Customer Reviews, Stretched dents, Sales, Blending, Route Building.

We do our best to answer your questions !

In episode 82 we took some of most common questions about what’s lacking in technician’s dent games and did our best to answer them or at least point people in the right direction!

Remember to follow both of us on Periscope! We live stream during the week to give you an inside view of what we do daily to stay at the top of our games.

PDRcollegeKeith

PDRcollegeShane

Shane Jacks Signature Series Tools

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Transcript:

Shane: Let’s talk a little bit about hot glue, specific for painless dent removal. What kind are you using? You know, you can get a decent pull from any type of glue, I mean any. You can go get some stuff from some craft store or get some stuff from Walmart. In fact, I used Wal-Mart glue for a long time, before I really got into the manufacturer side of PDR, Wal-Mart glue was my glue.

You know what I thought; all of these colored glues are fancy ways to trick me out of money. How much better can they work? Well, to some degree, I was right. Some of those colors suck and they are there just to take your money. However, once I opened my eyes and got some of the samples of glues that were the real deal and really did work better, I thought, holy smokes. Here I am again, doubting the technical progress of our trade. Just because something looks different, doesn’t mean it is not better. It doesn’t mean that it is a scam.

So, I started using colored glues and I found two that worked amazingly. A green glue and a pink glue that we stock both on PDR.com. But I wanted a glue that worked even better than that. Now, can a glue work too good? Yes, super glue and liquid nails work too good and will take the paint off the car. That is not what we are after. It’s a fine line of maximum adhesion, but not going over the top and ripping the paint off the car and putting us further back then we started in the first place. We want to leave the paint on the car.

So, we need something that doesn’t have maximum adhesion for a hot metal glue. There is a lot of glue out there that are made for construction and manufacturing, that would make our glues that we use look like it doesn’t work. But, we have a specific purpose and we need to find the maximum adhesion that we can get out of those conditions and that is what we have done with our new line of glue, TabWeld. TabWeld is the new standard for PDR. You don’t think it can get better because what you are using works now, but if you want to unction at the highest level, you have to squeeze the last two, three, five, or 10 percent of performance out that everyone else is leaving.

It is just like racing cars; everything has to be dialed if you want to go faster than the other guy. If you want to do a better repair, less pulls or do a repair that someone else said couldn’t be done, you have to have the best tools. Glue is so stinking cheap for how much you use.
I did a $600.00 repair the other day and was on it for four hours and I used two sticks of TabWeld. Of all time, and that glue pulled the whole time. It is not a lot of money to put in and there are no other expenses in our business. Stop being short sided; buy the glue that is going to make your life easier and more profitable. Don’t forget, that is what I am all about in this business, making more money. If you are using the right tools, you are going to make more of it. I can promise you that.

You have the right lights, the right tools, the right tabs and glues and you know how to use it all, magic happens. So, that is what I am trying to tell you. There is a glue that works better than what you are using now and it is called TabWeld. It is still in an early release stage and we have got samples out right now. If you buy anything on Black Plague PDR.com, you are going to get a sample. You can go on there and just pick the sample if you want.

You have to pay for shipping if you do that, but very shortly here, in a matter of weeks, the TabWeld is going to be released full steam ahead and you can have as much of it as you would like. Check out the website, Tabweld.com and you can pop yourself onto our mailing list so you can be notified the minute we are releasing it. We have got some exciting stuff coming out with that and you are going to be impressed, I promise you. If you don’t like it, I will buy it back because I use it every single day and I can’t have enough of it. So, buy it, enjoy it, and make more money, Tabweld.com.

Keith: I am Keith Cosentino, he’s Shane Jacks, and this is the PDR college podcast, your No. 1 worldwide source for paint less dent removal excellence, in an audio format. Shane and I are with you every week to give you everything that we learn, plus everything that we want to learn, bottled up and thrown into your ears, that you can go out and make giant stacks of cash. So much that it is overflowing. Shane, why so much, why so much cash and why do you need it?

Shane: For me Keith, my daughter’s sweet 16 birthday party is today. No. 1, the party costs a ton, and No. 2 she will be in college soon and I am not prepared for all of that junk.

Keith: How much does it cost to get Taylor Swift to come to your sweet 16?

Shane: It is not expensive. I mean, it’s not cheap. Taylor Swift.
Keith: I don’t know who she listens too, the Beatles?

Shane: No, I wasn’t saying that, I was actually thinking about how much it would actually cost, that is why I was chuckling, to get Taylor Swift to come somewhere.

Keith: If you tweet the right thing, she would probably come for free.

Shane: I don’t know, I honestly can’t, she writes really well K22’s but I don’t like them, of course.

Keith: You don’t like music.

Shane: She is very brilliant, I mean, the girl has built herself to ridiculous status and writes all her own music. I kind of respect her; she is a brilliant, brilliant young lady.

Keith: I read some article that she does all of her own marketing and everything that is done; she has a hand in it. She doesn’t just hand it off to somebody; she is all up in it.

Shane: She is a brand.

Keith: The busier that I get with my little enterprise, I look at somebody like that and think, dude, your life isn’t fun. You are working all the time.

Shane: No wonder all of those boys hate you.

Keith: No doubt, she is not sitting at home making cookies waiting for you to come home.

Shane: No, especially me. She doesn’t know me.

Keith: Man, we have been having a lot of fun with that Periscope ap. If you guys have no clue what I am talking about, go to the ap store and download Periscope. It is a live streaming application and Shane and I have been finding situations, out in the field, that are interesting, informative, funny or cool and we turn that little ap on and all of the sudden you are in our world. You get to see and hear everything we are doing and you can chat back with us about stuff. It’s really cool.

Shane: And I promised one yesterday, that didn’t happen, but I’m going to try and we are trying to do one a day.
Keith: Speak for yourself.

Shane: No, between the two of us. That is kind of what I, we didn’t actually discuss this, but it’s kind of what I had thought that we would try to do one a day. We are doing dang near that and not skipping many days thus far. I’m sure it will slow down just a bit or maybe it will pick up, I don’t know.
Keith: For me, it’s all about if I have something interesting to talk about or show.

Shane: Yeah, just getting on there, just to get on there, if you guys really want to see he or I, especially him, that’s bad and there is something wrong with you.

Keith: Yeah, my complexion is not amazing. I have got a face for a podcast, but I am doing these things because you want to see them. Some guy told me I looked stoned. The hardest thing I do is diet Pepsi, so I definitely wasn’t stoned, but I can see that I look terrible. If you want to see how terrible, follow me at PDRCollegekeith. We are having fun and there are a lot of interesting guys on there, a lot of neat guys. I have shared a lot of technical stuff really. I come across these weird situations with a tool or with metal and it’s fun to show it.

Shane: We did one recently, on the edge of the Tesla hood and you did one for the Camaro that somebody had really hacked up. Nice job on that by the way.

Keith: Yeah, thanks. The hack up repair was secondary to what I wanted to show was fixing that bent edge. Did you come in late and miss that part?

Shane: I believe I did. My notification is coming through late where I am at right now. I’m not getting the notification right when you start, so I did come in on the very tail end of you getting away. I saw that edge bent and you had some pliers or something up in there.

Keith: Yeah, so I have these axial grip pliers from a company called Grip-On that I get from Amazon. Imagine you had a sheet metal table and you wanted to clamp a pair of plier’s right on the edge and the pliers would hang straight down. Not back at you, but straight towards the ground. So, they have like a duckbill on the top to grip at a 90 degree angle. They are just perfectly flat jaws. So, you can use these things to straighten a big hole.
You can’t get them in a small hole, but a relatively large hole, like in a trunk or a hood opening that you tweak out with a tool, you can get back in there and flatten with these pliers. But what you can also do is, clamp them down to a piece of sheet metal, and then scoot that sheet metal around. So that particular angle needs to be right about a 90, between the outside skin and the bottom edge of the bracket, and this thing, the way Camaro fenders get hit, they tweak that way out of whack.

You can’t just go in there and hammer it out because you would bend that edge of the bracket and it’s not strong enough to be hammered. You can push it out because it’s the structure itself that is bent in. So, I clamp the pliers on the flat edge, you know, it’s hard to picture with me just talking about it, but I clamp the pliers on the flat edge and then pry that out with a wooden rod that I use and then I was able to push the bottom L shaped 90 straight back out without actually pushing the skin, like you are pushing the structure.

So, it is really effective for getting that damage out without jacking it all up and trying to push from the skin, you will never get there and not hammering and beating it all up. So, it’s really fast and really clean. Unfortunately, those Periscopes hang out for 24 hours on a replay and then they are gone. Well, if you are hearing this podcast, it’s gone already and you missed it. That is why, when you get the alert, you have to get on right now and that is what’s cool about it.

Shane: I know, it’s live.

Keith: Live and then live for 24 hours. You can’t comment on the replay, but you can tap the screen and add hearts.

Shane: I did not know that.

Keith: Yeah, hearts will count in the replay. So, here’s the deal, Shane and I are both racing to 1 million hearts, at which point, one will win and one will lose.

Shane: I have already won.

Keith: Don’t let him win.

Shane: If it is a race to 1 million hearts, I have already won.

Keith: Not 1 million broken hearts Shane, intact hearts. So, this is an official challenge now. When you are on the Periscope with us, you have to tap the screen, like a crack monkey and heart will keep popping up on the side. So, the first one to a million wins and the second one loses. If Shane loses, he will donate $1,000.00 to a charity of my choice. We had not previously discussed that.

Shane: Oh, I got you. Apparently, I was stoned when we did discuss a $1,000.00 because I don’t remember that either.

Keith: But it is a real race, but the charity is not real.

Shane That, I just found out about.

Keith: We are going to have more fun.

Shane: So, if you watch the replay yourself and add hearts, is that possible?

Keith: You would have to sign in under another user.

Shane: Oh, yeah. My entire family, oh crap, you have like 72 kids.

Keith: Your kids have phones.

Shane: Ture, yours don’t.

Keith: He kids, I will pay you two cents per heart, get to work, and you have 24 hours. Are you trying to stay on the cutting edge when it comes to paint less dent removal, when it comes to your tools? If so, you need to make sure that you have two things in your arsenal. One is a Shane Jacks jackhammer blending hammer. Find it at blendinghammerpdr.com. If you want to learn blending, we have an awesome tutorial to go along with the hammer right there on the site. You are going to love it and you are going to learn something and get better to make money.

In addition to the hammer, if you are doing any glue pulling, you need to have the black plaque crease tabs. It is a six piece crease puling set. The two largest are absolute monsters and they are going to pull out collision damage like nothing else you have got available. The smaller sizes are going to be for the normal, everyday kind of door edges and minor collision dents in a dog leg, in the bottom of door.
I am telling you guys, it is going to change the way you do your repairs, when you have the cutting edge tools and these are two of them. Blackplaquepdr.com, blendinghammerpdr.com; check out the sites guys, and bring yourselves into the 21st century. All right Shane, I like your topic for today. Lead us into it and tell us what is going on.

Shane: Tell us what my topic is. The topic today, I posted a question recently on Facebook. The question was; what part of your dent game needs the most work or do you need to work on? I got some really interesting answers on that and that is what we are going to go over today. What guys perceive to be there weak link and how you can basically up that game? A lot of that stuff we talk about in here on a weekly basis and I know guys know that. I know some of them that actually posted that. They listen to the show and they just released that they need to continually get better. These answers that these guys give, Keith, I bet we could go in step on each one of them and say, we need work on that too.

Keith: Oh absolutely. Yeah, when you think you have made it, quit because you are never there. There is always another level.

Shane: That is for sure.

Keith: Except fixing small sharp dents when you win the Olympics, you’re done. No one in the world is better than you.

Shane: Not so much. The topic has done a lot more play than I thought it would. There were a lot of responses.

Keith: Yeah, there really was and I was surprised about that.

Shane: Guys, it shows a couple things. The main thing it shows it that guys understand that there are places where they need to get better and that they are willing to do so. Just like Keith just said, as soon as you think you have arrived, well, you are screwed, and you are done, because you are not willing to learn anymore, and you are not going to learn anymore.

Your mind is closed and if you are convinced that you are the best in the world and that you have nothing to learn or even if you are the best in the world. If you are convinced that you are the best in the world, as long as you’re still open to getting even better, then you are going to get better. That is what it is all about, because getting better does what Keith? It makes more what?
Keith: Monies.

Shane: Monies. That is actually what we are going to talk about today. We will just kind of go in line honestly and talk about some of the questions. I am going to use first names here Keith, are you cool with that?

Keith: Yes.

Shane: So, the first question that I had, and I am actually scrolling down now, was from Tim. What he said was, customer reviews and in today’s market reviews are everything, but trying to get clients back to where they found you and share their feedback is a challenge. They will take the time to return a follow up email or phone text message and say they would love to leave you a review, but nothing ever becomes of it. Do you have this problem Keith?

Keith: Everybody has this problem to some degree, but it is a numbers game and you have got to make sure your closing for the review, after the sale is done. You have got to make an offer to them to do it. You can’t just hope and suggest it. So, this is actually something that I am working on with one of my coaching clients right now. It is a formal text or email follow-up with the link to the review site right there for them.

So, the text is probably a better open rate than an email, meaning every text you send is going to get looked at and every email may not or may not even get there. So, we are going to start with texts and see how that works, but basically we are just saying thank you for the opportunity to fix your car, it was a pleasure meeting you, if we can help you again, we hope you never need it, but if you do, we will be here.

In the meantime, if you wanted to leave us a review, this would be a great place to do it. Thanks again for your business or something like that. So, we are going to see how that goes, but to be quite honest in all transparency, I have not done anything like that in my company because we have got so much traction in the local market that once you get to a point in reviews, you kind of get a snowball effect and they just start multiplying by themselves and you don’t really need to do a lot. People tend to want to review things that are highly reviewed already, for some reason.

Shane: A lot of it, especially with you Keith, you’re big in the Yelp review. How many reviews do you have now?
Keith: 109.

Shane: When we first started the podcast, how many were you at then?

Keith: 50 something.

Shane: I thought it was 50 something, and how long did it take you to get to 50 something?

Keith: Several years and another year to get to 100.

Shane: So, like you said, it does snowball. My problem is and I am using as an excuse –

Keith: Let me give you a disclaimer though, before you talk about your side. We had a meeting, as a company and we said; this is our goal, to get to 100 by the end of the year. So, we can’t make our own reviews, but we can remember that is our goal and we can all ask our customer’s to please go on and do it. So, it didn’t just happen on accident, it was on purpose, but you only have so much control. But, you have to take the control that you have and do something with that. You can’t just hope that they are going to do it and say, write a review and not give them the tools to do it.

Shane: Yelp around here and I just gave up, honestly, with the Yelp. I was asking and a lot of times it would be kind of organic when they say, you did a great job, is there anything I can do to help you out? Have you ever heard of Yelp? Around here, the answer was ain’t that what dogs do when you hit them in the hind end? I mean, honestly, very few people. I have gotten one Yelp review and one other that said they were going to give a Yelp review, the rest would say they would get on there and do it and that doesn’t work with Yelp.

Keith: Okay, well check this out. I understand because I have been talking with you about this a lot, not on the podcast and on the podcast and working with other guys around the country. I know that there are certain markets that are dead to Yelp. But, remember that Yelp is preloaded into the Apple maps and that is where they are getting the customer reviews, in that environment. So, if you are on your I device, which I don’t know how many millions of them are floating around everywhere, and you are looking in maps, that is where the information for those businesses is coming from.

So, if your market is dead to Yelp, it’s like the Wild West. All you need is a couple of five star reviews and now you are at the top of the list. So, I would argue that I want you to try even harder if nobody knows it in your area because you can look like a superstar with relatively little effort. So, keep that in mind, that is a big deal that they are factory loaded on those phones, it’s a big, big deal and I think people overlook it a little bit and say, nobody uses Yelp here. Okay, fine, but does anybody use iPhone, beside a couple people?

Shane: With you saying that, yes I am tied for No. 1 with one other dead guy in the area for the No. 1 spot with Yelp reviews, with one review.

Keith: Right, three and you are three times more. I know it is hard, but look for the kind of younger people that are more living on their phones and if you can make a good first impression, you can ask them to hop on there while you are fixing the car.

Shane: Got you.

Keith: Just a tip.

Shane: So, Google reviews, that is something that can be done, basically by anyone and it’s not going to get kicked off like it will Yelp, if you join today and throw a review up there.

Keith: Correct.

Shane: So, I have actually thought about exactly what you said a few minutes ago, sending an email with a link to Yelp and or Goggle review, just to get something out there as far as reviews. I have got a couple of Google review also. Those were not asked for, they were just organic, and they were initiated by and done by customers.

Keith: Do you know what I find and that I think is effective is that you hone down your pitch for the review and figure out the way you want to say it, so you can get it down quickly.

Shane: I hate the word pitch.

Keith: Yeah, I know, but it’s really a pitch because you’re asking for something –

Shane: I was being sarcastic.

Keith: I know, because I can give you a hard time about the words, I am the word guy. If you can find a way for them to connect with you in your pitch and ask them for the review and kind of practice it so you know how to ask for it. Tweak it a little bit until you find something that seems to work, that would be cool.

For example, if you have the shop and say, I know it’s not your style, your shop it super clean, but if you had like a cork board up with all of the reviews printed and cut out and put up on the corkboard, you could point to it when they are in there and say; I am really hoping I can put your review up here on this corkboard with the others. You know something for them to see and associate with.

Shane: Nice.

Keith: The next time that they come in they can see their review on the board. Everyone likes to be recognized for whatever reason. The guy I used to work for and I got my start in business, I didn’t like a lot of the things he did, but I did like a lot of the things he did and one of the things he said was, we take even better care of our repeat customers. So, when you say, I love seeing those reviews up there and it really helps me remember my repeat customers and I make sure I take real good care of them next time they come around, you are kind of letting them into a little club, just by writing the review.

So, figure out what works for you and what matches your style, but you have to ask for it and ask specifically for what type of review you are looking for. Of you say, you can do anything, Google, Yelp or Foursquare, there are a bunch of fringe review sites that nobody is on, Angie’s List. If you give them a hundred options, they are going to pick nothing. So, pick one for the month and stick with that and see if you get any traction and go to the next one. A lot of the problem is, the volume of retail isn’t there for a lot of guys.

You are not going to get a high percentage of people to go on and write a review on Google, Yelp or otherwise. We happen to be dealing with a large volume of retail customers and we probably touch ten of them a day. So, that is pretty good odds that I am going to get one of those per day for a review. But, what did I say; I got 50 in a year and that is one per week.
So, it’s like 1 percent or maybe 2 or 3 percent, we don’t do ten retail jobs per day. If you are only touching five people per week, it is going to take you a lot longer to get to 100 and you have to try harder. If you only have five people per week you have got something else that I don’t have and that is time. So, figure something out that is better. What it comes down to is actually asking in a way that is easy to follow through with.

Shane: Sounds great. Good tips Keith, anymore on that? I don’t have any more questions for you and you are way better there than I am, infinitely better. Thank you for that. I have to figure out how to get the entire other side of South Carolina on Yelp.

Keith: People are one and they are writing restaurant reviews.

Shane: I kind of gave up after a while, I don’t mind admitting that. Well, I do mind it and it is sad that I did, but again, I have thought about the exact same thing you are talking about now. I am on a paperless system and I have everyone’s email that I write a bill for and it would be really easy to shoot an email to each customer and ask them for a review. I just need to do it.

Keith: When you get so busy, some balls drop and it’s tough to drop the balls that keep the work coming in through the front door. They are the most important ones, but then tend to get shrugged off because you are dealing with stuff that makes money today, but if you don’t keep filling that pipeline, that is when your slow days and your offs come. Then you go home and say, I have to do more marketing. You start thinking about it and then the phone rings and you go fix more cars and put it back on the side again.

So, if you are actually trying to keep that pipeline filled and build a business, you have to do that stuff that doesn’t pay off right that moment, but will continue to pay off in the future. It’s hard, it’s hard for you and it’s hard for me, because the customers are on the phone and you put them to the top of the list. That is why you are here, but sometimes it takes some late nights and some weekends to get all this other stuff done when you are a small company.

When you get bigger, you can hire a web developer to work full time for you and they can do a lot of that stuff, but until then, you have to wear all of the hats. That is why a lot of you listening, stay stuck where you are and you know you should be doing more and better, but you haven’t don’t it yet because you have stuff to do. It is true for Shane and I as much as it is true for everybody else.
Shane: Too many hats.

Keith: All right, what is the next question?

Shane: The next question is from Todd. Grapping the right tool the first time –

Keith: Oh, I got this.

Shane: Wasting time with the wrong tool and going through a few that will work instead of the right one that will work best.

Keith: Ready Todd? What you want to do is get a tool out of your truck that is the proper tool the first time and that will enable you to repair that dent and then put it back when you are done. Just remember where it was next time you have a dent in that area of the car. What is the next one?

Shane: I think it is a little more involved than that.

Keith: Well, that is a tough question to answer.

Shane: It is a tough question to answer, but I see it quite a bit especially, on the hail side of things. Guys just don’t have the right tools sometimes, so having said right tool, in the beginning, is part of grabbing the right tool. So, if you are grabbing 14 different tools to fix this dent and you don’t know which one is best and then the last one you grab is marginally better than another, what if there is one out there that is so much better that you can’t forget the next time that dent comes up. So, having the right tools is a big part of going to the right tool the first time.

Keith: Yes.

Shane: So, if there is not a clear best tool for that one certain dent, maybe you don’t have all the tools that you need. I am going to say that. Does that sound good?

Keith: Yeah, that does. You can look at that question a little differently from the retail and from hail, it’s not too different, but it is different, I think. Because, with hail, and you are doing enough of it, I mean, I know there are guys that aren’t good, but I would assume that if you are doing enough of it, you are going to get good and you are going to know that you are going to use this for my open sections, and this for my bracing and then I’m going to switch to these 5 of fifteen for the hard to get bracing stuff and do it individually.

That seems like more of a system to me that can be relocatable and if you know you are struggling in an area, find a better tool for that area. But, retail is so different and there are so many different signs that I could see guys struggling and getting the wrong tools. I remember that there was a guy that I was training, years ago, he did not end up working out, but we were down on a quarter panel lip and I said okay, grab the tools that you think will fix this. He grabbed, it was almost like he was playing a joke, a little tiny hand tool, a long whale tail, a big half inch double bend interchangeable tip tool and like a window tool or a j hook. I think he was just trying to cover all of the bases here.

Shane: I wonder why he didn’t work out.

Keith: Yeah, the same guy asked, how do you get to this dent and pointed down at the rocker panel and was like, down through the window.

Shane: I was like wow; I am the idiot here for getting to this stage, with this guy. But anyway, with that, different scenarios that come, you have to be able to get your mind to a place where you can picture the inside of that panel and picture what is going to work well and then a lot of it just comes with experience. You can tell me that you have a fender smash, you don’t need to tell me anything else, and I have got five tools that I know I am going to use probably one or two of them.

I don’t need to know what kind of car. I might get thrown for a loop if it’s a Chevy truck and it has the metal inner fender and then we have to go back to square one, but nine times out of ten, I’m going to be right and that is without seeing the car. If I see it, I’ll know what works there. A lot of it is just because I have tried so many other things and I know what works and what doesn’t and I know what the tool to go to is. So, grabbing the right tool the first time, a lot of it is just experience, I think Shane.

Shane: Yeah and it’s amazing. You said, understanding what is going on inside that door or panel and then kind of figuring it out. There was a tech that has been doing this for like 15 years that I was around and it’s a top of the door, underneath the belt molding where the brace is and trying to come from the bottom with like a J hook that was shamed.

Keith: Couldn’t do it Bubba.

Shane: So, then I come through the electrical boot and he may have tried to come from another angle also, but the angle was so great from the way that the tool was more poking the skin than hooking the skin. So, I found a hole that was more hugging the skin and got up in there. That’s what it was, he had tried to hook from the top and then he tried a hole that was in the door and I don’t remember where that hole was.

It may have been the boot and then I drilled a hole, I honestly don’t know, but he was like, why did that tool work then and it didn’t work before? I said, your angel was too great. It wouldn’t slide into that brace and that brace is really tight. He said, I never thought of that. Are you freaking kidding me? So, understand what is going on in the door in angles and all of that junk.

Keith: When it comes to working around bracing, you almost can’t say that a tool does or doesn’t work, it’s a, you make it work. When you understand, where it needs to go and how you are going to get there, then you can make a tool that doesn’t seem like the right tool, you can make it work. You have to have the right tools, but just like you said, he can say that tool didn’t work. It’s not the tool; you are just in there like slapping it all around trying to get into the right spot.

You have to come out 6 inches away from the skin, from the dent and follow the skin all the way in and it will slide right through the brace. Some guys have a hard time picturing the geometry of this shape of this inside of the panel and picturing how they are going to attack it. It’s like a puzzle for me and I don’t know, I think I am geared well for that type of task. I am a very physical, mechanical guy, so I think I can picture the braces, especially if I can see it, and picture how this tool is going to fit in there. I don’t have a lot of issues getting to dents.

Of course, there are some that are hard, but with the tools that are available now, there are hardly any times when I come off of a dent and say, I should be able to touch that, but I just can’t. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that, it was the nineties. Can you?

Shane: All right, let’s move on Keith. We can stay on this for a while.

Keith: Can you remember that?

Shane: Well, yeah. It happens quite a bit, that is why you have glue and glue tabs.

Keith: Well, forget about a rail, like something you could never push, but like doors. The last time you had a dent in a door and you said you just can’t get to it.

Shane: The only one that I can think of is those older Toyota Tacoma’s. Right under the handle there was a kind of a no man’s land there, but to answer your question, there is very few times where I just can’t get it.

Keith: All right, you are spending too much time on that; let’s get on to the next one.

Shane: Derrick and Matthew. Some of this stuff we are not actually going to spend time on Keith because we can’t explain to guys how to repair a stretch dent on a podcast. I am just going over some of these things. Some of the highlights and the ones that were the most asked.

Keith: Well, let me talk about a stretch dent for just a minute. I don’t know that I am any better than anyone else at them, but I am getting to the point where I can understand a little bit more with a depth gauge. A couple guys have been buzzing and bugging me because they are out of stock right now. I have got parts on order and I just have had my hands in other things and I have not made that a priority to get the parts all here. This is not really a pitch for the depth gauge; I am just talking about what is a stretch dent and what isn’t.

I had a roof shot on a CRV that was a hail-damaged car, but quite frankly, I don’t think this one dent was from hail, I think a tree branch or something fell on it. It had three ridiculous dents and the rest were like normal hail dents. Well, I had measured this thing and it was 2.6 millimeters deep. Well, that isn’t coming out. I don’t think Shane is getting that flat and I don’t think anybody is going to get that flat. If you do get it kind of flat, there is going to be some disclaimer, or it’s going to be munched up or something. It is not getting fixed.

Maybe there is someone out there that can prove me wrong and I hope they can, because I will learn a lot from it and that would be a great day for me for somebody to show me how to get that flat. I ruined that dent and it did not come flat and I did everything that I could to try to save it. Measuring and seeing the difference, I know that if it is over 1.5 or 1.6 in a flat panel, there is a pretty good chance that it is going to have some kind of swell in it or you are going to be fighting the flaw. Anything under that is going to come out relatively clean. The closer you get to 1 millimeter, the better and easier it is going to be.

So, that has kind of helped me understand what is stretch and what isn’t and what has a chance of coming out and what doesn’t. We are just talking about round dents and flat panels, you can’t really talk about apples and apples if you are talking about creases and smash dents and all of that. But just round dents in flat panels, when they are so deep, they are not coming out by anybody. But like the dent Olympic dents, very little stretch in those, but relatively deep because they are so small. You can oil can those if you screw those up.

I think that is the difference. I think some that are over 2 millimeters deep and even a hail dent that is over 2 millimeters deep can be repaired. It depends on the size of the hail and how softly or hard it was coming down. So, if it is golf ball size, or 2” hail, and it’s wind driven or coming down harder, and this stretch is in a smaller area, it’s going to be harder to get out.

Keith: Yeah.

Shane: And, I think it all depends.

Keith: No, they are random dents.

Shane: That is the great thing about the depth gauge, I think over time will bear out that that thing is going to be useful in figuring those things out. Once we start figuring out the depth verse the diameter and this works and this doesn’t. The next statement was; everything, from Greg. That is something that we preach on here, if you think you have learned everything, then you haven’t and you are going to stop learning and growing and you are just not going to get any better. Greg says; everything. Cody says blending. That is something we are going to go over, stretch dents, at the seminar. Keith, so what is blending?

Keith: Blending is going to be a big deal.

Shane: Those two things are a big deal at the seminar. Jimmy says, local route building. Basically, we preach that every day on this podcast, and how to build a business and whether that is local route building or hail or whatever, we preach that every day. There are some other avenues out there, for you to use, some other resources that you can use, to help build your business.

Keith: Before you go too far down that road, let me interrupt you and throw a shameless plug in for our blending tutorial that you have taken so many hours to put together. It has been awhile since we talked about it, but if you want to learn blending, you have got the hammer or you have some other hammer and you can’t quite understand what is so great about this.

Shane spent a lot of time putting together a tutorial that you can buy. You can find the link on PDRcollege.com and at the top, it will say premium videos or, you can go to Shane’s site, blendinghammerpdr.com and get the hammer and a video to go with it. Get yourself on the fast track to blending, because that has saved me a ton of time, learning this stuff that he teaches and he can help you with it too. Now let’s talk about route building.

Shane: We are also going to go over that at the seminar with you, Keith and Paul. It is not technically going to be geared directly at route building, but everything you teach is going to build a route or build a local presence. Not so much a route, but a local presence for your business, if you choose to do so Jimmy. And Derek, on the show from last week, he’s in one dealership and it’s absolutely killing it. He is using some principals that he used at the seminar last year and using some that he implemented himself, and now he has upped his game, his money and everything.

Keith: Except his hours, he downed his hours.

Shane: Lucky dog.

Keith: I made this comment; you are doing all of this, in the same amount of time. He said; no, less time. It doesn’t get any better. More money, less time, that is what we all want.

Shane: Yes, we want more money and less time involved, but we want more money and more time.

Keith: For sure.

Shane: So, the local route building, we will touch on that at the seminar and I am really looking forward to yourself and the other attendees, Paul being one, going out and listening to you guys talk about that, and Derek also.

Keith: Yeah, Derek will be at the seminar. I know that we are getting all pumped up like it’s Christmas for this thing. We are a few months out, but Shane and I are just so excited about it.

Shane: Once we figured out that we were going to have these other guys in here to give you guys more avenues to learn, that is when Keith and I really kind of got pumped up. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not so we don’t have to teach quite as much. That is not it, and we did enjoy that last year and we will enjoy it this year. We still have a lot to share ourselves.

Keith: Right, and we are not hiding in the backstage area when everyone else is teaching, we are all out there together at the same time. It is more of an open forum than it is anything else. You know, you have a lot of options when you decide what to do with your invoicing and your data capture for your dent removal or other reconditioning business. But, the choice that I have made, for my company, is Recon Pro, by Auto Mobile Technologies. This stuff has proven invaluable.

I had a mountain of paper invoice books, stacked up in a room in case I wanted to look something up. It was archaic and ridiculous. Now, all of my technicians are on iPhones, they scan the VIN of the car, they enter a few pieces of information, including capturing the email for your customers.

It’s 2015 and you need to be building a mailing list for your customers, so you can keep them updated. If you want to run specials or you want to reach out to them, you need their email. This prompts you to capture their emails, so you can send them the receipt, which comes via email and no paper in the truck to get lost.

Guys, this is the way to do it. There are a lot of options you can take and there are a lot of competitors, but this is the one that I have chosen. Check them out online Automobiletechnolgies.com and the product is called Recon Pro. It is not one guy who is also a PDR tech building software, it’s a team of nerds, dedicated to making your life better and that is what you want. Check them out and tell them we sent you over there, Recon Pro.

Shane: So, I am looking forward to that, the next one and Keith, we are running a little short here, do you want to touch on that some more or can we run on through?

Keith: Touch on route building.

Shane: Yeah, I feel you want to touch on it some.

Keith: I can talk for a few minutes about it. The thing about that term, route building, is that it means a lot of different things to different people. If you are trying to start a complete wholesale business, then it is straight up route building. If you are trying to start a retail business, exclusively, you’re not building any kind of route; you are just trying to build a referral network. I think, the best of both worlds is a retail based company with a wholesale foundation.

Because, that wholesale work will keep you steady, it will allow you to go and scare up work when it’s slow and it will help build your referral network, with all the people who work in those stores and see your work. So, if you are building something from nothing, that is where I want you to start and then you can phase that wholesale stuff out, if your retail gets good enough and you do a good job marketing.

If you are going to build a route, it’s very discouraging when you go into a new market, because everybody has somebody else already. But, if we are on the topic of Facebook, one of our mutual buddies, Wade Hartley, out of Texas, really a high level tech with a giant beard.

Shane: Fantastic [inaudible][00:47:18]

Keith: He is one of the coolest guys ever, if you met him. But, he was telling a story about going into, I think a Bentley or Rolls dealer, and Wade already does a lot of really high end stuff. He knows those cars, as well as anybody in the world. But, he was going into an account and they said; we have a guy already and he is good. Wade had a portfolio of his damage, and I don’t know if it was on his phone or in an actual binder.

There is a local guy around me who is a paint touch-up guy, who has an actual binder with photos printed and I think it is a pretty smart way to get your before and after, right there in front of somebody, They are big and there is no look at my screen and let me zoom in. You just open the binder and there it is, they can’t not look at it. If somebody walks up to you and opens a binder, you are going to look in it; you can’t not look in it.

So, he did that, after the guy said, no we have a guy and then the guy said; wait, how did you fix these dents on the body line? Those can’t be done with PDR. I don’t know if he got the store or not, but he certainly got the conversation going about what plausible and what isn’t and figured out that the local guy there was sending stuff off to the body shop if it had a body line dent. So, it takes persistence and creativity to sometimes get into those wholesale accounts.

They are not easy to break into, but it’s worth it if you are talking about franchise stores and high level body shops. And, you build from there.

Shane: The next one is Sal and you can narrow that down to two or three people. Sal asked about wet sanding, which we will be going over that. It is not as scary as some people think it is. It’s a very useful and money making tool, because it speeds you up a lot of the times.

Keith: It helps your finish on the dents that are nasty.

Shane: Yeah.

Keith: I sanded that Camaro fender.

Shane: Oh, did you.

Keith: Yeah, that was all chewed up. I wasn’t going to spend 32 hours picking at every tiny little pinpoint that this knucklehead tapped on in the wrong places.

Shane: So, we will cover that at the seminar. Brian made the statement that he wants to legitimately maximize hail estimates and getting money out of hail damage.

Keith: Shane, I know I keep doing this to you, interrupting and taking you back a step, but this is worth talking about. We are going to teach color sanding. I have a high level paint gauge and we are going to actually burn some paint on purpose, so you can see how much material you are really removing when you burn the paint, how much is safe, and give you an idea on how much you can really bead it up before you take it down.

We will burn some bodylines and some edges and stuff on a flat panel, so you can see the difference on the edges to flat. Once you screw up a couple cars, you get a real good idea about what you can and can’t do. With that gauge, we will be able to put a number on that and really help you understand what is there, what you are working with and how to get it where you want it to be, without screwing up.

Shane: We will also go over; I see techs that have been doing this forever, sanding the complete wrong way. I just saw it recently and I said; you need to change what you are doing there. He said; what do you mean? I showed him one little thing and it clicked, so, just pushing way too hard and I am not going to get into all of that.
You let the sandpaper do the work for a number of reasons, but working with and elastic substance underneath that in the metal, underneath that paint. So, you can’t just push the crap out of it, unless it is a really stiff panel.

Keith: Unless you want it to look dented.

Shane: Exactly, I can’t explain it on the podcast, but visually I need to show what I am talking about here, but it’s not just denting it, it also grooving it out in a bowl. Are you done with that Keith?

Keith: Yes, sorry.

Shane: No, I actually meant to say something about that, because we had discussed that before the show. I just skipped right over that. Maximizing hail estimates, we will talk about that. That is something, and a lot of it is just sitting there and really thinking about what you are doing and not getting into too much of a hurry and really looking at the panel that you are estimating, the top of the door, the mirror and the waist belt.

Look, roll the window down, put a wedge in there and see how far that brace goes and call it freaking double panel, because it is and you are going to most likely glue pull it, unless you take the door panel off or you go through a channel, either way, it is a double panel. Open the trunk, take the liner down and see if there are going to be any areas that are truly legitimately difficult and you can get double panel out of those. Just paying attention to what you are working with, is a big deal, to legitimately maximize a hail estimate and supplements.

Another part of this question was how to win with adjusters and overcome their objections. A lot of that, honestly, is just not being a dent guy most of the time. When I say that, I see it constantly where guys are so jaded and they have been dealing with insurance adjusters and companies for so long and they are just kind of tired of it and they become combative right off the bat. I spoke about this on a scope the other day Keith, did you catch that scope?

Keith: Yeah, I did. I caught a lot of them on the replay because I was with a customer when you were live, but I caught them all.

Shane: I have caught three of yours live and I think I have only actually missed one, without a replay. I may not have missed one, but anyway, it was a Jeep Grand Cherokee and I had completely done the roof. There was a misunderstanding of whether it was approved or not, it actually was a DRP, but it was written by an independent, so they there was something there that they wanted to see. So, they come out and we have already done three quarters of the car.

I spoke to him like he was a human, I showed the area on the hood that was not done and said; you see all of these dents here, logically, there were going to be this many dents, we had written the roof for less than the hood. The hood was aluminum, so it had more damage on it. I did not let him in on that fact, that aluminum has more dents than on the roof.
We had legitimately written is and the roof had, I don’t remember the numbers, 51 to 75 and the hood had like 200 on it. I said; look at this little area, there are 15 dents in this area, you multiply that by X and you get right at 200. He said; oh, yeah, okay. I said; imagine what the roof looked like. He said; I can only imagine what about these two left doors here. I said; I’m sorry, but I have already fixed them. And, here is kind of the way that pressed it; you know, you have to do what you have to do, you have a job to do and you have to save your company money.

I said; if you can’t give me those two doors because I repaired them and I can’t prove that I actually repaired them, you know what, if I have to eat it, I have to eat it. It is our fault that we didn’t make sure that this thing was ready to go. He said; it’s not that much, I will just go ahead and give it to you. Boom, I had everything that I wanted. It’s because I treated him like he was actually human instead of a piece of trash, or the enemy.

Guys look at insurance adjusters and companies as the enemy. They are simply doing their job. Some of them are the enemy. Some of them are being pricks. Some of them believe that their last name is Geico and that their inheritance is directly related to the amount of money you take from them. But, most of them are just like you and I, so treat them like that.

Keith: Just keep in mind, in that particular instance, they are your customer. Treat them just like a retail customer; walk them through what you are going to do, explain it to them without getting upset. I have never worked on a full on catastrophe site, where there are people all over the place doing the same thing, but every adjustor that I have ever dealt with, has been my friend and given me everything that I have wanted, and if not that, 90 percent.

I have never had an issue and in fact, we had a little bit of hail here a couple hours away from me, and there is an adjustor that has been the best adjustor that I have ever dealt with. I get stories about the same adjustor, that she is the worse adjustor that they have ever dealt with, because they are trying to fight her on everything. It’s all about how you treat the people. Just treat them nice and make friends and everything is fine.

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Shane: The next one is simply from Eric, pricing. He says he knows he’s good and is pretty good at pricing, but he can get it better. Keith, can you get better at pricing?

Keith: Everybody can.

Shane: Can Sal get better at pricing?

Keith: No.

Shane: Can Paul get better? Everybody can get better at pricing. The reason I say everybody can get better at pricing, because it directly affects the bottom line and it is the money we are making.

Keith: It sure is. My biggest gains have come with collaboration with other guys with Sal, with Paul, with you and with a couple other select guys. It comes with new ideas, new thoughts, you put it into play in the field. You take what works, you leave what doesn’t and then you do it again and again and you just keep getting closer to, what eventually will be a perfect pricing system. Always get better, but I get better from input from other guys.

It is hard to convince yourself to increase your prices by 25 percent, but when you work with an open forum, with other guys who are doing it, or doing somethings and you are doing others, you put it all together and that is when the magic starts to happen. We can still all get better, I still screw up some of my hail estimates, but I am way better then I used to be. Every time I know I make those mistakes, and I can fix them. Some guys are making the mistakes and they don’t know it. I know when I screw it up, so I can keep pushing to fix them.
Shane: That is all I have, there were a few more like physiological sales moves and dealing with customers and all of this stuff, I believe pretty much all that I mentioned there, we are going to cover at the seminar and cover in depth. So, that is exciting and having some other guys, high, high level guys, that are going to go over those things too, is exciting. I am looking forward to that thing.

Keith: Me too and on that note, we are going to have Brice Kelly who is going to be presenting at the show, we are going to have him on the podcast here pretty soon. So, you guys can get a little snapshot into who he is and what he is all about and be excited to meet him, because he is a cool and real humble guy. All right fellas, we know that you can be anywhere for an hour, but you are here with us and we appreciate that.

If you have questions or comments about the show, remember there is a discussion forum happening underneath every podcast episode, so you can hop in there and ask a question and get an answer from Shane or I. You can also ask us a voicemail question on our website. No software is needed, you just go to the website, click the little button that says send voicemail and just record through your computer’s mic and we will get that right in our email.

If you would like, we will share the answer on the show and if you want to keep it private, just mention that and we will answer you directly in the email. Our whole mission is to help you guys get better and we feel if we help enough guys get better, than our lives will get better as well. So, it’s a win-win for everybody.

Shane: For sure.

Keith: We appreciate your listenership and your business for our tool companies. You guys are keeping us hustling with that stuff and we are thankful for that.

Shane: Yes sir.

Keith: Until next time.

Shane: Get better.

[End of Audio]

Duration: 64 minutes