of our Persuasion episodes. Based on the newest boo...
Have an idea for a PDR Light? Great! Please share it with the world. Better yet, build it, sell it and make lots of money. No really you should. But tread carefully, for it appears paintless dent repair tool innovation has sunk to the level of litigation. Could you be sued for your innovative idea? Maybe. At the least, you can expect a cease and desist letter. On one side of the court is James Lee and Elimadent, who holds a patent on mobile pdr lighting. The other corner is filled with those who...
“You charge too much!” Those words ring in your mind for a long time. Even days later, you realize what bothers you most is your reaction. What you replied in the heat of the moment. If you ever wished you could go back and change something, then you know the power of negative prep. The time to work these things out is before they happen. Once the missile is launched, its too late to aim it. Listen as we uncover a technique for mental and emotional targeting as taught by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. Psych...
What ya gonna do on this dent? Push it, pull it, knock it down. Look again. How about now? Explore with us a simple approach for paintless dent repair. See why and how the best use it daily and some don’t even know they’re using it. This is how all the methods of dent removal come together for you to make faster, easier repairs. Once you see it, you’ll know why we call it the Unified Theory of PDR. Because I don’t love the word “theory” for its dual meaning, a definition is needed. As used in ou...
Fixing a dent without painting is solving lots of tiny problems. Running a paintless shop means solving bigger problems. An unauthorized, unskilled broker comes to town. A competitor stealing “your” account. Someone makes a false statement about PDR on the internet. Must you tackle these head on? Someone needs to do something . The temptation is there, and they do get a lot of our attention, but is this where you want to put your focus? This episode is a reminder to us that some problems are lik...
Your side gig. Your hobbies. Bet you have one or both. When you study these and compare to the paintless dent business, do you notice the similarities in their behaviors? The things which make a group turn on itself are not really unique to PDR. Other niches make this painfully clear: the same attitudes and strange views exist everywhere you look. People are people, right? Flame wars and cyber bullies on a PDR forum, do they only exist in your business? What makes the trolls come out anyways? Wh...
Ever price a hail damage car too low or take on one too severe to fix properly? Travis Daniels faced this very thing in his paintless business. “I’ll give you all my dent work if you fix this one car”. Listen to his story and what he learned from it. Also, we talk about some ways to change his website to optimize for his local market. make your customer see you as a hero getting the best domain name for your business SHOWNOTES...
On August 6 a tornado damaged many buildings near our paintless dent shop. The shop we left a few weeks before is a quarter mile away. It still stands, but is not safe to be in, much less to do business out of. Some have said, “You must be living right,” or “just good clean living!” Is this how it really works? Did our old neighbors lose their location for some hidden transgression? Maybe we were just lucky, or maybe its something else. Follow us as we examine the beliefs which can cost you mone...
Used car work is the low hanging fruit of any reconditioning business. PDR, detailing, touchup, just a snippet of what gets done to a used car. Get some dealers, build your confidence in dent repair, yes. What are the perils of doing so? Can where you start also be the end of your paintless business growth? Uncover these dangers: the tainted referral confusing selling with negotiating Ironic account holding. What it is, and how to spot it holds your retail pricing low If they get hailed on I’m g...
Everything is going up in price, you know this. You also know prices need to go up for your PDR services. You might also know its the easiest way to increase profits, just charge more. But will you start to lose dent customers? What about the wholesale customers who see your prices be one level every week, then suddenly go up? What is the best strategy for going up in a way they can understand? Also in this episode: can you be sued for the way you fix a dent? How a collision after repair left a ...
Lots of work, lots of techs to do it. Some enterprising fellow sees a chance to put himself between it all and make some easy money. Broker is a 4 letter word in most PDR circles and sometimes with good reason. But is there a way to stop it, or at least minimize their impact on your market? Tools we use: We picked up a Woyo induction hotbox dent puller. Hear about our misadventures with learning to use it. SHOWNOTES...
'Why didn’t you become a doctor or lawyer?' 'You should marry a doctor or lawyer.' A cliche for sure, but are we secretly embarrassed to call ourselves technicians? Some are. Once had this conversation with a young man in the hail business earning 6 figures: “Are you proud of what you’ve accomplished?” "I am, but most of my friends went to college, and though I make more, they still look down on me." Rivers Cuomo , the lead singer of the band Weezer went back to college (twice) after finding mus...
“Have you guys ever burned out pushing dents?” "No, I haven’t” This was my answer to Ron Kronon in this episode’s interview. But I was not completely honest. Burn out just might be why I stopped the paintless dealer work in 2003. What I felt then was the hopeless futility of doing dealer work. They tried to hire one of my employees to compete with me. They set the prices. They dictated my earnings. The only way to win the game was not to play. If you do dealer work and this bothers you, sorry. I...
Social Media can make your paintless business grow. But its a lot of work. To get traction, you have to post a minimum of once a day. Not only can this be a lot of work, its a huge distraction which can take you away from making money pushing dents. Is there a way to control the timesuck? More and more sites are allowing you to schedule out your posts. Sit down once a week and set up your posting in advance and you’re done. Sort of. Once you make a post, its a flash in someone’s timeline or feed...
As you apply good marketing strategies to your business, you will feel growth pains. You might consider adding a tech or two to the paintless team. Be warned: hiring is fraught with danger in any business. Paintless dent repair companies have issues totally unique in managing new hires. What are the dangers and how can you protect your company? What is the best type person to hire, and how would you even know if they are a fit? How will you pay them? Fixed wage vs. commission? Don’t worry, if yo...
I have this strange fear of cave diving. Those scuba tank and flipper wearing adventurers have my admiration. Still, just thinking about them doing it can send me into a sitting panic. Irrational? Yes, I know its true. But the feeling is overwhelming. Therein lies the topic of today's podcast. Avoiding overwhelm is an inside job, meaning our conscious thought. Can you train your way out of overwhelm? We think so and I’ll bet the scuba cave diving school could teach me a thing or two. Maybe even ...
What really happens when you bid a hail job for a body shop and say, “I’ll do it for X”? Is it possible to sell your future on just one job? A hail season’s worth? I once felt that, hey, I’m just one guy. How I price doesn’t matter, right? Except it does. You and I and every PDR tech good enough to work for body shops are now part of a big machine. Like it or not we drive the paintless division of the collision industry. Think about it. For years it was body, frame, paint and mechanical. Now thr...
Please a customer and they will tell 10 others. Its a tired old axiom, but it only scratches the surface of what’s really going on in your paintless business. Is it possible that one client could become a “super” customer? This is the person who loves you and your PDR service so much, they tell everyone about you. They repeat the story over and over to any who will listen. They will not forget you. How do you recognize this kind of client? What should you do when you find one? What can you do to...
