What Did Shane Learn Chasing Hail?
4 weeks & $45k
Shane just spent a month doing hail repair on the road. I decided to ask him a few questions about how he did what he did, and see what I can lean about running a storm effectively myself.
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Transcript:
Keith Cosentino: In the past we have needed to repair dents in double-panels, along edges, or inseams. We’ve used rather imprecise, and dare I say, ineffective methods of tooling. Screw drivers, [inaudible] [00:00:15], and hammers were all we had; now with the development of the Edge Jack from BlendingHammerPDR.com, that has changed!
Using the power and precision of a mini-lifter, we can now effectively repair these damages with control. It takes interchangeable tips so you can vary the tip that you need, depending on the damage and what you need to lift. Again, crazy control, crazy power, you’re gonna fix dents in double-panels and seams that you struggled with before in half-, quarter-, one-tenth of the time. Grab these bad boys and start making some extra money fellas. BlendingHammerPDR.com.
I’m Keith Cosentino, he’s Shane Jacks, and this is the PDR College Podcast!
Where we are happy to hang out with you every week to work on your PDR company, paintless dent removal is our passion and we are here to share everything we’ve learned with you to help drag you out of the depths of mediocrity and bring you up here on top of the mountain where we are enjoying the nice, clean air.
We do it because we want more and more satisfaction. But we want satisfaction by way of cash.
Shane, tell these boys and girls why we want so much cash.
Shane Jacks: Well, I’ll tell you why. I need so much money, Keith, is I wanna build a money wall with you, between you and I and see which one of us can meet in the middle of the country first. That’s where I –
Keith Cosentino: Oh. I like that, man, the great wall of cash.
Shane Jacks: The great wall of moolah.
Keith Cosentino: I think right in the middle of us is like New Orleans or something like that. We’re gonna have a hard time –
Shane Jacks: “Norlens” you even said it like the locals do, “Norlens”.
Keith Cosentino: We’re gonna have a hard time keep – getting that middle built. Every time you turn around for another brick, this can’t be eroding naturally.
Shane Jacks: I thought you were gonna say the natives are gonna be stealing it.
Keith Cosentino: That’s what I mean, actually.
Shane Jacks: How are you, Keith?
Keith Cosentino: I am amazing. Things are going well, business is growing, I am running around like crazy doing all kinds of stuff. It is a busy existence, but it’s exciting. I never know what the next day is gonna be like, I’ve got all kinds of stuff going on.
But I – I’m happy because that is, it’s a position that I created. You know.
I started a podcast, I started a tool company, I started a service business, and I’m running them all at the same time. And I kind of just throw the podcast in there because it sounds like pretty high tech, but really we just do a recording and then we give it to other guys, and then you enjoy it in your ears. We don’t do a ton of work between the shows, but those make me sound fancy when I throw that on top of the tool company and the service business.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, we – we are busy out here, too. I see how your life goes and you said its fantastic, well, mine sucks according to you.
Keith Cosentino: That, it’s not true.
Shane Jacks: We had a discussion a few minutes ago. And we usually preface this show by anywhere between 3 minutes and 4 hours of talking, and just about what we, you know, just a little bit of housekeeping, what we need to do, and Keith – Keith said, cheer up!
Keith Cosentino: Well, then he told me it’s raining. And he didn’t put his dream catcher up, so his chi is all out of whack, right. I appreciate that, and we’re giving the guy a little bit of space. The sun’s gonna come out.
Have you heard of this technique called “grounding”?
Shane Jacks: Yeah, it’s to keep lightening from affecting your –
Keith Cosentino: If you’re an electrician that’s what it is. But if you’re a hippie what it means is you haven’t actually centered your chi or your ions lately, so you gotta get bare feet, then you go and gotta walk on dirt or rock for a while. And that will displace negative ions that are circling around your testicles or, I don’t know exactly how it works. But you’re supposed be a better human and be in a better place after you get your feet dirty for awhile. It’s called grounding and it’s very popular.
Shane Jacks: Well, I’m going to the mountains today in North Carolina, maybe I’ll do some grounding.
Keith Cosentino: Take your shoes off.
Shane Jacks: Take my shoes off. If I get a cut on my feet then some hippies are gonna die! And Asheville is slam full of them, so I will find one very quickly.
Keith Cosentino: I’m pretty sure those age-weathered eagle towns of yours can stand a couple of moments on a rock. You’re probably gonna scratch a rock with them versus –
Shane Jacks: What does that – my feet are absolutely beautiful!
Keith Cosentino: Well, I’ll have to take your word for it because I’m not a foot guy, that’s why I picture yours liken like a lizard. I don’t wanna think about feet.
Shane Jacks: I’m rubbing them right now, actually. They’re very smooth.
Keith Cosentino: Super-smooth.
Shane Jacks: For a man foot.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, if your foot is smooth in relation to your wife’s, we got some issues there.
Shane Jacks: Dwooo. No, let’s now, uuh.
Keith Cosentino: So it’s not like you’re the foot guy.
Shane Jacks: I just shivered, I got the willies, ugh.
Keith Cosentino: Did I ever tell you this story about this girlfriend of mine from way back in the day? It was like, I say girlfriend but –
Shane Jacks: I don’t know, but this show is getting better by the second.
Keith Cosentino: I say girlfriend in like the weakest sense ever, like the girl that I went on a handful of dates with, right. Just like, you know, a little like, well, what you would call a girlfriend in the ’50s or whatever, not a girl that I actually consistently dated, but I knew her for a while.
And then once we decided that we weren’t really all that compatible, we were friends, and, but I still –
Shane Jacks: So how old were you, 12?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: We were just not compatible.
Keith Cosentino: Which means that I wanted to date her and she didn’t wanna date me. So that’s what that really means.
Shane Jacks: Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: Well, she was telling me, oh, I was at the mall today and this dude came out and starts talking to me about my car, and told me how nice he likes, how much he likes my shoes. And I’m, what are you talking about? First, why are you telling me this story, and why are you talking to some dude in the mall who wants to talk about your shoes in the parking lot? And she’s like, oh, I don’t know, he was kind of cut, and whatever. And he wanted to like, like chase, he asked if he could check them out, like check out my shoes.
And like the next thing I know, she’s like, he put one of my toes in his mouth. I’m like, what the hell are you, what?!
And you’re in a mall parking lot and some dude has his mouth on your toes. Why couldn’t you’ve freaked out or call the cops? Like, what –
Shane Jacks: His name is Strong.
Keith Cosentino: All right, and it gets better. This dude got her phone number. I don’t know what it says about girls that won’t date me but will date some guy who’ll suck her feet in a parking lot.
Thankfully, it all worked out in the end for me. Oh, but I – I was blown away –
Shane Jacks: Wow.
Keith Cosentino: I mean, this dude probably should be on the internet teaching classes.
Shane Jacks: Yes.
Keith Cosentino: Because he accosted some woman, put her foot in his mouth, and then got her phone number. And as far as I knew she wasn’t a foot person, but maybe he was turning her, I don’t know.
Shane Jacks: That’s some strong game.
Keith Cosentino: That’s a super-strong game. I can bow in the presence of greatness, I guess I don’t have to be too jealous about that. But there are some strange people out there and they do like the feet.
Shane Jacks: I know one person.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, like it was both feet – I’m like –
Shane Jacks: Yes, we do.
Keith Cosentino: [Inaudible] [00:08:15]. Like those bound-foot centerfolds.
Shane Jacks: Uug, uhh.
Keith Cosentino: It’s not, but you fold it out, I mean but the foot only takes up –
Shane Jacks: The foot or the –
Keith Cosentino: – a couple of inches in the middle.
Shane Jacks: Oh, the foot or the centerfold out?
Keith Cosentino: [Inaudible].
Shane Jacks: Are folded?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, fold out.
Shane Jacks: Have you seen those things?
Keith Cosentino: Of course, I have!
Shane Jacks: Uhh! I just –
Keith Cosentino: It’s an abomination. It’s horrible. That’s just as bad as those cats growing in a jar, a mason jar.
Shane Jacks: I haven’t seen that.
Keith Cosentino: An internet scam from a few years ago. Some dude just put a bunch of cats in jars and took pictures. And then posted it online like it was a new fad where you grow the cat from a baby in a jar, or feed it in a tube, and it grows into the jar. And people would freak out. It was way worse than that dentist who shot the lion.
Shane Jacks: The fallout was –
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: – the hated person to go –
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah, yeah. Finally the guy’s like, uh, yeah just put cats in a jar and took pictures of them, you guys are idiots.
Shane Jacks: Uhh.
Keith Cosentino: 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 Wal-Mart. In fact, I used Wal-Mart glue for a long time. Before I really got into the manufacturing side of PDR, Wal-Mart 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 wanna leave the paint on the car.
So we need something that doesn’t have maximum adhesion for a hot metal glue. There’s a lot of glues out there that are made for construction and manufacturing that’ll 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 Tab Weld.
Tab Weld 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 gotta 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 wanna go faster than the other guy. And if you wanna do a better repair with less pulls or do a repair that someone else said couldn’t be done, you’ve gotta have the best tools. And glue is so stinking cheap for how much you use.
I did a $600 repair the other day; I was on it for four hours and I used two sticks of Tab Weld the whole time and I glue-bulbed the whole time. It’s not a lot of money to put in, and there’s almost no other expenses in our business. Stop being short-sided, buy the glue that’s gonna 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 gonna make more of it, I can promise you that. You’ve got the right lights, you’ve got the right tools, you’ve got 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 Tab Weld.
Checkout the website, TabWeld.com. You can bop yourself onto our mailing list there. 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.
Keith Cosentino: So today’s show, here’s what we’re doing. Shane has just come home from his yearly hail storm. Seems to be about every year you go and chase something somewhere, yeah?
Shane Jacks: Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, yeah. You always, you say in the beginning of the year you’re kind of on the fence by whether you do it, but invariably at some point during the year some offer’s good enough or you’re ready for a little switch-up and you take an offer.
Shane Jacks: Right. And I really didn’t think I was going this year. And then a friend called and wanted me to help him out, so I was like, yeah, why not.
Keith Cosentino: The kids were going back to school sounds like.
Shane Jacks: I had the entire summer with my kids, and I say that loosely. I mean I was still running the shop but we had a few moments of vacation there and had a good time, so I was home you know. And it was a good, good summer with the kids.
Keith Cosentino: And I’ll take this time to tell everybody that, I give you a little pat on the back, you do spend a lot of time with your kids. And the few instances where you’ve actually taken my call in the evening, and I don’t say that as a dig but it’s like you respect your time at home, you’ve been hanging out with your kids outside either working or throwing a ball or hanging out at the creek or whatever 80 percent of the time. So you – give yourself a pat on the back for being an involved dad.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, and I guess it’s, kind of, people that don’t think they’re – I really I think I’m a complete failure to be honest with you. But I guess that’s kind of the way people that, you know, people that are trying to do better they actually don’t think that they’re doing enough you know. And that’s – that’s what makes you successful as business people also, it’s you know, it’s just, it’s never enough, it’s never good enough.
Keith Cosentino: Ask the guy with the Silver Medal at the Olympics if he won or not.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. Good point, precisely.
So, but I appreciate it, yeah. We were throwing the ball the other day, and I also, this is just a little side note. I believe in teaching my kids even manual labor stuff, so we do a lot of manual labor together. I show them, you know, how to do, how – if I’m building something in the backyard I’m either going to have a part in building it with a contractor or doing it with a contractor, or I’m doing it myself with the kids because I want them to learn you know. Could I pay somebody else, and would it be a better use of my time, personally? Of course it would, but my kids wouldn’t learn the way I learned you know.
Keith Cosentino: It’s funny you mentioned that because my wife and I had a debate about that a while ago. I’m – I’m – and my mindset is more like you’re alluding to, where I’d rather just scratch a check for a lot of this stuff. But as a lot of dent guys who are good, are pretty handy with just about everything, it’s kind of what you need to be really good at this trade. You have to be creative and excited about when you’re hands are on stuff.
So I’m proficient at a lot of things around the house you know. I’m not, by no means am I pro, but you know I did all the trim carpentry in a couple of my kids’ rooms, the wainscoting and crown molding and all that stuff, and put floors down, and fixed plumbing. You know, I can fix things and do things. But I don’t particularly love that work.
And now that I’m busy, just call somebody out here, let them do it. And I thought, you know I’ve achieved ultimately man status because I’m like, I can just scratch a check and make things happen. And the opposite impression is the one that she had, which is you’re way less useful now and you don’t, you can’t do stuff. Wait a second. Like I’m, I can do stuff, you know squares now. I kind of have to touch it.
But it turns out one of the things my wife liked about me was the fact that I could physically do things just like her dad. It wasn’t the fact that I could write a check and get it done by somebody else, and did get it done better by someone else, might I add. I’m not a natural pro, but –
Shane Jacks: It’s a delicate, I mean in my opinion it’s a delicate balance of being an effective husband/dad teaching the way my father taught me and being an effective businessman. You know? I mean, it’s tough.
Keith Cosentino: Like I, there’s things – my boy’s 9, right, he just turned 9 in July. And he’s at a point now where I need to be teaching him a lot of stuff, hands-on, and I do teach him a lot of theory and we put our hands on stuff once in a while. But not the way when I grew up. My dad didn’t teach me squat, but I was interested in everything coming apart and going back together. That was my, that’s how my mind worked.
So I was thinking about when I was 9, I was in the garage making you know go-cart projects, and all kinds of stupid stuff. And he’s just inside, you know, gaming. I mean he plays soccer and basketball and all these things, but when it comes to like dorking around the house, he’s not in the garage working on stuff like I was. So I’m thinking, man, I gotta him out here. But really in my mind what I’m thinking is I gotta teach him how to run a company, I gotta teach him how to be profitable and manage things because I want him to do what I think I wanna do better you know. But really, I’m skipping the building blocks of how I got to where I am. And that’s what I –
Shane Jacks: It’s a – it’s a balance and it’s tough to – I don’t do it right I’m certain of that. But, hey, we’re trying, man, we’re trying.
Keith Cosentino: I think you’re more – you’re more right than I am.
Shane Jacks: Life, life is a game that you and I have never done before.
Keith Cosentino: True that, that’s what I tell my wife –
Shane Jacks: Or sort of this one.
Keith Cosentino: – about our parenting. Like, hey, it’s the first time you know, you know we’re gonna screw some stuff up. It’s like our kids are 9 and younger, we’ve been doing it nine years. Like yeah, but every day they get older it’s the first time we’ve parented someone at that age.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. Just wait until 12 to 16. And I know people are looking at me going wait until 18 to 24. You know, so –
Keith Cosentino: And if you’re the guy saying wait until 24 to 30 that’s your fault, you did a bad job.
Shane Jacks: Precisely.
Keith Cosentino: You have a 30-year-old, and you’re still parenting them.
Shane Jacks: Wait until they’re 30 and living in your basement.
Keith Cosentino: But I, you know what –
Shane Jacks: Actually, my daughter can. I have no trouble with her staying until she’s 30. Nathan is out pretty much midnight of July the 11th; 12:00 and 1 second, are you 18 boy? Get up, get out of bed, you’re out.
Keith Cosentino: Here’s your job application, already filled out.
So anyways, back to the store for those of you who don’t like our personal commentary, you just wanna hear about dent repair. Shane decided to take this gig – where was it, Boston?
Shane Jacks: Yeah. Right, just south of Boston, in the Boston metro area.
Keith Cosentino: So I thought it’d be fun for me to just kind of ask him about it. Because, honestly, when he’s been there we haven’t really talked that much except doing the show because he’s straight-up hustling while he’s there.
As much as you may think he’s kicking it because he’s doing Periscope videos, and dancing videos, and things like that, he’s actually hustling pretty hard so I can’t get the guy on the phone. So I figure I’ll just ask him a bunch of questions that you would’ve asked or you would want to ask him about going to a hail storm; and what was it like there, and you know what kind of money were you making, what was the hardest thing about it.
So let me start by just asking you was it a good decision at the end of the trip and you’re done, and you’re home now. Is it something you’d do again if you’d go back a month, a month-and-a-half, whatever it was, and back and start over again, would you still go?
Shane Jacks: Oh, yeah, for sure. It was definitely worth it. Moneywise the company that I was with was good. And what I mean by company, the person that I was working with was good company. I don’t wanna get that confused.
Keith Cosentino: What was the money –
Shane Jacks: But the company –
Keith Cosentino: – what did it end up looking like?
Shane Jacks: I’m sorry?
Keith Cosentino: What kind of money are we talking about?
Shane Jacks: Over two-grand a day. But you know I was there a month, or four weeks and a couple of days, basically, and those couple of days were set-up time; anyway I don’t have to explain all that away. So basically, a month barely under a month, and it was right at $45,000. So good money.
Keith Cosentino: It’s really good money. Did you keep track of your travel expenses?
Shane Jacks: You know, that’s something – that’s something that I really don’t do. I mean I do at the end of the year, of course, but as far as the hotel and everything I’m staying in a nice hotel. I think I’ve gone over this before, and extra $30.00 a night for a goodnight’s sleep is, I will make up the next day tenfold. So I am, if I keep up with it too much I will, I will start to sort of start to try to cut expenses you know. And then I’m not gonna sleep well, I’m not gonna eat well, I’m not gonna have fun, I’m gonna be worried.
Dude, I just go up there and make money and I spend what I need to spend. Now I don’t stay at the Ritz or anything.
Keith Cosentino: That’s funny you just say that. Because I – we were just cleaning out a cabinet last night because we’re having my little girl’s birthday party today. And for some reason a big giant, like a one-inch thick Sandals, the catalog or brochure whatever you wanna call it, was out on the counter so I was looking through it. This says all-inclusive resorts all over, usually an island destination. I think our travel agent sent it us.
But one of the places, they’ve got a Rolls Royce in the Bahamas or something and they pick you up and drop you off in your places in this Rolls Royce. And they’ve got like a doorman and everything else. That’s what I was picturing when you were talking about staying in nice hotels; this doorman with the black and gold suit you know and the white gloves and [inaudible] [00:23:08]. And they cart you off to the storm in this taxi of a Rolls Royce. Fellas, I gotta get a goodnight’s sleep, an extra $30 or $3,000 bucks a night, it doesn’t matter.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, not that good of a night’s sleep. I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. So you have to be uncomfortable enough to where I wanna leave in the morning, or not want to leave but I’m okay with leaving.
Keith Cosentino: You got anything real comfortable but with a dog chained up outside or something? I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be too comfortable.
So you’re there for a month, but is that a five-, six-day workweeks or seven, or what is it?
Shane Jacks: Five.
Keith Cosentino: Just five, so off weekends.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. It was actually, I mean if – we were south of the city by five miles, I really don’t know how far. Because Boston is a crazy cramped city and it takes you forever to get somewhere, and you’re winding through these streets. It could’ve only been 30 feet away, but it’d take like 15 minutes to get to Boston from where I was at.
Keith Cosentino: A helicopter.
Shane Jacks: I’m sorry?
Keith Cosentino: Helicopter.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. So I was really close to the city, south from the city, kind of outside of the damage area. But there was, there is – I shouldn’t say was – there is a lot of damage up there so getting a lot of cars in these outlying areas from commuters and whatnot. And the work was good work. Some of it was pretty beat up –
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, some of those –
Shane Jacks: – it took a lot of steel.
Keith Cosentino: There’s nasty dents.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. And –
Keith Cosentino: But if you’re not, if you’re not following Shane on Periscope by the way, Periscope is the app where we can – anyone can stream a live video, live, and then you can get on and watch it and you can comment via a chat box. There’s no audio feed to comment, but you can watch and you can chat with people also watching, and with the producer of the video.
So Shane and I have both been doing that. I think you’ve actually been doing a little bit more as of late. But if you’re interested in that and sounds cool, you just get the Periscope app, it’s free, and then look, go down the button and follow people, and then look for PDR College Shane, PDR College Keith. And then when we do a little video, you get a little chirpy-chirp on your phone and you can know, hey, Shane or Keith is live right now and you can watch it. It’s pretty cool.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. I’ve only done one in the last week. I think we are even in the last week. We’ve gotta get back on top of that.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, we’re racing. Because if you like the content of the person who’s making the video you can tap the screen and little hearts float up. And that’s like your score card for Periscope. And I was at first wiping the floor with Shane and hearts, we were racing to a million and then he had a pretty strong run. I came on back again, and I think you might be ahead of me by just a hair now. Right.
Shane Jacks: Yes I am. I think it’s about 5,000 hearts right now.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, enjoy it. Just enjoy it now, really. Take some screen shots or whatever.
Shane Jacks: You think you got – like ever?
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah, my listeners are a lot more, they resonate with me, they appreciate me, they wanna be like me, they love me. And your guys, they just wanna learn how to make money.
Shane Jacks: Fair enough.
Keith Cosentino: Very –
Shane Jacks: If I make them a lot, if I make them enough money, Keith, then they’re going to love me and they’re going to appreciate me more inside.
Keith Cosentino: Funny you mention that, it’s like a lot of marriages.
Shane Jacks: And a lot, by a lot you mean 100 percent?
Keith Cosentino: It could be either way a marriage is set up, too. Like, we said before, money doesn’t buy everything but it will make women love you.
No, he’s not all about his looks, that’s just, it’s not what he’s about you know. He’s 300 pounds, and his face looks like it got drug under a truck, but that’s not – it’s not who he is, I mean I love him for who he is, freaking rich.
Shane Jacks: Who he is inside his pockets.
Keith Cosentino: And his cholesterol clogged arteries. Oh, man.
Shane Jacks: Let’s talk about glue tabs, more specifically, let’s talk about Blackplague smooth series glue tabs. These guys come in a variety of sizes and are specifically designed for maximum adhesion. They’re designed differently than other tabs, and I can say with all honesty that they stick better than any other tab out there. From the itty-bitty tiny ones that seem as if they wouldn’t pull anything all the way to the larger ones, these things pull like a tanker. Best of all, they pull with finite precision, they pull exactly where you want in the exact spot you want.
I’ll tell you what, pair these guys with the Tab Weld glue and you’ve got an unbeatable combo. Visit BlackplaguePDR.com, pick these guys up, pick-up some Tab Weld glue, and take your glue pulling to the next level.
Keith Cosentino: So –
`Shane Jacks: So anyway, the money was good outside of the Boston area in the suburbs, and all of the damage of – yeah, I did a few Periscopes, especially that, the one that I did that really stuck out was the black Pilot, no not Pilot, Ridgeline, Honda Ridgeline that was just smacked. And there were 300 or so dents on the roof, and a-third of them were oversized, and I guarantee you 30, 40, 50 of those were above 0.7 on the dent scale. Because I measured five or 10 and then I was just like, that’s enough you know.
Keith Cosentino: And let me give you a quick side note. After you did that Periscope we got a storm that my company’s been working with a couple of hours from my place.
And I went up to work for a day and we had a Ridgeline. That roof sucks, dude, I thought it was gonna be super-easy, that’s why you got through it so quick. That roof sucks to work on, there’s bracing all over the place on it. And it’s not the worst car ever, but it certainly is no like four-door Civic without a sunroof, it’s not that.
Shane Jacks: Oh, did yours have a sunroof?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: Okay, mine didn’t.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, okay. So it was actually –
Shane Jacks: There’s a big difference, a huge difference.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, with a sunroof it’s not what you want for Christmas.
Shane Jacks: Huge difference. So look, for those that think I’m “ego-tastic”, I’m putting myself down a little bit there; mine had no sunroof, they’re very easy to work actually, Keith.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, good.
Shane Jacks: They’re pretty –
Keith Cosentino: Well, they still have ridges, right?
Shane Jacks: Yes, they still have ridges.
Keith Cosentino: That’s not that easy.
Shane Jacks: No. I mean not terribly easy, it was a quick repair for what it was for sure.
And then posted on Facebook here recently, one of our guests last week, Tony Frazier, he repaired that rail dent that I had measured at 2.79 –
Keith Cosentino: Oh, he did that one?
Shane Jacks: Yes, he did that, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: I was wondering why he took the photos, I didn’t catch that.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. Well, it didn’t get approved until after I left.
Keith Cosentino: You were gone, oh.
Shane Jacks: So after it was approved he repaired it and did a killer job. So the damage was pretty good, but there was some of it that you need to have a ton of skill to fix. And that’s the kind of storm that I like. Because if you have skill you’re gonna be able to make the money on that.
That rail right there, if I’m not mistaken, there were two other dime – I know this sounds crazy – there were two other dime size dents on it, and I’m thinking that rail was 475 or 500 that we got out of that rail, basically, for that one dent.
The other two or three dents were really tiny. One glue, one small glue hole and a little bit blending and you’re done on each one of the other dents.
Keith Cosentino: That big one was nasty. If you’re not on the – did you put that on the PDR College Podcast Community Group?
Shane Jacks: Yes, yes.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. So if you’re not in that group, go into Facebook and search for Groups and look for the PDR College Community. That’s where we’re hanging out and talking about the show and regular every day stuff that comes up; and the dent repair biz and life.
But you gotta see that rail that Tony fixed. [Inaudible] [00:31:29]. I thought it was your repair; Tony’s on another level just like you. So I’m pretty excited for him to come and teach his rail stuff at the seminar.
Shane Jacks: He is, he is definitely on another level of technique-wise, speed-wise; there’s just so much to be learned.
Dude, this seminar is, people think we’re just trying to sell it, it’s going to be insane, the talent there is just, is ridiculous. So I’m really, I – I am 10 times more excited this year about this year’s coming up than I was last year.
Keith Cosentino: Well, I, I mean I am, too. And you know, last year we got to teach a lot. And that was a blast and that was exciting.
But this year, we will get to teach and learn a lot because all these guys that we’ve invited to come are guys that we wanna learn from.
And even when – we’re friends with all these guys, personal friends, but there’s only so much you can talk about over the phone. They’re all in different parts of the country, and we can’t get there and just say, even if we could get there, like, hey, you’re gonna stop working today so I can, you know, see what you do.
There’s just never a situation where you can actually learn. We’re gonna have them all in an environment that’s set up for training in one place at the same time. So that is, this is really exciting for us. Even if none of you all show up, we’re gonna have a good time. It might cost us a little bit of money to pay all these guys –
Shane Jacks: Yeah, I got silent there. I’m a little bit scared. You made me gulp. One of us has to pay for this, it’s gonna take out of our wall of cash that I’m trying to build. So not too good.
You better make it, you guys better make it.
Keith Cosentino: You know I wanna hear more about that storm. But you know you were talking about earlier, before we started the show, about relating the stuff that I learned from my storm that I’m on. And you reminded me that one of the biggest things is waiting on supplements, and getting stuff approved and in a proper fashion and in a proper timeframe. That can destroy everything. Everything else can be perfect; the works there, there’s a place to do it, everything’s great, it’s easy damage or whatever. But if you can’t get the okay you’re stuck, man. It’s really challenging.
And I think a lot of it has to do with the shop that you’re working with, not necessarily the adjusters. Would you say that’s true?
Shane Jacks: Yes. Because they need to put it in, in a timely manner to the insurance company, and keep up with has the adjuster come out yet. It’s two days later, do they know? Do they still know that this car is here, has it been pushed under the rug, etc., etc.?
So a lot of it does have to do with the shop. A lot of that though, Keith, is also you can’t control it all the time. It’s just impossible to control. So just, I’d say about pretty everything in my business life one of my quotes is “It’s easy if you know what you’re doing” and the other is “Jump in and freaking swim”. So schedule more than you need to schedule or if you think you need to schedule. Dude, it might be Thursday and there’s 10 cars sitting there, and I’m just happy I’m out of town working this instead of in town. Because it’s –
Keith Cosentino: Well, yeah.
Shane Jacks: Cajones to the wall you know.
Keith Cosentino: And that’s how I tell my guys to schedule their retail stuff too, just book it. If they’re ready to go book it, figure it out later. Because invariably something’s gonna fall through, somebody’s gonna cancel, or it’s gonna be a job you can’t do. But you get it all there, and if it’s Friday at 6:00 you still have a job to do, you’ve got some calls to make and some apologies to make. But don’t make any apologies for the money you make because you stayed busy the whole time.
Shane Jacks: Yep.
Keith Cosentino: So somebody might not be as happy as possible, but you will be and that’s the point of working. As long as you’re not like straight-up lying to people and telling them you know leading them on. As long as you’re being somewhat realistic people can, they have a little bit of leeway with you.
So you’ve seen shops where they handle the supplement process well, and you’ve seen somewhere they handled it terribly. And frankly, I’ve seen it done terribly only because I’ve only worked this one storm.
Shane Jacks: Right.
Keith Cosentino: Do you think you can affect that in any way, and if you can what are the ways that you would recommend trying to affect that at a body shop? Or do you think it’s just out of your control?
Shane Jacks: Well, one thing that is in your control is getting in a shop that’s a DRP or a, you know, a company to have steady work or several –
Keith Cosentino: That’s really important isn’t it?
Shane Jacks: – insurance – yeah, it is – insurance companies that have steady work. So the storm you’re in is probably smaller than the typical storm in most areas.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah.
Shane Jacks: So when it hails it, I’m just gonna – I’m gonna crossover from when it hails in Greenville to when it hails in Boston, to when it hailed in Boston.
So in Boston it’s a huge storm, right. They’re from, I heard a report of 200,000 claims, auto claims.
Keith Cosentino: Wow.
Shane Jacks: I just heard this yesterday, so I don’t how accurate it is. But I heard it. Someone called me and told me 200,000 claims.
So that’s a lot of claims. There are a lot of cars coming in, every single insurance company out there is going to have a lot of claims. You do good work and you’re in a DRP shop for ABC Insurance company, dude, I’d never heard of some of these insurance companies that we were doing work for up there in –
Keith Cosentino: You know, you know what, Shane. I think we gotta take just a baby step back. We always assume everyone who’s listening is a long-time vet and they know all these terms.
But a DRP shop. So that’s a body shop that has an agreement with the insurance company, that they are gonna be able to estimate the cars on the insurance company’s behalf and fix them for a predetermined rate. And for that deal that the body shop gives the insurance company, the insurance company is gonna send customers directly there and they can start working on the cars as if they are the insurance company. Basically, they don’t need to have someone else come out and re-inspect the car. So they’re working as their registered agents, basically.
So at a DRP shop when a car lands, you can have tools on it in 45 minutes if the guys know what they’re doing.
Shane Jacks: Right. It’s a direct repair program.
Keith Cosentino: That’s exactly what it means, yeah. So a lot of times the body shops are locked into a crappier deal with those DRPs, but they take the crap because it’s a volume deal, there’s gonna be a lot of cars coming in, especially if it’s a big insurance company like GEICO or AAA or State Farm or whatever. So if you can land at a shop that has a two or three or even four DRP deals, all those cars that land on DRPs you can start on.
But then the other insurance companies that they’re not DRP, those guys wanna send out an actual person to come and look at the car and confirm all the damage you say is on there. And that’s what we’re talking about waiting on adjusters for.
Shane Jacks: Right. So when we were – thanks for clear clearifying – clarifying that, Keith. I throw some of these terms out there and you’re a little more analytical in clearing that up for our listeners that may not know exactly what a DRP is, or some of these other terms.
But yeah, so you want to, in Boston there was so much damage up there that every little insurance company, and some of the insurance companies we were doing work for I’d never heard of before; Commerce, Safety. So we were in a shop that was a DRP for both of those insurance companies. And there was enough work coming in there.
Now not all DRPs are the same in their requirements. You said you can be working in 45 minutes. One of these you had to take kagillion pictures and –
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah, all of them.
Shane Jacks: Yeah. You still have to wait on the approval even though they were direct repair. They would send you an email back and say, okay, you’re good to go.
So you need to find a shop that is a DRP that is gonna bring in enough cars to keep you busy-ish, and then the overflow would be the cars that you’re waiting on, waiting on the adjuster to come out to do the adjustment on the car for the supplement.
Now when it hails here in Greenville, my biggest body shop is a DRP for like 14 different companies. So I’m always gonna be busy. I might have to wait on a few cars a year through them, but not many, you know what I mean.
Keith Cosentino: That’s a place that I could get called on if they get a storm there.
Shane Jacks: Yes. That’s the place you wanna get called on, that’s why I do it.
Keith Cosentino: No, me personally.
Shane Jacks: Do what now?
Keith Cosentino: Me, personally, I could get a call if that happened. There’s enough work there. You could get everybody working who you wanna work, and then you could feel guilty and call me, too; 14 DRPs.
Shane Jacks: So –
Keith Cosentino: Put me on there, Marine Life Insurance or whatever.
Shane Jacks: You’re, if you’re in a situation where like Keith is, and the storm is smaller, it’s kind of inevitable, I mean and out of your – it’s inevitable that you’re gonna be waiting some and it’s out of your control, really, you know. Unless you’re just going, unless the body shop is willing to really load themselves up and be okay with cars sitting there for a little while, you know a couple of weeks or whatever.
Had a shop back in 2010, they let cars sit there over a month. They had no problem with it. And they would call the supplement in and just let it sit there, and whatever you know.
Keith Cosentino: Some, let me ask – let me ask you this, Shane. Because this is something – I haven’t been working this storm myself. I’ve got a fantastic tech that I was able to call in and he’s running the entire storm for me. So I haven’t been there creating my own processes and things like that.
But I wonder, do you think if you had a really systematized process – with your own little jacket for each car that’s sitting in there that has the status on and everything – and every morning or every other morning you could do a quick walk-through. Almost like when you’ve been at shops when they really have their act together, the managers have a morning meeting and they all talk about the status of each car; this is going today, this is waiting on supplement, this is, you know. Have you seen that happen before?
Shane Jacks: Yes. The big body shop that I have here in Greenville, that is the DRP so it doesn’t really matter. But as far as keeping the adjusters coming in there in a quicker manner, but yes, I do believe having a system down would help tremendously.
Here’s where I believe it may not help you. And I know I’m kind of bent and in circles here. If you’ve got the system down yourself, and you’re coming in and you’ve got – and we’re gonna go over actually a lot of this at the seminar as far as when Tony and Max are there. We’re gonna go over a lot of this stuff; systems, key tags for this car for this reason, for that reason; a board for this; a folder for this, a folder for that. We’re gonna go over a lot of this stuff.
But sometimes it doesn’t – I’m not gonna say it doesn’t matter – you can come in and be completely organized at XYZ Body Shop, if the XYZ Body Shop has been themselves unorganized with that insurance company that you’re “courting”, if they’ve been unorganized for the last 20 years and you come in, the insurance company may not take them seriously if they’re seeing it coming from them. Does that make sense?
Keith Cosentino: Oh, yeah.
Shane Jacks: It can, it can affect them, not – over time they may like holy crap, something has happened at XYZ Body Shop and they are, as soon as the car rolls in there they’re getting us a supplement in here with pictures or requests. And then, I mean some body shops are okay with the car sitting there and they won’t call back for the supplement request.
I will, if a car sits at my shop and a retail customer’s car that comes in if it sits in my shop more than a day-and-a-half, two days, I wanna try to call the insurance company and go, hey, you do know I’ve got a car sitting here, right. And that does impress them sometimes. Sometimes it makes them mad that you know, well, I’m doing all I can you know, we’ll get somebody out there as soon as we possibly can; Bob White is assigned to that and he’ll be out there as soon as he possibly can.
But sometimes it also shows them that you’re serious about getting the car done, and shows them that you’re serious about staying in contact with them and an open line of communication.
I think it is huge, Keith. To answer your question in its entirety, it may not matter right away, it may take some time; a month or two into the storm for that system to take effect through that shop because of their past. But I think it is absolutely paramount in your success long-term.
Some companies out there, I’m not gonna name the name of the company, it’s a big dent company. They actually have CCC and the other estimating system. They do all the estimates themselves and send it all in themselves. Because man, you can have a, it can sit up there on the desk of that body shop if you’re waiting on them to send it in, it could take forever you know. And that’s a big selling point to the body shops. Is you tell them, hey, you don’t have to send in anything, we’ve got it all in our system and Jay over here is gonna send every estimate in. All we need is your shop space. You know.
Keith Cosentino: So when, not to go off too far in a tangent, but I just wanna ask this one question. That particular company, did it have the techs doing those or do they have someone who’s a dedicated estimate writer?
Shane Jacks: They have a dedicated estimate writer, from what I understand.
Keith Cosentino: Got it. So what I wanted to talk about with this putting a system together, I just wanted to make this comment that you said, yes, they do that at your biggest most busy shop in town. And that’s where I see it at my shops, too. The most productive shops have this meeting every day or at least every other day.
So listen, we’re completely across the country from each other. It’s no coincidence that the most well run shops have a production meeting regularly to make sure no cars are left in the back 40 for a month just sitting there. And everybody knows the status of each car, and they’re working towards getting them out.
So to be able to tread them, at least mimic that system for your business inside of another business, you’re never gonna be slower than you would’ve been. You know, if you know the status of each car and then you’re, you know you may not be able to effect the phone calls personally, I mean emails personally because they have to go through the shop. But if you come in every morning and say, okay, here’s where we’re going with this, here’s where we’re going with this, this is waiting on this, this is waiting on that, we’re gonna need to call and check on supplement for this one and this one and this one.
If you do that every single day they’re either gonna hate you after a week or they’re gonna think you’re the most well organized businessman they’ve ever done business with, and maybe even learn a thing or two.
And probably if it’s a [inaudible] [00:46:50] shop who doesn’t do this, they don’t wanna learn anything from you, they wouldn’t learn something. But maybe.
Shane Jacks: I’m telling you, even if they don’t want to learn something from you, if you come in there every morning and you’re like – and it’s not even every morning – there’re inevitably going to be questions about the Honda Accord sitting outside.
If they come up, they ask you, okay, have you taken pictures of the Honda Accord sitting outside? And you go to the folder of the Honda Accord – not the piece of paper laying in a stack under 14 other pieces of paper and you’re going Honda Accord, Honda, it’s in here somewhere Bubba – and you go over to the folder and the key is in the folder or the key is on the board and it has a number that corresponds to the folder, and you’ve got a, you’ve got all this stuff and you’re like, okay, here’s the folder, boom. Yes, in our remarks here we have sent – or it can be on a computer system – yes, we did take the pictures, we sent the pictures to you via email or to the insurance company via email.
If you’ve got it down to a system like that you’re going to make them more money because you’re gonna be a little more efficient, or a lot more efficient actually. So they may not wanna learn anything from you, Keith, but they’re gonna be making money off – in there always, always. Okay?
So being organized is paramount in your success. And if you’re completely organized and they come back and ask you about the Honda Accord and you’re fumbling around and you don’t know what’s going on, and it costs them time because you’re like, oh, you know what I didn’t give you our updated supplement request. Ah, shoot, here it is. Immediately in their mind, they’re like, well, I can’t bring another car in right now, we don’t even have this one approved. They didn’t get a, they didn’t send in the supplement for it, da-da-da.
If you know everything that’s going on, dude, they’re gonna bring you more cars in, they’re gonna feel more comfortable bringing you more cars in.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. Or they, or they’re hesitant to submit the supplement because it’s been so long, you know. They’re just gonna do the repair for the number you put on it in the first place.
Shane Jacks: Right.
Keith Cosentino: So let me just clarify that this is not a theory that you’re working on. This is what you’ve seen in practice. Like, this is what the big money hail guys do, and this is what the guys who aren’t doing well this is what they don’t do. Right?
Shane Jacks: Correct.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, this is not like, hey, this would be a good idea. Like a lot of the stuff we talk about is, you know, and I think we’re pretty up front about it, is you know stuff we haven’t actually done, but it’s really a good idea that we have, you know a theory.
This is not a theory this is practice. This is real stuff.
Shane Jacks: Right. Yes, this is real stuff, this is real stuff.
And a lot of it you learn through time and – okay, so you’re, and I don’t blame a lot of dent guys for their lack of keeping up with this. I didn’t do it for a long time, and I’m not saying I do it correct now, Keith. Because I –
Keith Cosentino: We have some full-time hail guys –
Shane Jacks: Exactly. But you go in and here’s what they think. They’re like, you know what, I’m making x-amount a day, that is really good money, and I’m disorganized, but I’m running my head off, I’m doing okay, I’m doing good, I’m good with the way I am. Does that make sense?
To realize that with, if you use this system and you’re completely and totally organized, that you’re gonna make 10, 15, 20, 30 percent more, everybody would probably do it.
It’s just a slow down and do it kind of thing. It’s the same reason that, Keith, you and I haven’t implemented some of the things that we teach on this show. It’s simply a time issue. Would we profit from it? Of course, we would. But we just don’t, we haven’t, I’m not gonna say we don’t have the time, we haven’t taken the time to slow down and actually do those things, some of things that we preach on here.
Keith Cosentino: Right. Slowing down and really making intentional decisions with your company instead of just reacting to all the business in front of you.
Shane Jacks: Right. But hail guys have a unique situation, scenario, whatever you wanna call it, their “down time in the winter”. Take some of that down time guys and start implementing this system, get it down pat you know.
Come to the seminar and you’re gonna see this system in action, in theory and in action.
Keith Cosentino: Checkout this quote, it’s not mine but I really like it, “Winners create, losers react”.
Shane Jacks: Brilliant.
Keith Cosentino: I love it. You either create something or you react to a situation, but when you’re creating you’re dictating the outcome.
Shane Jacks: I like it.
Keith Cosentino: I do, too.
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So, man, there’s so much more I wanna talk you about on that storm, but we’re taking up a lot time really fast, the shows go so fast.
So let me ask you this. You’ve been to a lot storms, that one was successful. You’ve done, you’ve had more successful storms, you’ve certainly had less successful, that’s for sure.
What is something that you learned at this storm, if anything, that will make you better the next time you go out?
Shane Jacks: That is a good question. And you can tell by my pause beeps that we don’t rehearse this thing sometimes. Which is good, I like the questions being organic.
Something that I learned. Well, aside from Boston being a really, really rude city, but that’s not gonna help me any way whatsoever. Honestly, I guess it would be even more. Tony Frazier and myself talked while the storm was going on, as did Tony Antonelli and myself talking about this upcoming seminar.
So while I was there we were talking about some of the organizational stuff. So a lot of this stuff that I was just speaking of, Keith, I learned a little more there, honestly. Just going through, okay, this works this doesn’t. So I guess one thing that I learned was even more organization/processes that will speed you up/make you more efficient.
You know, I guess putting into practice also more of the manipulating, “manipulating the matrix” to make it say what you wanna say, basically; and make the money you need to make off of the car is possible. We got our money on every single car that we asked for, and we were told by one adjuster that we were too f-ing high compared to everybody else in town. I mean, those were his exact words. And you know, he still gave us every dime we asked for once we explained to him, with much fanfare, that we were justified in our estimating processes.
I guess I didn’t learn that but it just solidified the fact that you can make more off of that matrix/off of an insurance company. All you’ve gotta do is be able to explain yourself.
Keith Cosentino: And you know that’s one of your strengths personally, Shane, is being to argue a point and it doesn’t even necessarily have to be a point that you create or agree with. I can just give you a position and you’re personally really good at arguing that position. It doesn’t matter if it’s one that’s deep in your heart or not, that’s just like a strength of yours.
So I think we really could probably do a whole entire show, again, on how the style you go about. Taking their playbook, which is the matrix the ultimate price anchor that we talked about, and being able to argue their point down to an incontestable degree of accuracy and come out with an outcome that you are happy with. And you’re using their own playbook and there’s nothing they can say about it.
But so many guys just say, well, this is the matrix, and they don’t even look at it that close. But you’re getting everything that you need in every single possible area. And once you’ve proven to them that it’s their numbers that you’re working with, they have to play ball.
Shane Jacks: There’s nothing they can say. They have, yeah, they have to agree. That would be a great show, actually. And it could go farther than the matrix, honestly. You know it’s, that is a big deal because you don’t wanna argue with a customer, an adjuster’s much more –
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, no kidding. It is bananas.
Man, I wish we had more time this morning, Shane, I really do.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, we’re running out of it there. We’ve been here a while.
Keith Cosentino: We sure have, it goes by fast.
But I guess everything that I wanna talk about with the storm, this is all stuff you’re come to the seminar and learn. And I hate to say it like that, like a [inaudible] [00:57:44] pitch for the hail portion of the seminar because it really is.
There’s so many little things about chasing hail that, especially, that I’ve learned with it’s not just about fixing the cars quickly, it’s about everything synergistically together. It’s about having the proper skills physically, that the skills to set up your workspace, your workflow; and then the personal skills, and then the procedural stuff. There’re so many moving parts to it that on the surface it looks like you blow into town, you land a shop, you write high estimates, you do the work, and you’re gonna kill it.
And in a nutshell, that’s right but there’s so many little steps in-between that it’s almost impossible to cover them all just in conversation. You’ve got to set it out in a predetermined fashion and teach everybody. I mean the numbers that those guys were doing, you did 45 in a month there. So, I mean, if you kept that pace up for eight months, nine months, like that’s what those guys are doing that were on the show, Tony and Max. That, I mean it’s a ridiculously great income, it’s amazingly –
Shane Jacks: And honestly, I’ll be honest with you. We weren’t as efficient as we could’ve been and it really wasn’t our fault. There was a lot of, we had one shop that was feeding us a decent amount of cars but we were having to run 15, 20 minutes away to two or three different shops to bring cars to our shop. And we just didn’t have the volume to work 10- to 12-hour days; we were honestly working from 8:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon, 6:00 sometimes.
Keith Cosentino: A normal workday.
Shane Jacks: A normal workday. Plus there were several days that it was three or four hours into the day that we didn’t have an approval, we didn’t have a car there yet, we had to go out and get a car. Honestly, I would say we, I’m gonna be conservative in this estimate, we averaged working six to seven hours a day, five days a week. So had we had more work, that number could’ve been closer to three-grand a day, $3,500 I would guess.
Keith Cosentino: That’s so cool.
All right, fellas. Well, Shane, thank you for sharing a little bit about that storm. I really wanted to go deeper on it, and I know you guys wanted to hear a lot more about that – and maybe we’ll do a Part 2 to this show.
But scheduled right now, the next show that is gonna come out, well the next Monday show. You know, we’re doing Friday shows now that are real quick, and just a nice short show to carry into the weekend, something fun.
But our next big show is gonna be with Sal Contreras, the dent expert down from the San Francisco Bay Area who does all those crazy big smashed-up cars, and he’s created the Dent Dial system, and all that kind of stuff.
So if you don’t know who he is, you’ve been living under a rock as far as dent removal and the internet goes. But if you don’t, you can check out DentExpert.com [sic], it’s a service website, and DentDial.com is his tool business. Or just look on YouTube for Sal Dent Expert and see the kind of stuff he’s doing. Phenomenal repairs in ways that don’t make any sense to you. If you’ve never seen him work before, it looks like some weird set-ups, but man, such interesting techniques and he comes up with some fantastic results.
So we’re gonna have him on the show and talk a little bit about his process and how he attacks stuff, and what he’s gonna teach at the seminar. So quite exciting for next week.
But if you guys want more information about Shane’s hail-chasing experience, or mine to a lesser degree, holler at us, let us know on the Facebook community and we’ll cut another show about it.
Shane Jacks: Yes, sir. This was fun.
Keith Cosentino: Yes, I always have good time. This is the only time he’ll talk to me during the week.
Shane Jacks: Whatever.
Keith Cosentino: I’m joking, but not really. Shane is a busy dude, and if I’m just calling to chit-chat, he’s like hey, man, I got two minutes. Basically, he’s saying you are not calling for anything purposeful and if it is you can get it done in two minutes. I go, oh, I’m sorry, did you check out the download –
Shane Jacks: You’re gonna, Keith is gonna get a call Monday morning, oh, yeah, Keith doesn’t take calls anymore.
Keith Cosentino: Touche. What’s funny is when Shane’s traveling his phones are forwarded, my phones are forwarded, so we are physically incapable of calling each other.
Shane Jacks: It’s pitiful.
Keith Cosentino: So we text –
Shane Jacks: We have the world at our fingertips and can’t use it.
Keith Cosentino: But if you haven’t discovered this already, the Facebook Messenger application can place a Voice over IP call to another Facebook Messenger recipient. And the quality is pretty good. Especially if you’re on a WiFi it’s bonkers good. But if you have somebody in your Facebook list and you wanna talk to them, you can call them through that app. So it’s super-cool if you have international buddies, you can call them just like that instead of having to go through all the mumble-jumble of getting the right service and all that. Pretty cool.
So that is how we call each other when we have our phones forwarded. Pro tip! That’s free, too.
Shane Jacks: And I, honestly, when the phone is forwarded I talk to you for quite some time. I think I talked to your for three hours one day, Keith!
Keith Cosentino: That’s not true at all. However, we do have some long conversations, we definitely have not talked for three hours.
Shane Jacks: When we were, when I was driving to Boston that was a very long conversation.
Keith Cosentino: There’s no way it’s three hours. No, not even possible. Your head would explode after I –
Shane Jacks: I’m gonna go back and look.
Keith Cosentino: After 120 minutes your head would just grenade, and then a bunch of Skittles would come out.
Like it’s not even possible.
Shane Jacks: All right, I guess the next conversation will have to be 121 minutes.
Keith Cosentino: All right, I’m setting you up for it.
Shane Jacks: It’s gonna be kind of like your old girlfriends when you were in like the 9th grade, there’s just gonna be a lot of silence on both ends. And on the side of your head, love you, too, Keith.
Keith Cosentino: As long as there’s no toes involved we’re cool.
Shane Jacks: Yes.
Well, let’s wrap this bad boy up, Keith.
Keith Cosentino: Yep, just like a nasty pair of feet, let’s cover it up.
All right. Yeah, the seminar thing, if you’re interested in it and wondering when it’s coming out, we haven’t released the sales page yet, so there’s, no one has a spot yet, no one’s paid anything yet, so you have not been left out.
But go to PDRCollege.com and click Skill Seminar or Advanced Seminar I think it’s called. And you can click and register to be on the list to be notified as soon as we send out the email. Because that thing fills up really fast, so you wanna be on that list.
And also, this show is, what day is this going live here? It is the 29th, is that right?
Shane Jacks: I have no idea.
Keith Cosentino: Well, this week.
Shane Jacks: It’d be the 28th.
Keith Cosentino: The 28th?
This week is the week that I am putting all the finishing touches on the Advanced Skills Phone Course. The phone course that a lot of you guys have already paid for and been waiting for me to finish.
It’s been a massive project, way larger than I anticipated if I’m being quite honest, and it’s taken me a lot more time to put together. I’ve got over 40 hours into this thing and it isn’t finished yet. It’s very, very close. I just have a couple of the .PDFs that we’re putting together, and then formatting it all on the websites that you can easily access it and see what you’ve gotten through and what you haven’t, and all that kind of stuff.
So thank you for being patient. You guys have been really amazing in waiting longer than I anticipated getting it out to you. But I just want to bring the best quality information that I can possibly bring, and I know you guys appreciate that. But I just wanted to let you know I didn’t forget about you, you didn’t buy something that is never coming. It’s coming and it’s coming very soon, but I recognize that it’s a little later than I had promised. So thank you for being patient. And you’re gonna be excited when I get it out.
And if you haven’t bought it yet, you probably wanna do that because after it’s released its tripling in price. There’s a, I gave a really price for people who were willing to wait for the delivery. But once it’s done and immediate access, when you pay it’s gonna be much more expensive. So thank you, guys, for that and stay tuned. It coming soon.
Shane Jacks: Thank you for that.
Keith Cosentino: Until – yes, yes, I’m pumped about it. Even the guys that know me really well, my friends, they’re like no I don’t want any, I wanna do that course.
I know, even doing it myself, I had to unpack so much stuff that there’s a lot stuff that I had to remind myself about what I do and why I do it. Because you just get on autopilot for a while. I can do something, but if I had to sit down and try to explain it, you really have to understand your game perfectly to be able to teach it.
Thanks for spending and hour with us. You had a lot of places you could be but you’re here with Shane and I. We appreciate that. We look forward to hanging out with you next time.
And until then,
Shane Jacks: Get better.
Keith Cosentino: So we had a call-in question gone wrong because the technology wouldn’t cooperate, apparently. So a call-in question turned into a write-in question from our friend Gerald. And he’s got a question about specifically doing hail, right? Did he mention hail? No, I guess he didn’t.
Shane Jacks: No, it’s just for –
Keith Cosentino: Just about wrapping this truck and trailer.
Shane Jacks: Just about wrapping the trailer. I know he does a lot of hail so that would help to have something about the hail in there.
Keith Cosentino: So he says, “My name is Miller and I’m a loyal listener to the PDR College Podcast. I would really appreciate if you could give some advise on my truck and trailer. I’m about to have them either wrapped or just do lettering. My question is about wording, what is good and what is bad. Thank you both for what you have done for the industry and my business. My kids have better toys because of you guys. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing your response.” And then he gives a shout-out to the Steelers.
Shane Jacks: Thank you for the question, Gerald.
Keith Cosentino: So, Shane, now you’ve got a lot more pronounced lettering on your truck than I do on mine by a –
Shane Jacks: Yes because I have some, period; and you have none.
Keith Cosentino: Well, no, I do have something on my doors now.
Shane Jacks: Oh, you do?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: I did not know that.
Keith Cosentino: Well, because one of my customers I have and doing this big smash bedside and I was doing it at the guy’s house, and it turns out he’s a graphics guy and I was there for like seven hours.
Shane Jacks: Oh, I remember this story. But I thought you didn’t keep that on there. I thought you said they were a little bit hokey.
Keith Cosentino: Well, they weren’t hokey they just weren’t exactly – they’re beautiful but they’re tiny.
Shane Jacks: Ah, okay.
Keith Cosentino: And it’s just my business card, basically, blown up. So the logo’s great and the phone number’s great, but it’s tiny. It’s not how I would letter a truck at all. But he came out with them and said, look what I made for you, and he said where do you want them? Like, oh, well.
Really, we were really appreciative, I don’t wanna tell him like I wasn’t grateful, I really was. It was a really nice gesture to do. And I would put them on my door. So it’s just the rear door on a four-door truck, so it’s not like the way I had it sketched out where it’s all the way across the truck, very similar to how yours is.
And so I do have stickering on my truck, lettering on my truck. But it’s not what I would recommend to someone else do to try to get more business. As a matter of fact, I have gotten zero phone calls from the stickers on my truck, so I guess it’s been a good case study in that regard, and I drive a lot.
So tell us about your set-up. I think it’s much more effective than mine because you said you get quite a few phone calls from yours.
Shane Jacks: Yes, and that’s not always a great thing. I’ll go ahead and preface it by saying that, okay.
So I get a lot of calls off of it. A lot of times there is a gentleman or a lady right beside me and they’re waving at me when I pick up the phone. And they said, hey, can you look at the dent on my right front door while I drive by you? And about 75 percent of the time, it is not just the right front door. If they say it’s the right front door it is the right front door, the right fender, the hood, the windshield is gone, and the right front tire is now the spare. Because the cow has run into this car.
So here’s what I would recommend. It’s very effective, no doubt. It catches attention. The number one thing is you want to grab attention, okay. Keith’s, your, Keith’s – Keith, the lettering you have on the side of your truck does not really garner that much attention because it’s small and there’s just not enough going on there. Mine is massive all the way across the side of my truck and my trailer, so it does garner attention.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, mine doesn’t grab attention. Mine doesn’t even like gently brush fingers against attention.
Shane Jacks: So mine, anywhere I go people are staring at mine. Even if they’re not gonna call me.
I noticed when I was up in Boston the last couple of weeks people just staring at that truck, and reading it you know. So it’s getting its point across. Now it doesn’t need to just grab attention but it needs to gets its point across in a very short period of time. So you wanna have key words that you want to convey to the reader, and that is Dents Repaired, Paintless Dent Repair, however you wanna phrase that.
I’ve got Door Dings, Hail Damage, and Minor Dents on mine. And people do give me a call. So you wanna grab attention and you want to get the point across very quickly as to what you do. Okay.
But number three, here’s what I would change, Keith. I would get a separate phone number – and you actually started this idea when we were talking about Gerald’s about the question that Gerald had – is have a separate phone number that they call and maybe to have it be a prerecorded message talking about what we do. And maybe not telling them, we don’t do “x” like cars that need new frontends and windshields, but at least explaining what paintless dent repair is, a few of the limitations. I know that’s not the greatest thing to put on a message, but it could weed out a few potential losers, you know.
Telling what we do, minor dents, not collision damage. We do hail damage repair. Kind of going over what hail damage repair is and maybe you need to contact your insurance company first. I don’t know. Having a separate phone number and then leading from that phone number you could have your personal number on that message so they can give you a call you know. That’s a lot of steps, I get that. But I’m telling you I get a lot of calls that I wish I didn’t get at times.
Keith Cosentino: So I agree completely to what you’re saying. You gotta look at your lettering for what, one-and-a-half seconds and close your eyes, and ask yourself do I know what that truck is and what it does and how to call the guy. So you don’t wanna put like all this jargon on the bottom.
I see some beautiful stickered vehicles that you don’t know what they do. You know, the logo’s awesome, you can tell it’s the Zebra Co, but you don’t know what the Zebra Co does, man. So it’s more important to have what you do than who you are on the truck. Like I don’t care how proud of your logo you are, it needs to say Painless Dent Removal or.
You know who does that really well is John Highley, I think the side of his truck all it says is Paintless Dent Repair and the phone number. But it’s striking and you know exactly what it’s about you know. And nobody’s sitting around looking and reading your truck like at that website, they just need to know your company name, what you do, and how to call you. And the company name is a distant third to those three things.
So the thing I was talking about having another number, when I thought that would really shine is if you were chasing hail with a trailer and you’re going into a new town, to have a number for a buyer’s guide for hail repair. To say, hey, don’t hire anyone to fix your car until you call this free recorded message. And giving people some details in that message about what the repair is, how it’s done, who does it, how people come into your town from other parts of the country and some are good but not all of them, and etc., etc. And then giving them an opportunity to get in touch with you at the end of that. So that’s where I was really heading with the other number.
But I remember when you did your stickers in the first place we talked about that as well being able to track the calls off the truck; to know where they’re coming from and how many calls are coming in. And I like the idea of putting in a message that screens out the garbage, that says, listen, if you have this and this and this we’re a great fit, if you have that and that we’re not, the average repair is this; if you’d love to talk to us in person press this or call this. Really great idea to take some of that burden off of your shoulders and just get you the qualified calls that you really want. So that’s a great idea, Shane.
Shane Jacks: And speaking of that, the wrap that I have on mine, didn’t [inaudible] [01:15:00] up say my company name is really small on the back of the truck and plastered all up the side of it is DentsGoneNow.com, that speaks exactly what I do. I take your dents out now and here’s how you get me online. And –
Keith Cosentino: Bingo.
Shane Jacks: – the letters, Keith, it was your idea to make the three different words different colors so it’s not “dentsgonenow”, so you can actually read DentsGoneNow.com, it’s really easy to read.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, that’s an important little trick, and I think most sign shops should be able to help you with that without you asking. But if your website is Chickenlipsdentremoval.com, nobody’s used to seeing those words all in one run-on sentence. So Chicken and Lips should be different, slightly different colors with an outline, and then Dent in something slightly different than the previous word, and so on and so forth. So that your eyes can easily – sometimes you won’t even perceive the changes, you’ll just be able to read it. And you don’t know that one has a pinstripe around the outside of the letters and one doesn’t. But when they’re all garbled together –
Shane Jacks: It’s hard to read.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, you can’t figure out what it is. And there some unfortunate combinations that actually say something else depending on how you look at it.
Shane Jacks: I think I’ve been to that site before!
Keith Cosentino: So Miller, thanks for the question. We’ve got a couple of others in the wings waiting to be answered, so if you’ve sent one of your questions in we appreciate it, and we will answer them all eventually. We promise.
[End of Audio]Duration: 78 minutes
