Brice Kelly
From Training Mill to Master Tech: How to build a Monster w Brice Kelly
We are excited to invite one of our Advanced Skills Seminar 2016 speakers, Brice Kelly www.cfldentrepair.com on the show to talk about his company and how he has risen from a one week training course to one of the premier techs in the country.
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Transcript:
[Music Intro]
Advertisement: Let’s talk a little bit about hot glue, specific for paintless 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 the craft store; you can get stuff from Walmart. In fact, I used Walmart glue for a long time. Before I really got into the manufacturing side of PDR, Walmart glue was my glue. You know what I thought? All 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’re 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, glues that 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’s not better. It doesn’t mean it’s a scam.
So I started using colored glues. I found two that worked amazingly: green glue and the pink glue that we stock, and we stock both of them on blackplaguepdr.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; they will take the paint off the car. That’s not what we’re 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 than 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 glue, and there’s a lot of glues out there that are made for construction and manufacturing that will make this glue look like it doesn’t work, a glue that we use. But we have a specific purpose and we need to find the maximum adhesion we can get out of those conditions, and that’s what we’ve 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’re using works now; but if you want to function at the highest level, you’ve got to squeeze the last 2, 3, 5, 10 percent of performance out that everyone else is leaving. It’s just like racing cars. Everything has to be dialed if you want to go faster than the other guy. And if you want to do a better repair with less pulls or do a repair that someone else said couldn’t be done, you’ve got to have the best tools, and glue is so stinking cheap for how much you use. I did a $600 repair the other day and was on it for four hours, and I used two sticks of TabWeld the whole time, and I glued and pulled the whole time. That’s not a lot of money to put in and there’s almost no other expenses in our business. Stop being shortsighted. Buy the glue that’s going to make your life easier and more profitable. Don’t forget, that’s what I’m all about in this business, making more money. And if you’re using the right tools, you’re going to make more of it, I can promise you that. You’ve got the right lights, you’ve got the right tools, you’ve got the right tabs and the right glues and you know how to use it all, magic happens. So that’s what I’m trying to tell you about, there’s a glue that works better than what you’re using now and it’s called TabWeld.
It’s still in an early release stage. We’ve got samples out right now. If you buy anything on blackplaguepdr.com, you’re going to get a sample. You can go on there and just pick the sample if you want. You’ve got 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 like. Check out the website, tabweld.com. You can bop yourself onto our mailing list there so you can be notified the minute we are releasing it. So we’ve got some exciting stuff coming out with that. You are going to be impressed, I promise you. And if you don’t like it, I’ll buy it back because I use it every single day and I can’t have enough of it. So buy it, enjoy it, make more money. Tabweld.com.
John Dans: Ladies and gentlemen, coming live from the Temecula Avocado Palace for the battle of PDR supremacy, in this corner the challenger wearing cut-off jean shorts and a Members Only jacket, from Chicken Lips, Arkansas, Mediocrity. And in this corner, the champions wearing $3,000 snakeskin boots and gold lame from around the world, Keith Cosentino and Shane Jacks. Let’s get ready to party.
Keith Cosentino: And this is the PDR College Podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome dent repair guys from all over the world. We’re glad you’re here. We have got fantastic information for you, as always, every week. If you’re interested in the cutting edge of dent removal, if you want to know what to do to make more money, this is the place for you. You’re going to find a happy home here, and you are going to meet a lot of people if you get plugged into our network. The PDR College is changing lives, and we want to be a little bit of change in your life and turn it into a lot of bit of change and then turn that change into a lot of bit of dollars in your pockets. That’s what we’re about: working less, making more; working more, making more. As long as we’re making more, we’re happy.
Shane, why the heck do you need so much money?
Shane Jacks: I need money, want money for — or more money, as much as I can possibly get, for freaking impressionist lessons. That was absolutely awesome.
Keith Cosentino: Now, I think he was doing Michael Buffer; but for my money, that’s Robin Williams.
Shane Jacks: That’s Robin Williams.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly dead-on Robin Williams. John, you’re a nut, man, but we love it.
Shane Jacks: Yes, for sure. That’s not the first one John’s done for us.
Keith Cosentino: It sure isn’t. And it’s not going to be the last.
Shane Jacks: That’s the first one we’ve used, right?
Keith Cosentino: No. We used —
Shane Jacks: Did we use the super fly Jimmy Snuka? Is that the one we used?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: Okay, that’s what I thought.
Keith Cosentino: If it’s your first time listening to this show, you’re wondering what the heck is going on here. We’re talking about dent repair, but we like to goof around a little bit, and that’s one of our loyal listeners, John Dans, and he’s a nut and an awesome impressionist. So he sends us an intro once in a while via the SpeakPipe application, which is normally made for our serious questions about dent repair, but he uses it to make a smile, and we feel obliged to include it on our podcast.
Shane Jacks: John refuses to use it for serious questions.
Keith Cosentino: He’s been listening long enough, he knows everything already.
Shane Jacks: Exactly. That is right.
Keith Cosentino: He’s made so much money, he’s just hiring voice coaches now.
Shane Jacks: We appreciate it, John. Keep them coming. That was really good. That was absolutely awesome.
Keith Cosentino: Okay. So today is an awesome interview. We are excited to have a special guest on the show. We’ve alluded to this fellow a couple of times before, and he’s actually a guy that’s going to be co-presenting with us at our advanced skill seminar, which we’re really excited about. But we thought we’ve got to have him on the show because there’s some people that are not nerds online and know who everybody is and whose videos are whose and who does what. So we would now like to welcome Brice Kelly onto the PDR College Podcast from Florida. Brice, what’s going on?
Brice Kelly: Not much. I just — it’s a pleasure and an honor to be here on the show with you guys, and let’s talk some dents.
Shane Jacks: Yes, sir. Welcome, Brice. I will interject that since I haven’t spoken yet. He takes — Keith takes over all the duties of introducing all the way up to every — every little aspect of it, and then I get nothing.
Keith Cosentino: It’s because I have an accent that is understandable by everyone in the spoken world.
Shane Jacks: Then why am I even here?
Keith Cosentino: You got the trophy.
Shane Jacks: That’s it, huh?
Keith Cosentino: No.
Shane Jacks: You can find more people with trophies.
Keith Cosentino: Anyone cheaper?
Shane Jacks: Probably, yeah. Good to have you on, Brice.
Brice Kelly: Hey, thanks, man.
Shane Jacks: Did you understand that?
Brice Kelly: I did, I did, yeah.
Shane Jacks: Okay, all right, good.
Brice Kelly: I’m from the south, too, buddy.
Shane Jacks: I hear you, I hear you.
Brice Kelly: But I’m a New York Southerner.
Shane Jacks: A New York Southerner, I hear you. I got out of the elevator this morning and got a — I’m doing some work today up here in Massachusetts, and I have a Shockers t-shirt on, Wichita State, which actually a dent friend gave to me. And a guy gets off the elevator with his girlfriend or wife, and he goes, “The Shockers,” and I said, yeah. And then he looks at me like, holy crap, that’s not a Wichita — that’s not a Midwestern accent. His girlfriend’s like ‘I love your twang,’ and all I had said was “yeah.”
Brice Kelly: That’s awesome.
Keith Cosentino: So for people who don’t know who you are, Brice, why don’t you — first let’s talk about your website for just two seconds so people can go over there and look at some of your stuff while we talk. Some guys are online; they can listen in and look at the same time.
Brice Kelly: Sure, sure.
Keith Cosentino: What’s your web address?
Brice Kelly: It’s either centralfloridadentrepair.com or cfldentrepair.com.
Keith Cosentino: Good name, both domains. Which one is the primary one?
Brice Kelly: Primary is cfl, cfldentrepair.com.
Keith Cosentino: All right.
Brice Kelly: Nice and easy.
Keith Cosentino: So give us a little rundown. Tell us how you got into the business and what your history is.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Well, basically my father runs a repair shop over here in Deltona, Florida, and I started working for him. And we had a couple, you know, wholesale people coming in, get their cars worked on. And I’d watch these dent guys come in, and I was just really intrigued by the whole process. I saw some good repairs, I saw some really terrible repairs; but all in all I really just wanted to learn, you know, how to get into the business. And I just got tired of working for Pops. We’d always, you know, bump heads. And making ten bucks an hour, you know, I was just getting tired of it. So I flew out to California, and I took what’s called a Rightlook training course, which was a seven-day course, which we all know is not the greatest way to learn, but it gave me the fundamentals that I needed to at least, you know, get my foot in the door. So —
Keith Cosentino: I’ve heard some guys talk badly about that training. What was your experience with it?
Brice Kelly: You know, actually I think it really depends on the trainer, you know, and I had a great trainer. And, you know, he really kind of helped us out when we needed it. It was kind of, you know, based off of — you know, each and every tech had a different skill level, obviously, in that course there, and, you know, I was at the top of my class so to say.
[Overlapping Comments]
Keith Cosentino: — so they have number one in the class there.
Brice Kelly: Guys, I was absolutely terrible. I was probably the worst in my class, so —
Keith Cosentino: That’s awesome. How many people were in your class? Five? Ten?
Brice Kelly: There were about seven guys.
Keith Cosentino: Seven?
Brice Kelly: Seven guys, yeah. I mean, it was — for the most part, you know, we’d go in there and you could tell who was serious and who wasn’t, you know, party crazy every night and, you know, get back into class and, you know, guys with their heads down.
Keith Cosentino: Just give it all hell guys.
Brice Kelly: You know, the guys that weren’t paying attention with their heads down and, you know, I’m like — I just — I was really kind of focused on learning this thing. So I took it pretty seriously, so —
Shane Jacks: When was that? How long ago was that?
Brice Kelly: 2002 or 3. 2002 maybe. So I had a guy named Mike train me over there, and he was just — you know, the scenario was awesome because we had, you know, like real-life situations where customers would come in and my trainer would actually get paid to do the jobs. So he was just pretty well-known, had a presence in the area, and we were watching him fix these cars in person and, you know, it was just a really good real-world scenario. But —
Keith Cosentino: What did that cost?
Brice Kelly: Man, I’m going to be honest with you. I went all out because I wanted to learn everything, just in case, just kind of a failsafe, you know, if I came home and didn’t know how to do PDR —
Keith Cosentino: Oh, you did the windshields and —
Brice Kelly: I did the windshield; I did the dying of the seats, the paint touch-up. I did it all, you know. And I bought the gold standard kit.
Keith Cosentino: How much is the gold?
Brice Kelly: Four grand. I had like every — every tool known to man in it. You know, I didn’t know the hell I was doing with any of them, but either way it was just a great experience. I came back —
Keith Cosentino: So four grand just in tools or that’s tools and training?
Brice Kelly: Just in tools.
Keith Cosentino: So how much again on top was the training?
Brice Kelly: The training I think was about three.
Keith Cosentino: So that’s 7K in it total?
Brice Kelly: So I was about seven grand in it, yeah. And then with all the other stuff, it came out to like 11 grand or something.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, with the travel and everything?
Brice Kelly: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: So it was a week’s worth of training on all of those?
Brice Kelly: With everything. I mean, they crammed it.
Keith Cosentino: Wow.
Brice Kelly: So, you know, I bounced to the next class right after that class was finished, that PDR class was finished. But it’s kind of like a mill I guess you could say, you know, they pump them in and pump them out. But —
Keith Cosentino: Kind of.
Brice Kelly: — you basically, you know, if you really want to put your head to it and figure it out, you can figure it out, you know. And I was really dedicated at the time, so I wanted to learn this.
Keith Cosentino: So when did you figure out you just wanted to ditch all that other stuff?
Brice Kelly: Well, when I got home, you know, like I started watching some videos and things and, you know, I quickly realized that, you know, the proper setup was within PDR. That’s where, you know, all the money is being made. So I kind of — you know, I did some practicing on some of the cars that were in my dad’s shop, you know. He had a whole car lot in the back there, just people abandoning cars that couldn’t get them fixed, couldn’t afford to get them fixed. So I had that at my mercy there, and I’d go out there and, you know, butcher — butcher whatever cars I wanted to. I hate to say I would butcher, but, man, I —
Keith Cosentino: Oh, when you start, that’s the truth.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. I mean, really it is the truth. I mean, I was Swiss cheese and everything, so —
Shane Jacks: I got to butcher brand new BMWs for years, which is absolutely awesome.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, man. But yeah, so I was practicing and practicing and practicing, and I finally had my first repair come into my dad’s shop. I was using my dad’s shop as kind of like a — you know, I put a little sign out there, storefront.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Brice Kelly: As I was doing a brake job or something or replacing an alternator, I’d get a — my dad would come back and say, hey, man, there’s a guy interested. So I’d come back there and, you know, I’d take the guy’s car back, fix it, and learned quickly that I really wasn’t that great at PDR because the guy just did not want to pay for the repair.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, man.
Brice Kelly: It was absolutely terrible. And, you know, it’s just one of those things, man, just like a kick in the face. And, you know, you realize how hard this business really is to learn and get good at. So that went down, and I really — I just — I got discouraged and I put my tools down for, geez, about six months. I didn’t touch a tool.
Keith Cosentino: Brice, were the tools any good you got from there?
Brice Kelly: Yeah, yeah. Actually, I still have them to this day. I use them every day.
Keith Cosentino: Were they proprietary or are they through another company like A1 or something?
Brice Kelly: You know what; I think these are actually Inventure Tools, which are actually pretty good.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Brice Kelly: I actually like Inventure Tools. I think they actually make some really good stuff, so —
Keith Cosentino: Cool.
Brice Kelly: And needless to say, the guy’s right here in Winter Park, which is 30 minutes away. I’d go down there and hang out, and he’d make me custom tools all the time, which is kind of cool. So but yeah, so from that point, you know, like I said, I wasn’t touching any tools at the time, and I was kind of interested in getting my name out there. So I just ran, you know, 250 free business cards from Vista Print at the time and was passing — you know, I was passing cards out like crazy to every dealer known to man.
Shane Jacks: Don’t worry about those perforated edges. That’s actually a style.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. No, I was passing out crazy, and I was just getting them to everybody, in everybody’s hands. And finally, you know, I got a phone call, and this is where it kind of all started. It’s funny. A guy called me, and he says, yeah, we have a body shop and we’re interested, and I had a dent guy come down, our dent guy’s not the greatest and stuff. And I’m like thinking to myself, man, I’m absolutely terrible, so what could I possibly have to offer? And I said, sure, yeah, I’ll come down there. And it turns out that this body shop was a full-blown independent auction. So I get down there and there’s like 50 cars in a line waiting for me.
Keith Cosentino: Wow.
Brice Kelly: I jumped out of my car and I was like ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’ And they’re like “when you want to start?” I said I guess now. So I got all my tools out and —
Keith Cosentino: What’s crazy is if you’re listening to this and you’ve never done a repair or you’re just thinking about getting started, one dent when you’re starting can take you five, six hours or all day.
Brice Kelly: Oh, God, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: And you still don’t get it right.
[Overlapping Comments]
Keith Cosentino: I know, to have 50 cars is like you’re going to die there.
Brice Kelly: Oh, dude, I was — I mean, I started on — I didn’t know any better but to start on the larger repairs. I had no idea, you know, guys are glassing out little door dings at the time, and, you know, I’m sitting here jumping on these crushed, you know, mangled quarter panels, fenders, whatever it was. And that’s really I think how it all kind of — you know, that light bulb went off. You know, I realized this is — this stuff’s hard, man; I’ve got to put my foot down and try to get it. And I just kept, you know, kept doing it and doing it. They kept bringing cars back to me. And even though they looked terrible, you know, they kept bringing them back to me, and I was just fixing them. So I did whatever I could to make them flat and get passable for the auction.
Keith Cosentino: So were you like five days right off the bat at that place?
Brice Kelly: Yeah, I literally was there — when I first started, man, I was there seven days a week because I had to try to keep up with, you know, the overflow of these — the original dent guy just not showing up and, you know, he was party crazy and just — he actually came back to the account, wanted it back, and, you know, they actually let him in because of the fact that I was so far behind. And, you know, it’s actually a good thing that they let him back in because he was kind of cool. He was a really cool guy, you know. He was probably a 20-year tech at the time, and he just — he didn’t have that fire, that drive, you know, that I did. But he really kind of showed me some things that I really needed to learn.
Keith Cosentino: I was just going to ask you that. Who did you call when you had questions? Now I know who —
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Yeah, and that really kind of helped me out, you know, just get my foot in the door there and going. So it was kind of heaven sent I guess you could say, but he just didn’t work out. You know, he just was hooked on the drugs and alcohol and things like that.
Keith Cosentino: That’s not —
Brice Kelly: Yeah, yeah. I mean, they’re all over, man. Actually if — go ahead.
Keith Cosentino: If you want to get as good as Brice, first go to a one-week training where you learn everything and then get a hung over guy who just got out of jail. In a couple days —
Brice Kelly: Isn’t it awful?
Shane Jacks: If you need numbers of several hundred hung-over guys that just got out of jail, I’ve got a rolodex slammed full of them.
Brice Kelly: That’s too funny.
Shane Jacks: They’re not hard to find in this industry.
Brice Kelly: Go to NTE, throw a rock, and you’ll hit six of them with one rock.
Keith Cosentino: They’re good guys. They’re on vacation; give them a break.
Brice Kelly: This guy actually came to work — I mean, when this guy worked, he would literally take his shirt off in the blazing sun, and he would have a parrot on his shoulder the whole time he worked. That’s why I —
Keith Cosentino: Why not?
Brice Kelly Uh, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: A literal parrot? A real one?
Brice Kelly: Straight up parrot on the shoulder while he worked.
Keith Cosentino: He was a pirate. That’s awesome.
Shane Jacks: He could have been a pro wrestler.
Brice Kelly: A beat-up Volvo with just tools thrown in the back, like — looked like a just mangled metal mess in the back seat there, but —
Shane Jacks: How do you not have pictures of that guy with a parrot on his shoulder?
Keith Cosentino: Just stand in front of the Volvo with —
Brice Kelly: Hey, no, I still talk to him, man. I still talk to him. So he’s not doing terrible. You know, he’s making ends meet, you know.
Keith Cosentino: There’s a pretty good chance that parrot is still around. They live a long time.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, he was mean as hell, too. You know, you couldn’t — you couldn’t pet it, let’s put it that way. It would nip your fingers off if it didn’t know you.
Keith Cosentino: That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of.
[Laughter]
Keith Cosentino: It’s so awesome. He like — he had a mascot. I don’t have a mascot. I need a mascot. I can’t imagine showing up to one of my lots, like, hey, so this is basically how I do it. I mean —
Brice Kelly: I’m your dent guy.
Keith Cosentino: This is Pico. Don’t come close to him; he’s going to be with me for the rest of the day fixing these dents.
Brice Kelly: Well, he was — no, he was literally known as the “bird man” around the auction.
[Overlapping Comments]
Brice Kelly: I knew this was going to take us —
Keith Cosentino: My life sucks.
Brice Kelly: I knew when I talked about the parrot; it was going to bring us off track. But you know what? It’s fun.
Keith Cosentino: You are — you’ve got to — what if this guy listens to the podcast? I know he doesn’t.
Brice Kelly: Oh, no. Yeah, no, he probably doesn’t.
Keith Cosentino: I promise you he doesn’t.
Brice Kelly: He’s not listening.
Shane Jacks: But maybe there’s another dent guy out there listening that also has a parrot saying —
Keith Cosentino: Okay, all right, listen, maybe not a parrot but a parakeet, you know? That’s easy to take care of and I get the same kind of response.
Brice Kelly: That’s funny. Oh, man.
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Keith Cosentino: So how long did you spent at that auction before you decided auction work was not where it’s at? Did you stay there a long time?
Brice Kelly: Yes. I stayed there for a total I think of close to eight years, and that was my, you know, bread and butter honey hole. I was there every single day. Geez, you know, I think I put about 12, 13 hours a day in at a time.
Keith Cosentino: How long was it until you started making some actual considerable money and feel happy about it?
Brice Kelly: Well, you know, I think when I set up the website — and I set the website as my escape route because I — there were talks about in-house guys coming in to take over the auction, so, you know, it kind of worked out to where, you know, as soon as I got out of there my web presence was up to, you know, par, and I had people calling me. So I would say two-thousand — probably 2012 or so. That’s when I really, you know, just kind of hit the ground running.
Keith Cosentino: Let me ask you this: How did you determine your pricing at that auction and did you ever raise it while you were there?
Brice Kelly: Yeah. You know, I got — you know, I was super, super duper low. I had no idea about the business of PDR back then, and I would, you know, just kind of go for word of mouth, you know, what guys were charging, you know, at wholesale lots and things like that. And, you know, a typical smash would go for 150 to 250 in some cases, but they didn’t like numbers that were over that, you know, to be honest with you. And every time I had, you know, a five, six-hour job, you know, working on something like that, I’d get one of the guys. It was a family-owned auction, so there was a lot of drama and things, and, you know, they’d send one of their guys back, a relative, and he’d say, hey, man, why you charging so much on this dent? Well, dude, you know, it took me, you know, two, three hours to fix that, you know, and of course I’m going to charge. And it got to the point where they, you know, they did decide to, you know, hire on a couple family members as in-house dent guys, and that’s where I kind of got a little nervous because I based my income off of that one —
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Brice Kelly: One egg. And yeah, so —
Keith Cosentino: What did you charge them for the normal door ding stuff?
Brice Kelly: Door dings, I was doing like I think a 30/60/90 type deal, you know, per car. But, you know, there were — some cars were, you know, upwards of 150, 200, you know, on average just for like a general cleanup, you know, for high-visibility stuff.
Keith Cosentino: Actually decent prices for wholesale.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, it’s not terrible. I mean, I was making a good living.
Keith Cosentino: That’s when you started or did you raise them up to that point?
Brice Kelly: Oh, yeah, when I started. That’s when I started. Like I said, I had no idea about the business of PDR. I didn’t know I could charge, you know, wait for those words, you know, and I just basically was charging what other guys were saying there, you know. And other guys would come in and help me and other dent wizard techs or ex-dent wizard techs would help me out, and I’d subcontract them when I’d get really busy. And, you know, they would kind of keep me in check with the pricing. So.
Keith Cosentino: So from there, did they make a complete roll into in-house work or did you kind of see it riding on the long split?
Brice Kelly: Yeah. No, I mean, it got to the point where like they’d be calling me in three or four times a week to the main office, to the principal’s office so to say. And they would say, listen, man, you know, your prices are too — they’re getting too crazy and all this stuff and, you know, they’d put the heat on me. And I just — I was like, you know what, I can’t do this, I can’t let somebody run my business anymore because, after all, it is my business, you know. So I — what happened really was, the kicker here, was that I was working on a hail car at one point. He brought back like — it was like a Kia, some kind of wagon. It took me probably about — I guess about a day and a half to fix, and I charged him close to — I guess close to retail at the time. You know, it was probably about a good $2,000 job. And I think I charged like 1700 bucks, and they came back, and they asked me if I was willing to come down on the price. And I basically — and I had my web presence going and people were calling. And I said no, I can’t, I’m sorry. I mean, it took me a long time, I gave you a quality job, and I’m sorry, I just can’t do that. So he went back and reported to the big man, and the big man said basically in — you know, he told him to tell me to get the F off the property. So — and I did. I got the F off the property, and I was singing as I was leaving.
Keith Cosentino: Did they pay that bill?
Brice Kelly: Absolutely. Absolutely they did, yeah.
Shane Jacks: That’s awesome. You — that’s a good lesson, is you said something that should stick with a lot of guys right now that I was guilty of and a lot of guys are guilty of right now, and that’s letting someone else run your business.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, yeah.
Shane Jacks: And that’s good that you were singing when you walked away.
Brice Kelly: Oh, dude, yeah, I was — it just felt like such a weight off my shoulder. And it just — it was just my entrance into the retail heaven.
Shane Jacks: So at that point you’d left there, and you’d say your web presence is doing well.
Brice Kelly: Right.
Shane Jacks: Tell other guys what you mean by that, you were doing well with your web presence. How many — I mean, were you getting enough calls a day to support your family? Did you have too much time involved in the auction where you were having to turn stuff down? Was that another part of it or —
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Well, at the time, unfortunately I had a couple body shops, as well as just that account, you know. And as I was leaving, I had a pretty big-name corporate type body shop that I was servicing about eight locations. And that — you know, once that picked up, you know, things were great. And the web presence —
Keith Cosentino: Brice, how did you find time to market all that when you’re like five, seven days at that auction?
Brice Kelly: Well, yeah. I would basically kind of — they would expect me there every single day. And, you know, I would now show up a couple days, and I would meanwhile be out working at either CarMax or a couple other body shops and working on retail customers’ cars. And, you know, it just kind of — you know, they called me. It got to the point where they were just calling me to where, you know, they — only on the bigger stuff, you know, that the other guys didn’t want to touch, the in-house guys. They were just, you know, slacking. They would basically eat every single cherry dent up on the lot there, on the auction lot, and leave me with the disgusting, you know, beasts of the dents.
Keith Cosentino: Okay. So near the end it started to thin out a little bit and you —
Brice Kelly: Oh, yeah, yeah. Right, right.
Keith Cosentino: All right. So we were talking about the website.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. And what I did was I heard people talking about AdWords and, you know, running an ad, ad campaign on AdWords and being pretty successful. And I took it upon myself to actually go online and do some research on Google’s AdWords, and I wound up — it was like Christmas on vacation. I set up the AdWords account with the website campaign and just, you know, set it up to a budget of — it was I think at the time about $5 a day, and it’s a pay-per-click type deal. And I — you know, I’d get the calls. I probably — you know, I was averaging about, you know, four to seven calls a day, and I’d land 90 percent of them, you know, just with some good phone work and, you know, getting people — getting the people on the phones, you know, at first was a little nerve-racking, you know, because I’m not — I’m not that great at talking on the phone. But, you know, I just — I pulled through, and people were — you know, word of mouth was flowing and people wanted their dents fixed, and I was just fulfilling the need.
Shane Jacks: How was your pricing then and has it changed any since then? Retail wise.
Brice Kelly: Back then when I got out of the auction I was still kind of — I was confused about pricing. It wasn’t until I think — I’m going to be honest with you, until I started listening to the PDR podcasts that my pricing actually doubled. Literally doubled —
Shane Jacks: That’s awesome.
Brice Kelly: — from what I was charging.
Shane Jacks: I’m rich.
Brice Kelly: My income. I’m a true testament to the PDR College. I’ve got to tell you it’s definitely helped me out. And not only that, it’s the pricing guide is wrong. You know, I’ve since adopted that to my everyday use, and as long as the customers are there looking at it with me and we kind of go over it together and we have something to, you know, physically see and look at and I go over the dent with them, they understand. And as long as they understand, they’re willing to pay in most cases. So —
Keith Cosentino: That really is true. That’s another — Paul Kordon had about 94 steaks bought for him at the Mobile Tech Expo. He’s not going to be able to eat them all.
Brice Kelly: Oh, my God, yeah. That guide is heaven sent. I mean, it really is. So, you know, it’s funny, I was in a body shop yesterday, and one of the managers brought over a Dent Wizard guide that is eerily similar to Paul Kordon’s guide.
Keith Cosentino: Yep.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. So —
Keith Cosentino: They’re out there floating around. Well, Paul had just cut that thing loose as like a public service to the industry and said, hey, do with it what you want, here’s what I do. And he’s been real open about that. That’s why I have it and you have it and everybody else does. And people will always message me after we talk about it on the show and ask where we can get them. If you go back on the PDR College — I should know the episode number right now, but I don’t. It’s 80 or 81, somewhere in that range; in the notes to one of those shows there’s a link back to Nathan Pizzo, our designer, and he’ll custom make you one of those guides and laminate it and have your logo and phone number and all that and send it to you for a pretty small amount.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, that’s true.
Keith Cosentino: If you want one and you’re not handy with Photoshop or any of that stuff, he can get it done quick. But that thing is changing it. So PDR College —
Shane Jacks: The best thing you could do is get everyone in your area to use that stinking thing.
Keith Cosentino: No kidding.
Brice Kelly: Oh, yeah. I’ve handed them out to every single one of my body shops, and they all got a rundown on what everything means, and they know how to use it. So for the most part —
Shane Jacks: I’m talking about even your competition.
Brice Kelly: Absolutely. No, I actually sent a mass text out to all my guys in my area, and they all seem to — they’re starting to use it, so spreading like a wildfire.
Keith Cosentino: Yep. There was a guy on Periscope the other day in Hawaii named Mark, and we were talking a little bit about his market, and he said it’s kind of bad there because there’s a guy that will do like $40 retail dents. I’m like, dude, you’ve got to go get to know him and tell him he can double his prices or triple or quadruple his prices.
Brice Kelly: Absolutely.
Keith Cosentino: He’ll love it. Go tell him where it’s at, give him the price guide, and fix the market by being friends with the competitors. Who wouldn’t want to hear that from somebody? Hey, guess what, I’m getting three times as much as you. Really? Crap, okay.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, so true.
Keith Cosentino: I’ll raise it if you doubled your stuff. Thanks to the podcast. That’s — I appreciate that compliment because that makes me happy.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, it’s definitely deserved, so —
Keith Cosentino: So when did you start taking on this nasty smashed-up crap that we know you for now? I mean, was it the auction, like way back in the day?
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Like I was saying, I had no idea, you know, guys —
Keith Cosentino: That you shouldn’t be doing it?
Brice Kelly: Were turning this stuff down. I had no idea that they didn’t want to work on it. I just jumped in there and literally started pushing on this nasty Toyota Solara quarter panel. It was the first nasty dent I ever did. And it didn’t look good in the end, but the relative shape was there, you know. And they were impressed by that. So that’s when they really started to catch on, like, man, we’ve got to — we’re going to make a crap load of money off this guy. You know, and I — they were just bringing tons of cars back to me. You know, and my body hurt every single day from working on this stuff. But, you know, it’s part of the training process. You know, I really kind of needed that. You know, it really helped me out in the long run because I’m super confident when I go look at a dent now. You know, I’m not — I don’t question myself anymore, you know. Well, yeah, there are sometimes when I still do, but, you know, it’s one of those things, it definitely is a confidence booster, you know, to know you can fix that kind of stuff. So — but, you know, honestly, I’m no different than you or anybody else; I just — I think I have a little bit more patience I guess. You know, I just — I really spend the time to try to make it right and bring it to a good quality, so.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, that’s one thing that stands out about your work — well, you video a lot of it, so we can see it and talk about it. But your finish work is really on another level, and that’s — it’s the patience usually that guys give up and get it 99 percent and they say, you know what, from what this was, this looks good and I’m out. If it looks like — and everybody’s happy. You know, the customer is happy; but it looks like in your stuff, you’re staying until the bitter end, man, until the last little push.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Well, it’s not always like that.
Keith Cosentino: Well, listen, I mean, we all — we know that. It’s not — it bears repeating because some people on Facebook or other forums, they get a little spun out, newer guys, because all they see is glassed work from all these guys. And you have to remind them, hey, you’re not seeing the videos of the stuff that doesn’t turn out perfect but just the other —
Shane Jacks: The other 37 that were videoed but never made it to the cut.
Brice Kelly: Right.
Shane Jacks: All of my stuff makes it to the cut.
Keith Cosentino: Right. Well, mine too. I actually had the software disabled so you cannot edit. Yeah, if you’re judging your work against all these before-and-afters, I’m like you might see two from one guy in two years; those are his two, you know, claims to fame, but he’s not showing you the whole set of work.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. I mean, they really have to be a special type of repair, too. You know, everything kind of has to line up to make it a video, you know, a film so to say.
Keith Cosentino: Do you have one of yours that’s your favorite, one of your videos?
Brice Kelly: Oh, man, yeah, yeah, I think it’s the BMW, the blue one. And I get a lot of heat for that one because a lot of people say it’s, you know, obviously not perfect in the video. But it was the hardest repair I think I’ve ever done in my life.
Keith Cosentino: The X3?
Brice Kelly: No.
[Overlapping Comments]
Brice Kelly: I think like this like little rod or something like smashed into the quarter panel, a little like one-inch rod, and it just created this like super-duper deep dent. And it was just a beast to get out. The guy didn’t want any, you know, holes drilled in his car. And I was like, ugh, God, you know. It was film worthy I think, you know, and I just —
Keith Cosentino: Am I looking at the right one? It was like an electric blue 3 Series quarter panel?
Brice Kelly: There you go, yeah, that’s it. Yeah. It’s like super gnarly. And it took me forever, and I really shot myself in the foot on that repair. But I wanted the video.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. So, if you want to see Brice’s stuff, go to cfldentrepair.com, and he’s got a little button that says “show me videos,” and he’s got a nice little lineup of videos. Real simple and easy to navigate. And if you go kind of halfway down, you’ll see an electric blue 3 Series quarter panel. You can check that out. You’ve got a lot of your smashes on here. This is a great place to come if you’re interested a little bit in the advanced skill seminar and what Brice is bringing to the table. A lot of these repairs here that you see, those are how we know what Brice is up to and what he’s capable of. I like that Cayman repair, too.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, yeah, the Cayman, that was a pretty hard repair, too. This guy was like super, super crazy about his car and —
Keith Cosentino: Then he shouldn’t bounce it off a guardrail.
Brice Kelly: I know, right? Yeah, no, it’s — he was pretty skeptical about the whole process as well.
Keith Cosentino: Well, yeah, because probably ten people told him no way that’s coming out.
Brice Kelly: Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: It was smashed up good.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, he definitely went to several body shops where they said, no, it couldn’t be done. So replacement was his only option, that’s what they told him. And I just wanted to kind of — you know, I basically like the challenge. You know, I’m a little crazy in that sense. I love the challenge of when someone says something can’t be done, to actually do it and then — I just wish I had — I can run the car back up to the body shop sometimes.
Keith Cosentino: I think we’re all like that a little bit, aren’t we, Shane?
Shane Jacks: Yes. I see a Taurus fender on here. Did the guy have a —
Brice Kelly: Don’t even.
Shane Jacks: Did the guy come up in a cutoff sweatshirt with a sleeve on his left arm?
Keith Cosentino: A few of you will know what we’re talking about in a little bit.
Brice Kelly: You’ll see like before I take the car that I actually look around and make sure there’s nobody there while I’m kicking the owner’s car.
Shane Jacks: Oh, no, I haven’t seen — I just saw a Taurus, and I went, wow, it’s a Taurus.
Brice Kelly: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: That’s pretty cool.
[Overlapping Comments]
Brice Kelly: That one gets the most traffic because it’s just — it’s pretty stupid.
Shane Jacks: But the X3 fender, that’s the one that I’ve went back to a few times. That’s —
Brice Kelly: That was a difficult repair, too.
Shane Jacks: That was impressive.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, the structure on the bracing with the — on that inner fender there is just insane. I had to devise some toolage on that one there. But yeah, they’re all pretty — they’re all difficult to some extent because, you know, they wouldn’t make it to video if they weren’t.
Keith Cosentino: Right. One of the interesting things — well, there’s two things I want to talk about. One we’ll get to in a second and that is the Porta Power use because I don’t do any of that yet, but I know you do.
Brice Kelly: Unfortunately, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: But secondly is you do your videos a little differently than most guys, and you — it seems like you tend to do a video in the middle, like an in-process video.
Brice Kelly: Right.
Keith Cosentino: And I think that kind of freaks some people out because if you don’t know how these repairs go down, sometimes they get uglier before they get better, you know.
Brice Kelly: Oh, isn’t that the truth.
Keith Cosentino: You’re halfway out and it looks like heck, but you put it in the video. And I’m sure that — it adds a little bit of drama to the video because you see it and you go, oh, man, how’s he going to recover from that. And also people who would say it’s fake.
Brice Kelly: Oh, absolutely.
Keith Cosentino: You go, hey, look, here it is in the middle, it’s not painted yet. And it’s still not getting painted.
Brice Kelly: It’s just the worst when the customer walks out and you’re mid dent.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah. I’ve got a shade board handy, and it goes about a millimeter above the repair, and I pretend to still push on it.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, same here, same here. You just brush it right over the repair and kind of walk away, eat some lunch, and you’re good to go.
Keith Cosentino: Shane, do you use a Porta Power on anything?
Shane Jacks: No, I don’t, but I should. It is —
Keith Cosentino: Do you have one in the shop?
Shane Jacks: No, I don’t have one in the shop. If I did, I would use it. I just don’t have one. I’ve never — when I shared my old shop — well, I didn’t share the shop, but when my shop was right beside that body shop that I did work for the car lots, you know —
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: He had a Porta Power, and I’d run over there and grab it every now and then and use it. I need to use it more because, especially like putting pressure on, you know, stuff and helping you get some of the pressure out while you knock down crowns or whatever, and, you know, I need it at least for that. Because my current method of doing it, I do have other people at my shop. So it’s, hey, hold this while I hammer here. They’re leaning on it with all their body weight and I’ve got a blunt tip on — you know what I mean? So I do have help, but that’s not the best use of time for two guys.
Brice Kelly: I just use the customer.
Shane Jacks: There you go. Hey, man, hold this.
Brice Kelly: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: The entire time, you go, mmm, uh, ooh, mmm, not like that. This is just not going the way I wanted it to.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: So where’s your go-to spot to use that Porta Power?
Brice Kelly: To be honest with you, I think it’s — if we just went to a video I guess, there’s an F250, a red F250.
Keith Cosentino: You know what? I’ve got to back you up because I’m assuming everybody knows what the heck a Porta Power is.
Brice Kelly: Well, yeah, yeah. The Porta Power is a hydraulic device that basically allows us to kind of put some traction off, you know, the framing of the vehicle into the damage and kind of push that damage and kind of rough it out.
Keith Cosentino: It’s like a modular jack.
Brice Kelly: Exactly.
Keith Cosentino: Like a little bottle jack that would lift up the car and has all these module pieces, different attachments to make it longer. So like you could put it all the way inside of a trunk opening in a sedan and push either side of the trunk away from themselves. So it’s usually — it’s really a body repair tool for like lining up frame members and stuff like that that have slight bends in them. But PDR, high-level PDR guys have adapted it to put pressure on big smashes or to push up areas that can be moved out but you just can’t get the power or the leverage easily or at all with a rod or something else.
Brice Kelly: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no doubt.
Keith Cosentino: So I know that repair of yours you’re talking about, that red F250.
Brice Kelly: Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: Left bedside down low near the cab, right?
Brice Kelly: Yeah, that was a very difficult repair.
Keith Cosentino: I wouldn’t have done that. I would have passed on that.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, and I had the option to pass, but I — I’m crazy I guess. And I just — I wanted to do it. I wanted to accept the challenge because it was being passed around to a bunch of PDR guys in the area, and they just didn’t want to do it. So I jumped on it, and I surprised myself with it actually. I didn’t think that I could get it that close and I used the Porta Power to kind of rough — rough a lot of that out and just kind of get, you know, a lot of that up.
Keith Cosentino: When you set the Porta Power up, what did you push on the metal with?
Brice Kelly: They have like a three-inch kind of a rubber, you know, dumb-down that you can put on the end of one of the extensions for the Porta Power. So it looks just like a — you know, just kind of a plastic cap, if you will, and it’s just like a hard rubber. And that combined with a lot of heat, you know, because you’re putting a lot of pressure on that metal and that paint, so you want to keep everything flexible. So, you know, while pushing using just a bare frame on the outside to kind of make things move along and flow nicely, so definitely was not easy though. I walked away — made good money on it, but I just — I was hurting, so —
Keith Cosentino: What, 12 or 1500 or something like that on that thing?
Brice Kelly: In the end it was 1450 I got.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, right in there. A one-day job.
Brice Kelly: It was five hours, yeah. So I was in and out five hours. I actually had a couple jobs before that. So that was a really good day.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. So guys who — I mean, listen, there’s not many guys who can do that job that Brice did, but you take some of the complexity out of that and you can have a similar dent on another vehicle that’s fixable by most high-level guys and the price can be the same and the hours can be the same. So you can — you guys who think those prices are not attainable because they’re higher than deductibles and all that stuff and there might be a flaw, you got stinking thinking. It’s all in your own mind. Earlier we were talking about letting the auction run your business for you, you know, your customers run your business; but there’s a lot of guys that they’ll say, no, my customers don’t tell me, you know, what they’ll pay, but then they say the other dent guys in the area are ruining the market. So they’re letting the other dent guys run their business.
Brice Kelly: Absolutely.
Keith Cosentino: You can do the same thing, screwing yourself by letting anyone else dictate what you charge, whether you think it’s the market, the customer, or the previous repair guy or whatever.
Shane Jacks: Or yourself, when you limit that — when you put a limiting number in your head.
Keith Cosentino: Right.
Shane Jacks: That hurts you. Whenever somebody tells you X amount of dollars and it makes you go, ooh, then you have got yourself to that number.
Brice Kelly: So true.
Keith Cosentino: I think everybody’s still guilty of that. I mean, I know I’m still guilty of that. It’s higher now than it ever was, but I think that, you know, $2,000 for any kind of a door ding type thing, you know, even like a small collision, is probably past my comfort zone. For what reason, I don’t know. But maybe that’s like you say, Shane, that’s the amount of — if someone hands me a $2,000 bill, I get squirmy.
Shane Jacks: I’m still struggling. I mean, I say this all the time, but it’s the honest truth. The guy that works for me back home, we had a conversation last night, and he said, man, I still don’t think I’m charging enough because everybody is biting. Either you’re doing really well with salesmanship or you’re too cheap. I’m going to tell you you’re probably too cheap. But, I mean — and he understands when I’m speaking to him, I’m the same way, you know. I’m still too cheap on some stuff. You know, and he had a lady the other day. She said I thought it was going to cost me $600 for — it was a — I think he said it was barely over a half dollar size, and he charged her 280. And it literally — I love the way he thinks. He’s getting — Keith, he’s getting — his mind is engrained with what we teach, you know, because, I mean, he — it does not matter time period to him; it just matters what can I get out of it. And he said I told the lady 280, and she scheduled. He said I honestly did not think she was going to do it. And after I was done, she was like ‘it’s perfect, I can’t believe it’s perfect.’ That’s kind of the idea. And she said I thought that was going to cost me $600. He was like, gah, I missed money.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, man.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. I’m still guilty. I still do it, you know. I’m sure Keith does it time — well, I know Keith does it. You’ve said it every now and then, I underbid that, you know. So it’s not like we’re sitting on a high horse over here, you know, saying we never do this stuff, so —
Keith Cosentino: No, that’s why we’re so excited to go to this stinking seminar and to put it on, because Shane and I learn as much as anybody else.
Shane Jacks: Yep.
Keith Cosentino: Just being around all these other guys who have open minds and have something to contribute, we came away more powerful. I’ve had a record year this year ever since that. I know a lot of other guys have, too. Brice was talking about doubling the price of his repairs. Doubling.
Brice Kelly: Double.
Shane Jacks: So unless Brice is only working a third as much as he used to, he’s having a record year.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, I am working a little bit less actually, so —
Shane Jacks: Oh, that’s good.
Brice Kelly: It’s kind of nice.
Keith Cosentino: By choice.
Brice Kelly: By choice.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. Not because the work has dried up because I think you’re kind of crushing it with your website and everything.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, no, it works out really well. So, I mean, I’m not going to fix something that’s not broke. I mean, I set it and forget it and kind of walk away and, you know, I’ll have to update things every once in a while, but for the most part it does its job and the calls are coming in.
Keith Cosentino: What’s the part of your PDR game that you feel could use the most improvement?
Brice Kelly: That’s a good question.
Shane Jacks: I love that he paused. I don’t have one.
Brice Kelly: No, man. I am learning every single day about this business, and, you know, I — man, everything really. I mean, I just — I really can’t wait to get to the seminar so I can learn, like Keith was saying. I really want to, you know, know what these other guys are doing that I’m doing differently, you know. So there’s really no specific one thing. I mean, pricing can always, you know, use a boost, but, you know, it’s really everything. What can I say?
Keith Cosentino: Pricing is the one that can make the most difference. Everybody thinks it’s the techniques, but as long as you can do a normal — I’d say a three-inch door ding to perfect, you can probably work enough to run your business.
Brice Kelly: Absolutely.
Keith Cosentino: And you could learn how to do a smash and all that stuff, and that will help you, but if you can learn how to properly sell and properly price, like you said, it’s a reality and double your income, then you haven’t actually changed anything about the physical repair of the car; it’s all about the way you sell it, the way you market it, and the way you close it. So I’d say that’s the one area where I keep getting better and better and better and better. It’s like you kind of plateau with the repairs. You’re going to learn some really awesome useful tips when you’re already at like a nine out of ten and you’re going to get better and better. You don’t ever reach the ten because you just keep taking on nastier stuff. But those little tips don’t double your income, but the scale of pay does.
Brice Kelly: I’m working on this, you know, per square inch pricing basis here, and, you know, it’s coming along. It seems to be working pretty good. You know, I kind of change the parameters here and there. You know, I’m looking at $10 per square inch on some of these dents. That seems to be the magic number, 10 to $12. But, you know, that’s how I priced that F250 dent out, was, you know, I went out there and measured it. It was about 15 by 10, and came up to about $1500 on that repair. And a little negotiation, you know, I came down to 1450 on it, and the guy wanted it. So —
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, we did talk about that quite a few episodes ago, didn’t we, about per square inch pricing.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really helping.
Keith Cosentino: It works great for smashes, terrible for small dings.
Shane Jacks: Terrible. Yeah, I’ll do that for ten bucks. Wait a second.
Brice Kelly: It’s the complex stuff I use it for.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah. Well, that’s good. You’re the first guy I’ve talked to that said I’m putting it in place. Even I tried it a few times, and it was just as easy for me to measure straight across with the big number and then hit it with the added factors to get the figure.
Brice Kelly: Right.
Keith Cosentino: But when did you decide to transfer over from the pricing guide to per square inch?
Brice Kelly: Well, it’s not a linear or a round straightforward type thing.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, that makes good sense.
Brice Kelly: You know, I’m moving over into the square inch, you know, and I’ve just got to stay up with the body shops, too. And, you know, I told them to all go down to Harbor Freight and get a $1 tape measure. So they’re all adapted to it.
Keith Cosentino: So where are you at, ten bucks a square inch or —
Brice Kelly: Well, that particular repair. You know, I’ll run the numbers in my head before I actually spit out the number. If I have to adjust it, I’ll pull it up a little bit, up or down.
Keith Cosentino: But the zone seems to be 10 to 15 for you?
Brice Kelly: I would say so, yeah. Yeah, on the heavier, complex damage, you know, and there was another one, too, that — a Toyota Camry, which —
Keith Cosentino: Oh, that driver’s quarter?
Brice Kelly: Yeah. That was actually done at — I don’t know if I should say the name, but it was a really big car dealer, probably the biggest in the nation. And I actually — well, a used car dealer I guess you’d say. But yeah, that was done with a per square inch pricing basis there, and I explained to the operations manager, you know, what he’s getting, you know, in comparison to, you know, a — you know, I dropped the price down because it was a wholesale account, but it still was a high, high dollar repair, and they paid it. So even though they had in-house guys, but using the per square inch.
Keith Cosentino: Will you put your video up on your site?
Brice Kelly: No, it’s not up there, is it?
Keith Cosentino: No, not yet. Put that up there because that’s a really good repair. You had it on Facebook I think I saw it. But it needs to make it to your website.
Brice Kelly: I have a lot of updating, a lot of updating to do here.
Keith Cosentino: You know what? I used to think you could have too many videos, but that’s a terrible idea. You cannot have too many. You just keep — every video and photo you have, cram it on your website because people want to see repetition, to see good repairs over and over and over.
Brice Kelly: Yeah. No, I agree. I agree, man. They’re just so different in nature, every single one of them, you know. And I just — I love — I love putting them on video because it’s — you’re proud of them when you’re finished, you know. It’s something that, you know, you work hard at. So and you can watch it when it’s done.
Keith Cosentino: And it’s amazing how they can just take you right back to the minute when you watch the video. You remember where you were working on it and what tools and all that kind of stuff.
Brice Kelly: How bad my hands and back hurt, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. You’re going to get to see something you don’t normally get to see in Florida when we come down, and that is how these dents happen. So we’re going to need to smash some cars up.
Brice Kelly: Absolutely.
Keith Cosentino: It was so hard for Shane and I last year. There’s something in our minds that prevents us from intentionally damaging cars. Like we knew we needed to crash two of them together, and we just couldn’t bring ourselves —
Shane Jacks: Couldn’t pull the trigger.
Keith Cosentino: It’s harder than you think. When you spend your entire career making dents go away, to put them in, it’s like you just can’t make it happen. It’s like against the program.
Brice Kelly: It’s true. I never thought about it that way. So —
Keith Cosentino: But this year the only way we’re going to give you and Sal a realistic smash is to smash a couple cars.
Brice Kelly: Fenders, please.
Keith Cosentino: All doglegs and we’re going to drop a tree limb on a roof rail.
Brice Kelly: Thanks, appreciate that.
Keith Cosentino: It’s realistic stuff. I guess up there we’ve got to drop a palm tree, but —
Brice Kelly: Yeah, give that to John Highly [ph] because he’s like the master rail guy. He’s done some pretty crazy videos with rail damage. I’m very impressed with him, so —
Keith Cosentino: He has, too. This guy Shane I know is pretty darn good at rails, too.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, that I’ve heard, too.
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Keith Cosentino: Well, man, what a cool story. So now where are you at? Where are you taking this business? You going to grow it? You going to add guys? Or are you going to stay small, keep it all?
Brice Kelly: Well, as of right now, I am actually pretty content with the way things are going. Possibly down the road I’d like to expand and grow it, but there’s a — I try to maintain a certain quality with each and every repair; and I’m not saying I don’t trust anybody, which, you know, eventually I’m going to be old and gray and I’m going to need somebody to help me out. But I’ve tried the employee thing before, and I guess I just didn’t hire the right guy. You know, it just didn’t work out for me. And it really takes a special individual, it really does, to do things the way, you know, you want them to be done. I just haven’t found that guy yet. I mean, maybe he’ll just pop up one of these days and be able to train somebody, but I don’t know. I don’t know. As of right now, yeah, I’m pretty content. I want to be the business and keep things going the way they are, so —
Keith Cosentino: Well, what happens if you wake up with three broken legs? Then what?
Brice Kelly: I’ve got pretty good disability insurance in place.
Keith Cosentino: Good. Not everybody does. We talked about that quite a bit on the show, but we haven’t talked about it in a while. It’s not cheap.
Brice Kelly: No, it’s not.
Keith Cosentino: Because when you work with your hands, the likelihood of you putting a tool through your face is higher than somebody who works at a desk, so they charge you accordingly.
Brice Kelly: Or if you are driving, like I do.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, you’re right about that. Having a bad hire can really kind of sour it for you, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I was talking just to a buddy of mine and to my wife about this the other day, and I thought you know what I don’t have is something on my website that says we’re hiring. Because we’re always in a state of growth in my company, but I’ve been scared to do that because I don’t want to bring on somebody that I don’t know and don’t know all about and can’t ferret out. But that’s a pretty silly idea, isn’t it? It’s like you have the idea that if you have a ‘we’re hiring’ page on your website that someone just gets to get a job and show up and you stop to hire them, you know? So why not put that out there? Maybe there’s some magic guy who is the Brice of ten years ago or the Keith or Shane of, you know, 20 years go.
Shane Jacks: The screaming of that, holy crap, y’all hiring.
Brice Kelly: What if they say they have 30 years of body experience though?
Shane Jacks: That’s the last person I want.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, no doubt. Do you know how to use a Porta Power?
Brice Kelly: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: So anyway, we were thinking. We were toying with that and just leaving that door open, and just for an email. I don’t want anybody calling me. Just give them an email and then you can pull it out and decline people, but you might get the one guy who’s the right fit.
Brice Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Keith Cosentino: You’re definitely not going to get him without the offer, you know. Well, unless he’s like crazy into it and he’s calling you asking for a job. That’s what I did to get in the business.
Brice Kelly: You’ve got an ideal situation over there. It sounds like those guys that are helping you out are doing fantastic work, and that’s a rare case.
Keith Cosentino: Well, yeah, it’s rare, but it’s taken me a long time to find these perfect guys. I could have used all three of my guys, you know, three years ago, four years ago before I had them all, but I just was a little gun shy about trying and really going — worrying. Just like you, worrying that somebody wasn’t going to be able to do the caliber of repairs that I do. And, I mean, I’m still the best guy at my company, but all my guys are good. And what I had to realize is the number of big smashes I do, like you have highlighted on your page we keep talking about, that isn’t a true representation of what’s happening every day. Like Shane, how many of the repairs you do are really that difficult?
Shane Jacks: Not that many. I mean, it’s — I mean, for a one-year guy, yeah, a good many of them are, but for someone that’s — even for a one-year guy, I would say less than 50 percent of them are that difficult.
Keith Cosentino: There’s some easy stuff and some moderate stuff, and then there’s the really hard stuff. And you’re never going to be a superstar by yourself until you can do the really hard stuff. But you can exist in a company and not be the big smash guy and everybody’s happy.
Shane Jacks: Everybody’s making money.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. And it’s good for everybody. It’s good for the customer and for the tech and for me. So I don’t know, man. Maybe expand your mind a little bit fresh because you’ve got everything else going on, and it’s not — it takes a little heat off you. And don’t overlook the fact that there’s a source of pride when you provide a job for someone else who’s happy at work and making other people happy and making money. It’s really cool. It’s super cool.
Brice Kelly: Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, I’ll — I definitely will probably entertain that in the future for sure.
Keith Cosentino: There’s a lot of guys that are way worse than you who have trained people, and their work is — you’ve got a lot to offer somebody who really wants to learn, you know, the next Brice who’s as hungry as you were.
Brice Kelly: I do, I get a lot of calls, man, and I feel terrible, you know, telling them, you know, I’m content with what’s going on at the moment.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, do you get a lot of guys calling to work with you?
Brice Kelly: Oh, yeah, man. I get, you know, people from — I get people from like Australia calling me wanting me to train them and stuff.
Keith Cosentino: Power of video, isn’t it?
Brice Kelly: It is, man, I’m telling you. And yeah, it sucks when you have to tell somebody, you know, I’m sorry, man, you know. And they sound like they really want it, you know, and, yeah, it puts me in a tough spot.
Keith Cosentino: Well, if you want to be trained by Brice, come to Florida in January.
[Overlapping Comments]
Brice Kelly: Awesome.
Keith Cosentino: Well, Brice, thanks for coming on with us today. It’s really interesting to hear your story and to see what you’re capable of. So again, the website is cfldentrepair.com. Check out Brice’s masterpieces and come to Florida and learn how to accomplish this stuff. Are you still using a mix of everybody’s tools or are you a little bit of everything?
Brice Kelly: Oh, man, yeah, it’s everything. I’ve got too many tools right now.
Keith Cosentino: What are you driving for — what’s your work vehicle? Well, you’re in a van, aren’t you?
Brice Kelly: Soccer mom van, yeah. Yeah, got to love it. Three grand, can’t beat it.
Keith Cosentino: You are not driving a $3,000 van.
Brice Kelly: Oh, I absolutely am. It’s got 250,000 miles on it.
Keith Cosentino: I don’t know why that’s funny to me, but it sure is. I’ve seen it though. I’ve seen it’s white, right?
Brice Kelly: Oh, how can you miss it with the banner across it? It’s pretty loud, man. But you know what? Honestly, I want to take the decals off and just get rid of the thing and probably get into a Toyota or something like that. But it does the job, man, you know?
Shane Jacks: You said you want to take off your decals?
Brice Kelly: I do, I do.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. I’m within that same —
[Overlapping Comments]
Brice Kelly: Because you always get that guy who’s screaming out his window, you know, hey, man, I’ve got a —
Shane Jacks: A cow, a cow fell on my car. And I’m like, yeah, you know, that’s it. I’ve been pulled over one time, a dude in a Dodge Ram, a virtually brand new Dodge Ram. He’s on the highway, and he is yelling at me and waving his arms. And I’m like, oh, Lord, this is going to not be good. So he literally pulls over on the shoulder of this four-lane highway, and I’m like he wants me to pull over. And so believe it or not, I did, and he had like four quarter-sized dents. That is literally the only person that has called me — now maybe I’ve had people call at a different time, you know. But people that call and say, hey, I’m right beside you, man, look at my right door, and there’s not a right door on the car. It’s that bad. Or I get ‘hey, do you guys replace mirrors or windshields?’ I mean, you know, it’s —
Brice Kelly: Oh, dude, all the time. I had — I don’t have power windows in my van, so people pull up to the side of me and they’re like roll your window down. I’m like I can’t; I’ve got to keep going.
Shane Jacks: I can’t, I’ve got a $3,000 van.
Keith Cosentino: Maybe if this whole PDR thing takes off for you, you can get power windows. You have air conditioning?
Brice Kelly: Oh, absolutely. In the rain forest, you’ve got to have air conditioning for sure.
Keith Cosentino: You’re bananas, I love it. You know what? Bring the van down. We’ll smash that thing up.
Brice Kelly: Oh, dude. Yeah, we could actually. I don’t mind. I don’t mind.
Shane Jacks: Why would you? You could buy three a day.
Brice Kelly: Oh, man, See, now I’m going to have to upgrade because you guys are picking on my van, so —
Keith Cosentino: Keith started it. I wasn’t going to say anything.
Shane Jacks: You know what? I was actually — if you listen to the replay, I stayed silent for quite some time about your van.
Keith Cosentino: I like to joke around, but the truth of the matter is when you work on cars for a living, especially for as long as all three of us have, they just stop mattering.
Brice Kelly: Oh, God, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: And you don’t really care that much. And it’s a waste of money to spend a lot of dough on a work truck. You see all these guys with these monster trucks and mud guards and, you know, smoke stacks and all this stuff, and it’s like, dude, you’re hauling out a bunch of dent tools, you know, in a 50-mile radius. If you enjoy the truck, knock yourself out, but it’s not doing anything but costing you money. So we could laugh at you all we want, but you’re laughing all the way to the bank because that car was paid for the first three days you drove it, and you’ve been driving it forever.
Brice Kelly: That was the idea.
Keith Cosentino: Automotive cost, zero.
Brice Kelly: Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: Plus you’ve got the old man in case anything breaks down.
Brice Kelly: Yeah — well, no, he actually charges me full price, believe it or not.
Keith Cosentino: I do believe it.
Brice Kelly: I think he charged me like a hundred bucks on my last oil change, and I got Amsoil 15,000 mile oil. An oil change, you charge me. What the hell, Dad?
Shane Jacks: Give your dad a high five for me. I know he doesn’t know me, but that’s pretty awesome.
Brice Kelly: Yep, yep.
Keith Cosentino: All right, Brice. Thanks again for coming on the show.
Brice Kelly: Yeah, no problem.
Keith Cosentino: Appreciate everything that’s going on here, and of course —
Shane Jacks: We can’t wait to see you in January.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. It’s going to be a blast.
Brice Kelly: It’s going to be exciting. I can’t wait as well. So —
Keith Cosentino: And you don’t know this either, but there’s a — and none of our listeners know either, but there’s a pending big change addition happening to the seminar that is not confirmed yet, but stay tuned and there might be even more awesome sauce mixed in the batter.
Brice Kelly: Awesome.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, we’re excited about that. We’ll probably work details about that this week, Shane, and then maybe at next week’s show we have some concrete information. But this could change the game a little bit.
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Keith Cosentino: Listen, one thing we didn’t talk about is some really cool stuff that’s happening that a lot of you know about and a lot of you do not. There’s an application called Periscope, and it’s a live streaming application. It’s completely free. Get it on your iPhone or your Android device, and you follow Shane and you follow me. We’re at PDR College Keith and PDR College Shane. You follow us on there, and during the week, as Shane and I come across interesting situations or places where we think we can add a little bit of value to your life, we’re going to pop onto Periscope, and you’ll get a little beep-beep-beep on your phone to let you know that we are live right this very moment. You hop on there. It’s usually maybe one, two, three, four, five minutes; it’s not that long, but we’re going to share with you something that we do in PDR that makes us more effective, more money, or happier. So follow us on there, be part of that discussion. The way it works is you can see the live video, you can hear what we’re saying, and you can comment in a chat box to us or to anyone else on the screen. And you can tap the screen where you’re viewing; you tappity-tap it with your finger, and it makes little hearts come up. That’s like the scorecard for Periscope. And right now Shane and I are in a challenge. The first one to a million hearts wins. I am slightly ahead at the time of this recording. He will probably pull ahead of me, and then I will finish triumphantly with much drama. So that’s how that’s going to play out, but I need your help to make it happen. So follow us on Periscope. Enjoy the free content and tappity-tap on the hearts. And oh, when you’re on it, swipe to the side and share it. Share it to the people in your network so if there’s other dent guys that could benefit from being in that discussion, bring them on into it, man. It helps us and it helps you. the more powerful we are, the more we can do for you guys. So keep an eye out for Periscope.
All right, gentlemen. Until next time. Get better.
[Music] [End of Audio]
Duration: 78 minutes
