Mindset for Success

In this episode we talk about how mindset can be the most powerful force in your PDR business and ultimately your success.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Shane Jacks: In the past when 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: screwdrivers, awls, 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 an interchangeable tip 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 going to fix dents in double panels and seams that you struggled with before in half, one quarter, or one tenth of the time. Grab these bad boys and start making some extra money, fellas: BlendingHammerPDR.com.

Keith Cosentino: I’m Keith Cosentino and he’s Shane Jacks and this is PDR College podcast, your most trusted source for painless dent removal excellence. This is our world and we want to bring you into it. We’re going to share all of the tips, tricks, and techniques we have learned in our 20-some odd years of paint-less dent removal and condense them down here into a format that you can use, action that you can take today to make more profit in your business tonight. We do it in the pursuit of giant, enormous, ridiculous stacks of cash. Shane, why the heck do you need so much cash?

Shane Jacks: Because Keith it is Christmastime, homie. And I’ve got two kids and a very expensive wife.

Keith Cosentino: Is she? I don’t know if you can pin it on her. I really don’t.

Shane Jacks: No, you can’t honestly but that’s what everybody says about their wives. Actually she’s a really, really good one but she cost me some cash yesterday, homie.

Keith Cosentino: What happened?

Shane Jacks: I bought something large, with four wheels for Christmas.

Keith Cosentino: A quad?

Shane Jacks: Yes. That’s exactly what my wife wanted for Christmas, a quad. If you’re talking about for my legs to be bigger and more defined maybe, but that’s the only kind of quad she wants out of me.

Keith Cosentino: What did you get this wonderful lady?
Shane Jacks: I bought her a new GX yesterday – a Lexus GX, so boiler status over here, peeps.

Keith Cosentino: I told you you should have streamed it live because you surprised her with it, didn’t you?

Shane Jacks: Yes, but the way we set it up I couldn’t have been filming it. She would have known something was up.

Keith Cosentino: Why? Why are you filming? No reason –

Shane Jacks: I just like filming.

Keith Cosentino: Why are you streaming live to 1,000 people? That is the kind of cool stuff you can do when you have a successful business and you’re making some money. Instead of worrying about your car payment you are buying fancy new cars because you want to. It’s a part of my life that I enjoy. I enjoy a lot of parts of my life but not all of them and that is one of them.

Shane Jacks: Oh, downer Keith this morning. I’ve got to pick him up. It’s normally the other way around. I’m cool with it. But also this past week Keith I spent a lot of money traveling out to see you, which was a joy and meeting your family, talking with one of your guys; your top guy and having dinner with him and his wife and kids and doing a lot of work. I said the good stuff first and then the –

Keith Cosentino: Yeah – we worked our butts off.

Shane Jacks: We worked our tails off; that is for sure. So that was fun, Keith. It cost me a little bit of money also or actually that cost us a little bit of money. You were on the hook for that one, too but it was fun.

Keith Cosentino: Yeah – that was fun – if you missed it that was when we did our live periscope stream episode. We had Sal Contreras come up to Sacramento and we all hung out in a hotel room and did our periscope/podcast which was the last episode, 97.

Shane Jacks: Yeah, that was fun.

Keith Cosentino: Yes. It was a lot of fun.

Shane Jacks: We went out to eat with Sal that night and nerded out over sushi.

Keith Cosentino: I’m going to give both of you guys that title there. I kind of was just along for the ride. You guys were going off the rails about dent repair and how it relates to chopsticks and napkins.

Shane Jacks: So if none of you guys know Sal and myself yet you’ve been under a rock. Sal and I like to “discuss things” and it was no different over dinner. It was a good time though. We get each other. We get each other because we both think we’re right and he just happens to be wrong.

Keith Cosentino: I was busting Shane’s chops and saying the only thing that he and Sal agree on is that they are each respectively correct.

Shane Jacks: That’s it.

Keith Cosentino: But it’s a friendly banter back and forth. With all kidding aside it is really interesting to see two totally different approaches to the same problem with both having stellar results.

Shane Jacks: Right – and I’m completely joking when I say he’s wrong. Not really, but we are completely different and it is cool. We were sitting there with the chopsticks. That was pretty funny looking back at it because we’re both passionate and neither of us is wrong. If the metal is flat at the end of the day and the customer is happy how could either one of us be wrong?

Keith Cosentino: Right – it’s just two totally different ways of making it happen. That’s why we’re so excited to have him come out to our advanced skills seminar because he’s going to show you a totally different way to repair something than Shane is and both are going to get it done with their strengths and weaknesses but neither one is wrong, just different.

Shane Jacks: So that was cool, Keith. Thanks for having me out there and getting a lot of work done and just having fun. Its fun hanging around you, man.

Keith Cosentino: Yes, we have a good time together. We’re out here where everybody speaks nice and everybody’s nice in the stores and stuff. It’s different than in South Carolina.

Shane Jacks: Yeah. It’s actually true, man. Well, it depends – the Japanese restaurant I went to, not so much.

Keith Cosentino: Well, it’s authentic.
Shane Jacks: Not even close to authentic.

Keith Cosentino: They’re actual, authentic angry Japanese people.

Shane Jacks: No. The reason I know it wasn’t authentic was that the freaking scallops weren’t real, you know?

Keith Cosentino: Yes. Shane was saying that the scallops sometimes – if you eat a lot of scallops – that some of the scallops are not scallops but they are cookie-cutter slices of shark or skate or stingray. I didn’t know that.

Shane Jacks: I thought so the first one I took a bite out of. I was like; man this doesn’t really taste like a scallop. And then two of them were still connected together and unless those two scallops were mating when they were plucked from the depths of the ocean then these weren’t real scallops. They were connected together. The cookie cutter thing didn’t go all the way though the skate is what I’m saying and there were two or three pieces like that where they were doubles.

Keith Cosentino: Did they flick it in the air and all that stuff for you?

Shane Jacks: No. I didn’t sit at the hibachi. There’s a non-hibachi section.

Keith Cosentino: Oh – boring.

Shane Jacks: I think over at the hibachi section I probably could have seen them chop the skate up. Maybe – I don’t know. I was not impressed.

Keith Cosentino: I can never understand those restaurants.

Shane Jacks: You can tell I was not impressed by the food or the service at that joint.

Keith Cosentino: I tried to tell you.

Shane Jacks: You did. But this gal on the other end of the line and country that I’m speaking to told me that I couldn’t get a rental car. He’s a tightwad. So I didn’t get a rental car so I couldn’t go nowhere. He goes home to his wife and kids at like 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon and I’m stuck there all by myself to fend for myself.

Keith Cosentino: There’s about seven percent of that story that’s based in reality.

Shane Jacks: Maybe seven percent.

Keith Cosentino: Should we do a podcast?

Shane Jacks: Maybe. I’ve really got to go. I’ll talk to you later.

Keith Cosentino: So tell us about the topic for today.

Shane Jacks: The topic for today is – something that I’ve noticed about you, Keith is that you’re always thinking about the end game in every situation and I don’t mean end game as in you are dying or even you selling the business or whatever. We can talk about not you dying but we can talk about you and the endgame of the business on a later podcast. I don’t want people to get confused. That’s what we’re talking about endgame in our businesses but I’m talking about on a daily basis –

Keith Cosentino: We have talked about that in the past, right? We’ve talked about building a business on purpose –

Shane Jacks: But something I’ve noticed about you, Keith is that with every transaction you’re thinking like eight steps ahead of where I am and its way better than the way I think. You would probably agree with that because you do it and I don’t. You get on to me. So I’m very, extremely hard-headed and headstrong and I always have to be right. Shocker there, right – and Keith does not care anything about that. Well, very little about that compared to me anyway.

At the end of the day he wants to look back and he wants to see the end of the day being a success, the end of every deal being a success, the end of every interaction and transaction being a success. So he’s thinking at the end of all of these plays to get to the end of the game and actually score. Me, I could hang up with a customer – and I’m way; 10 times better than I used to be – I could hang up with a customer and if they don’t have the warm and fuzzies I’m cool. As long as they’re not mad. Keith, you want them to be warm and fuzzy and think you’re the greatest guy on earth. I just want to be right.

Keith Cosentino: That’s a big difference, yeah.

Shane Jacks: It’s a massive difference there. So I’m getting better. I know you guys have heard me say that a kajillion times but it’s the honest truth. I repeat things on this show that I’m either working on or that I find to be completely self-evident truths or things that I’m working on to make them a reality. Does that make sense?

Keith Cosentino: Oh yeah.

Shane Jacks: So I repeat them constantly because either I want to speak them into my life or into you guys’ lives or I want to change myself or it’s an absolute truth that we need to remember. But I’m working on it and I’m getting better. Keith, every single deal, every single day, every single interaction he has with a customer he absolutely makes sure that at the end of that transaction, discussion or whatever it is that it’s positive for him. Keith, I admire you for that.

Keith Cosentino: Well, I appreciate that. I don’t know so much if it’s something that I decided to do as much as it is a personality trait of mine. I guess I recognize it and I try to pursue that goal. It’s just the way I look at things I guess. Every time I get into something I’m thinking about what’s going to happen next. What are the next steps after this, because I don’t want to go down a dead-end road?

It’s the reason I don’t have any tattoos on my body. When I was 18 my friends were getting Tasmanian devil wearing a sailor’s suit on a skateboard. I was like; you know there’s a pretty good chance in a couple of years you’re not going to be as into Tasmanian devil as you are right now. I don’t know if you’re going to like that tattoo. But they’re all living in the now and of course later now that we’re 40 I’m right and they’re wrong. But that’s why I don’t have any tattoos because I recognize that whatever I was into at the time I might not be into in two or three or four years.

No disrespect to you guys who have tattoos and dig on them. That’s your deal, but generally when you like things when you’re 18 you don’t like them again when you’re 38.

Shane Jacks: And I completely agree with that. I’m also ink-less for the same reason. I could see down the road; however I always thought I was right and still do. I just don’t like tattoos. Do you know what I mean? So I look down the road; I can look down the road. 
This is a little bit different. You’re – it’s a conscious thing to where you’re – because that is an opinion as far as the ink is concerned.

Keith Cosentino: For other people, but it’s a fact for me.

Shane Jacks: And for myself also, so I’m going to be right and I’m not going to get it. I also think down the road and that’s the main reason for no tattoos. I show my kids that constantly. We went into a restaurant four or five months ago and there were was a lady there. She was like early 60s and she had just gotten some fresh ink and then she had some that was not so fresh. And there were wrinkles on the tattoos, you know? The older ones – the new ones I guess they’d put them on and they adjust. I don’t know how they do that. Those guys are artists. The other ones looked absolutely horrible.

I pointed her out to my kids. I’m not bashing the lady so don’t get me wrong. I’m not making fun of people. I’m simply teaching my kids a lesson at this point so let’s get that straight. I don’t care if you have a tattoo. It doesn’t bother me a bit, but I personally –

Keith Cosentino: I actually like a lot of the artwork. It’s beautiful. I enjoy looking at it. I just don’t want it on my body. I’m fine if you want it on yours and you love it. Some of the stuff they do is amazing.

Shane Jacks: Oh yeah. And some people like it; some people like it.

Keith Cosentino: Well, millions of people love it.

Shane Jacks: So I’m sitting there and I’m telling my kids; you see that? Make wise choices. If you want to look like that – and I actually told them – if you want to look like that go ahead but understand that it’s permanent and it’s forever and it’s never coming off. I said also understand that any tattoo that you get I’m going to get on my forehead. I did. I told them that. So unless you want to be embarrassed by your father having a tattoo on his forehead just don’t get them. They said; you won’t do it. I said; yeah, I will because I have the money to get it taken off eventually.

Keith Cosentino: You just told them it was permanent.

Shane Jacks: True, that. So anyway Keith, you look endgame on these situations and one thing we were talking about down at MTE last year at the advanced skills seminar – which is coming up by the way very shortly; excited about that – one thing you talked about –

Keith Cosentino: We sure promote it a lot for something that’s been sold out for two months.

Shane Jacks: Okay. I won’t say anything else. So last year at the advanced skills seminar a gentleman asked; would you ever consider putting a dent back in a car? Do you remember that question?

Keith Cosentino: I do remember that question.

Shane Jacks: He said; would you ever consider putting a dent back in the car if they didn’t pay? The question was asked and then I’m pretty sure I answered and said I actually threatened a guy to do it one time. I was very nice about it. I just told him I’ll put the dent back in if you don’t want to pay and you can drive down the drive. It was at my house before I had a shop at the time. You can drive down my driveway and we can never talk to each other again and I will have zero hard feelings towards you.

And he paid me. However, Keith your answer was quite different. Do you remember what your answer was? I’m sure you could bring it back up even if you don’t know what it was.

Keith Cosentino: Yeah. Whatever it was it would be exactly the same message today as it was a year ago and that is that that decision to try to put a dent back in is just based on emotion and anger. Like; I worked for nothing and now I’m going to do even more work just so you don’t get something. You’re actually going to do more work for free. You’re upset that you did work for free so to make yourself feel better you want to do more work. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? So you’re going to put that dent back and then you’re going to send this guy off into the world.

And when he drives away, do you think he’s going to be happy? Do you think he’s going to say; hey, you know what? We tried it and it didn’t work out. We put it back. I still think Shane is a great guy. That is never going to happen. He’s going to drive out of that drive MF-ing you to anybody who will listen and you’re going to be the worst guy in the world. You’re going to be like a baby killer to this guy.

Shane Jacks: But you know what I would be – right.

Keith Cosentino: Right – exactly. So I try to treat my reputation and these days that means my online reputation like it’s the most precious item on earth. I want to maintain it and coddle it and save it from any harm. So if I were to send this guy back into the world angry at me there’s a very good chance that angry people end up on your online environment leaving you reviews. So I try to look into the future and say; okay its three months from now. There’s the most eloquent one-star review I’ve ever seen and it’s on my account and talking about how he’d give me zero or negative stars if the system would allow them. I have that living, live on my account.

What would I pay to have that go away? $100; $200; $500 – somewhere in there is the real number if I could just wave a wand and it goes away, like the total transaction never happened and the review goes away. I’d love it. I think every one of you who might have a bad review would happily pay $250 if it would just go away because when somebody is reading reviews they just see five, five, five; oh, a one. What’s this guy mad about? We all do the same thing.

Shane Jack: We wanted to see it five minutes before the podcast, Keith. We were looking at a product for the show or for the Mobile Tech show and Keith went straight to the three reviews, which was the lowest one.

Keith Cosentino: 100 percent; that’s just what you do. How many times do you want to hear how great it is? You want to hear what the shortcomings are so you don’t fall in the same trap. So, what would you pay to get that removed? Quite often the repair that you guys are arguing about is the one that is a few hundred dollars; it’s a similar price to what you’d pay to get it to go away. So why don’t we just handle it now and make sure it doesn’t end up there before we have to go and dig ourselves out of a pit. You can’t buy it off anyway. It doesn’t come off. It stays forever. You could pay $10,000 and it doesn’t go away.

So I’m always considering what I want out of this interaction and what I really want is to make money and the way to make money is having a great online presence and being able to serve customers well. So I’m going backwards in that transaction if I put this guy or this lady – it’s never going to be a lady, right – put somebody’s dent back in. And furthermore, to me if you find yourself in that position where you have to argue with a customer about whether they should pay you or not you’ve failed like hours before that. It’s not just that point.

If you think your customers are crazy and all that stuff – there are crazy people – but if you think that more that like one out of 100,000 people you’re going to deal with is crazy to the moon you’re the one who’s not doing the right kind of steps. You’re not taking the right actions beforehand and asking the right questions and qualifying the customers.

If you listen to what they want, tell them what you can do without making it unrealistic and just explaining to them the reality of the situation – what you can do and what you can’t – asking them if that’s acceptable and telling them what the cost is going to be and asking them if they’re happy with that, all that stuff, literally in my entire career I’ve never had someone who doesn’t want to pay me that I want the money from. I’ve had dents that don’t turn out, but I don’t want their money. They want to pay me but I don’t want it. I won’t take it.

I’ve never had one where I want the money and they don’t want to give it to me. It never, ever happened and you’ve probably only had it happen only once or twice to you as well but you probably took that job on without quoting the price.

Shane Jacks: No, I did. Believe it or not this is the beginning of career and I was still working at the BMW plant, Keith. And I told him when he pulled up it was $60. It was like a dime-sized dent; it was really tiny. It took two or three pushes and he was standing there on the driveway and I said $60 – black truck – the thing was about a month old. He wanted it gone. He was like; $60? I said yes. So he was sitting there watching me, shoved the wedge in the door and the window and put the window guard on there. Three pushes later and it’s done and he just stared at me and he’s a dollars-per-hour guy who most everyone is, especially around here.

Keith Cosentino: Oh, everyone is – you and me included. It’s just that the dollars-per-hour get bigger.

Shane Jacks: I guess I should have said he was a $20-or-less-per hour guy and he just stared and said; you want me to pay you $60 for that? He didn’t say he wasn’t going to, Keith but he said; you want me to pay you $60 for that, questioning it. Now I could have handled it differently, but he knew up front that it was going to cost $60. I did not tell him it was going to take under a minute. I wasn’t clear with that but no one does that; it’s not wise to do in my opinion.

Keith Cosentino: This is going to take 30 seconds. Are you okay with that?

Shane Jacks: Right – its $200 and it’s going to take a minute and a half – cool? So he says; you want me to pay you $60 for that? I said yes, or I can put it back in there – I know exactly where it was – I actually kind of went Keith on this way back then because I thought it was comical that he wouldn’t pay that $60. He went from painting the thing – this was 1995, right – he went from painting the thing, several hundred dollars in diminished value and it looked like crap, to $60.

I said; no, you don’t have to pay me. I can put it back in. I know exactly where it’s at. I’ve got this cool little hammer right here and I can put it back in and you can drive down the driveway and we’ll never have to speak to each other again. I’ll have no hard feelings towards you. Well, he couldn’t get his wallet out fast enough at that point. He just kind of laughed and said; no, I’m going to pay you, and I haven’t seen him since.

Keith Cosentino: So that’s kind of a different scenario to me. Usually the people who don’t want to pay is because it doesn’t look good enough. Your guy was just mad that you made so much money so fast and he was making a run at you. He wanted you to say; okay $30. So that’s kind of a different scenario in my opinion.

Shane Jacks: You’ve never had anybody that didn’t like the looks of something?

Keith Cosentino: No, because I under-sell everything I do because I don’t want that to happen. That’s how I counter that. So I say; listen, it’s going to look bumpy here and it’s going to look wavy when you stand here. I’m showing him how to crouch and look. I don’t want any surprises later. When you look down like this, you’re going to see this. Nine times out of ten when I give him my little tap on the elbow and say; when you crouch down like this – and if it’s like the right rear door I’m crouching down by the tire – they like laugh and shake their head and wave their hand at me and go; there’s no way I’m crouching down to look at it.

I can tell already it’s going to be great because you’re too over-the-top with the details. Just do your thing. I laugh and I say; okay, I just want to make sure you understand. I want to make it as perfect as I can but we’re going to be definitely short of perfect. It’s going to be this and that. I want to make sure that this is something that you’re excited about doing and I don’t want to have any surprises at the end.

So when I go through all that there’s nobody that comes out and goes; oh, this isn’t anywhere close to what I thought it was going to be. If they’re sketchy I’ll have that same conversation two times in a row, literally I’ll start it over again after the first time. And I’ll ask them point-blank; is this going to be something that’s going to make you happy when we’re done if it’s not perfect? We can send you off to the body shop and it will look perfect. It won’t really be perfect because it will be filled with Bondo but it will look perfect.

There are a lot of good body shops I could refer you to. It would be way more expensive and it’s going to be different but we can do XY and Z. Are you sure that’s something that you want to do? I’ll talk about that for 20 minutes before I get tools out if it’s a big job because there’s no way I can afford to do three or four or five or eight hours’ worth of work and have somebody decide that they’re not going to pay me. So I get all that stuff handled up front. Consequently I don’t have those surprises.

Shane Jacks: I’ve had two that I’ve told them; look, there is no way I’m getting this perfect and explain it the same way: there are going to be waves here and lumpiness here. One was a BMW hood where the stupid thing was 10 or 12 years old with rock chips all over the front. It was near the kidney grills on the front –

Keith Cosentino: Yeah – those are tough.

Shane Jacks: And it was pretty crushed in on the edge, silver and I just said it’s not going to be right. This one I didn’t even want to do. I was actually speaking exactly like I am now. I was trying to drive the guy away. I was like; it is not going to be right. Man, I just want it better. And then he picks it up and it turned out better than I thought it would – better than I explained – and he’s like; ugh. That looks bad. And he didn’t want to pay and Shane did the “he’s right” thing and Shane told him to leave. So, Shane was right.

Keith Cosentino: So he didn’t pay?

Shane Jacks: No. He didn’t pay.

Keith Cosentino: How much was it – a few hundred bucks?

Shane Jacks: I believe it was $350. I don’t remember exactly, Keith but it was right around in that area — $300 or $350 – something like that.

You know, you’ve got a lot of options when you decide what to do with your invoicing and your data capture for your dent removal or other reconditioning business, but the choice I’ve made for my company is ReconPro by Automobile Technologies. This stuff has proven invaluable. I had a mountain of paper invoice books stacked up in a room in case I wanted to look something up. It was archaic and ridiculous. Now, all of my technicians are on iPhones. They scan the VIN of the car. They enter a few pieces of information including capturing the email for your customers.

Its 2015 – you need to be building a mailing list for your customers so you can keep them updated if you want to run specials or if you want to reach out and touch them. You need an email. This prompts you to capture their email so you can send them the receipt, which comes via email and no paper in the truck to get lost. You guys, this is the way to do it. There are a lot of options you can take. There are a lot of competitors but this is the one I’ve chosen.

Check them out online: automobiletechnologies.com. The product is called ReconPro. It’s not one guy who’s also a PDR tech building software; it’s a team of nerds dedicated to making your life better and that’s what you want. Check them out. Tell them we sent you over there: ReconPro.

Keith Cosentino: I’ve definitely had them where – if you’re not having dents that don’t turn a couple of times you’re not trying hard enough stuff – that’s my opinion. You’re going to be in a couple of them. That always upset me and they’re not great days but you don’t know where that threshold is until you fall over the other end sometimes, right? So I’ve definitely had dents that don’t turn out the way I want. If they’re that bad I don’t want any money from them, but if they push it on me two or three times I’ll take it. I’ll say; okay –

Shane Jacks: That’s exactly what he did with me. I did not want to do the car. Or are you talking about at the end of the transaction?

Keith Cosentino: At the end, yeah. I don’t want the money and they say; no, no it looks a lot better and I’m happy to pay you. Listen, I know it looks better but it’s not what I was shooting for and it’s not what I promised you. I thought I’d get them to hear, but if they keep pushing money on me I’ll take it. I’ll ask them; well, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to live with it or are you going to go get it fixed at a body shop? I’m going to live with it. Okay, then I’ll take your money, but if you want to do a body shop just take the money and go spend it on the body shop.

Shane Jacks: This guy I honestly believe – I don’t remember the other one – I remember the guy wasn’t satisfied. It was several years ago Keith, the other on too that I’m talking about. The first one was several years ago so I don’t even remember the situation to be honest but this one was a year and a half, two years ago and I think he honestly just wanted it better and wanted it free. It was explained what he was going to have at the end and then once he challenged me – instead of me taking it the correct way and understanding that he is sitting there and he’s trying to get something out of me for free – I could have approached it differently but I immediately just snapped.

Keith Cosentino: Well, let’s talk about it. What would you do differently if it happened tomorrow?

Shane Jacks: I would explain to him; look, I didn’t have a signed agreement. Keith, do you do signed agreements on this stuff when you’re doing repairs?

Keith Cosentino: Yeah. Not really – no I don’t.

Shane Jacks: Okay. I didn’t think you did. But, I didn’t have a signed agreement or anything.

Keith Cosentino: You’re supposed to.

Shane Jacks: Yeah, you should. You really should.

Keith Cosentino: It’s the law.

Shane Jacks: You can’t really push it that way legally. I could have back up and said; look, Mr. Johnson. We discussed this at the beginning when I was doing the estimate. I stressed to you that I did not want to do this repair because it was not going to turn out correctly. I told you this three times; and then just progress from there and try to get him to understand what he agreed to.

Keith Cosentino: Okay, so what’s your endgame then if it happens tomorrow?

Shane Jacks: My endgame if it happened again tomorrow?

Keith Cosentino: Mm-hmm.

Shane Jacks: Well, he’s not going to be satisfied with 100 percent pay most likely. That’s the endgame would be to get paid 100 percent like we agreed to, correct? That would be my endgame.

Keith Cosentino: So that’s the problem –

Shane Jacks: No, listen – I’m not going to push that to the point that it’s going to make him angry, okay. The endgame is him being happy.

Keith Cosentino: The endgame is everybody being happy and it’s all rainbows and ice cream and puppy dogs on your review site.

Shane Jacks: There was no way I’m going to be happy in that situation.

Keith Cosentino: You’re happy if all your reviews are good.

Shane Jacks: But I just told you – I said the endgame is him being happy and then you countered me with saying that the endgame is everybody being happy. That’s impossible.

Keith Cosentino: Everybody online – I don’t care about you. Your feelings are irrelevant because we’re not in business to have good feelings. We’re in business to make money.

Shane Jacks: I misunderstood you. I thought you meant by endgame you said everyone involved.

Keith Cosentino: Not you. You don’t count. If you want to go to work for feelings you can start a non-profit and you help people who need help, but if you’re trying to make money I don’t care how you feel; you suck it up, buttercup and make it happen. So, if this guy happens to be tomorrow and he’s not happy I don’t want any percentage of his money. I don’t want a dime of his money because number one; from a practical standpoint I don’t want to be tied to this guy for anything. I don’t want to owe him anything. Just go away. I don’t want him ever coming back and saying; I paid you good money – even if it was $5.00 – save it. I want him to just lurk back into the shadows and never be in my environment again.

If he wanted to get over on me I want him to go ahead and feel like he got over on me so he’ll just disappear. I don’t want him going home with an ax to grind. If I wanted $300 and I say; fine you can pay me $100, okay I made $100 and then now he’s still pissed. He’s a threat out there. I want to remove the threat as much as possible and that means just letting him go with a handshake and a smile. Hey, I wish I could have made it nice for you. I can talk all the crap I want about him once he’s gone because I’ll be upset just like anybody but it doesn’t serve my long-term purpose very well to be upset and to fight the guy and argue with him or anything.

If it’s like a $5,000 hail job and somebody doesn’t want to pay, yeah; we’re going to have different words, right? We’re going to have authorities involved and all that kind of stuff. I’m not stupid, but if its $200 just go away and go away with a smile. I’m really sorry I couldn’t help you. If you ever have another dent that you think can be fixed come on by and if it’s something we can do and when we do it, it’s perfect. He can go, man. I don’t want any portion of that money because I want that online reputation to be flawless and he’s a major threat to that.

It could pop up six months or a year later when he drinks his last bottle of whiskey and writes some review about me. So, that’s what I would do if I get hit with that tomorrow. I don’t want your money if you’re not happy. Just go away with a handshake and a smile. I’m not beating you up, but I’m not telling him go away and never come back to my shop even though that’s what I want to happen. I would never sell that to him.

Shane Jacks: Okay. Can I finish now?

Keith Cosentino: Of course – did you get railroaded Mr. Jacks/

Shane Jacks: You asked me what –

Keith Cosentino: This was supposed to be a show about the endgame and now we’re arguing about what to do with this guy.

Shane Jacks: No. You asked me endgame what I would do this time and then you interrupted. Okay – endgame I want to make money. And then you interrupted and then I said; no, no, no wait a minute. Endgame also – depending on the situation – and the end, endgame is a satisfied customer. So if we want a completely satisfied customer let’s just give them all away free. I have to try to get my money out. And when he shows up and says; hey, that looks nothing like I thought, I’m not going to say oh, you’re exactly right. I’m just not.

Keith Cosentino: Of course not –

Shane Jacks: Well that’s what I was trying to explain to you and you interrupted. I said; sir, you understand that in the beginning you asked me what I would do differently. Instead of telling him to hit road, Jack like I did this is what we agreed to in the beginning. If he still is adamant then I care more about that positive review than I do about my money or a percentage of the money.
Oftentimes you’re going to get half your money. Sometimes people are just like this guy – they just wanted the stinking thing for free. I think he knew it all along that that was his game when he heard me say; it’s not going to be perfect. His game was that and you weren’t there; I was.

I could promise you – I think that’s what the situation –

Keith Cosentino: No, I believe you. He got over on you.

Shane Jacks: He may have only been looking for 50 percent of pay. At this point I’ve lost that 50 percent because I told him to hit the road and never come back. You know what? I don’t know if I want to deal with him again, Keith. I’m not saying I would do it over again that way. I don’t want him and his friends getting over on me every time they come. I’m not going to argue with you. I know I’m wrong there. I completely understand that, but endgame would be the positive review however the endgame in this play for me at this time should have been; let me at least try to recoup some of my money. If he’s still not going to be happy at all, let him go just like you said.

Keith Cosentino: Yeah, and you’re not wrong in saying that. I’ve had people who are not completely jazzed and I’ve got to explain to them what we were up against and remember what we talked about 45 minutes ago or two hours ago? And remember how we said this, and this, and this? Then they’ve come back around and they go; you know what? You’re right. And I’ve asked them; are you going to be happy with this? Are you going to be able to live with this?

I’m not just like right off the bat saying; okay, go away for free. I love you! I’m still selling at the end because a lot of this crap that people want me to fix is crap. It’s not beautiful repairs, you know? I’ve said it before: I’ll do whatever the customers want me to do. I just need to make sure we’re on the same page about what it is I’m doing.

I think I’ve told the story about smashing up a roof of like an F350 work truck, the kind that have the welders and the crane on them, you know, like a utility truck? They had the rack that went all the way around the front of the roof and something fell on it and like caved the whole roof. But they didn’t want to take all of that stuff off the utility bed to actually cut a roof off this thing. It would have been tons of labor.

So the body shop had a good relationship with the city that had the truck and said; listen, why don’t we just have Keith do what he can do and we’ll just get you back on the road and get this thing back in service. So it was an atrocious repair. I don’t remember how much I charged him for it — $500 or $700 or something like that – but he probably could have just gotten underneath with a broken hammer and your feet and knuckles and done just about what I did. Just by punching it up and beating it up from the bottom – it was terrible – but I was explicitly clear about what I was going to do and what I wasn’t going to do. Listen, I’m going to get this shape back but this is going to look bumpy. This is going to look wavy.

In the bright sun it might look okay but as soon as you get any kind of shadow over here you’re going to see this and this. Yeah; that will be fine. Okay. Do you want to tell the guys who own the truck what we’re talking about here at the body shop? No, no it will be fine. And we were fine and everybody thought it was great when I was done. Oh, they were really happy. But its absolute garbage compared to my high-end repairs. But we talked about it ad nauseum before I started to make sure we’re on the same page and everybody paid and everybody was happy.

Ironically at that same shop one of my techs did a 99.9 percent repair and they were busting his chops because it wasn’t perfect. It was another car like a day or two before or after. It’s all about that conversation before you start, man. If you can get it out of the way ahead of time you never know what’s going to happen. So yes – I would still try to get paid, but if it came to the point that if I was someone else I would say; okay, you know what? I’m going to put that dent back in, that would never get to that point. I’d cut them loose at that point so I don’t disagree with you. I’m trying to get paid. That’s why I wear the shirt.

Shane Jacks: I think we agree more than we disagree on this.

Keith Cosentino: Yeah, we do.

Shane Jacks: Let’s talk a little bit about hot glue, specifically for paint-less 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. 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 when we started in the first place. We want to leave the paint on the car, so we need something that doesn’t have maximum adhesion for a hot metal glue.

There are a lot of glues out there that are made for construction and manufacturing that would make this glue look like it doesn’t work, our glues that we use, but we have a specific purpose and we to find the maximum adhesion we can get out of those conditions. 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 got to squeeze the last two, three, five or ten 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 that couldn’t be done you’ve got to have the best tools. Glue is so stinking cheap for how 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 glued both the whole time. It’s not a lot of money to put in and there are almost no other expenses in our business.

Stop being short-sighted – 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. When 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 them, 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. Check out 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. I can’t use enough of it, so buy it, enjoy it; make more money. TabWeld.com

: Another thing – closing a deal; that was a long segment about positive reviews at the end.

Keith Cosentino: I thought we were going to fight for a second.

Shane Jacks: We don’t fight. We disagree. I couldn’t fight you anyway – you’d beat me; maybe not mental but physical. You’d crush me under your weight.

Keith Cosentino: You do all those push-ups though.

Shane Jacks: Closing the deal: whenever you go into a situation, a sales situation or someone calls you on the phone; someone sends you a text; someone gives an inquiry online – one of your forms online on your website, Keith. They fill that out and the endgame for you is to close the deal. And that’s easy. It is really, really easy. That’s what all of our endgame is, right, on those situations is to close the deal. But I think some of us should be questioned not on our intent because our intent is to close the deal but some of us should be questioned on our approach to getting there. And Keith, you’re always thinking about constant endgame and how to get that person in front of you instead of just lazily sending a text out.

Although some of us are thinking endgame, yes; I want to close this deal. Your endgame is more thought-out in closing that deal because you take the steps needed and the time needed more than others to get to that end game. Again, this was more about – when I told Keith about this I recognized stuff in him that I don’t see in myself and I don’t see in other guys and again, I’m trying. I’m getting better and I recognize this stuff and Keith this is really just more about bragging on you and then you telling us how you do it.

We’ve talked about closing the deal before. I don’t really think we have to go too deep into that, but that’s the endgame is to close the deal so take every stinking single step you have to take to get that customer in front of you and to get the money. So, I think –

Keith Cosentino: Well, people will say like; yeah, that’s ridiculous. Of course I’m trying to close the deal. That’s why I’m at work. But if you take the example of a weight-loss regimen like, what’s my goal here? Well, the goal is to lose weight. All right – cool, so I’m going to eat less this week or whatever and you end up blowing up your diet because you didn’t have a plan. You didn’t take the steps between the beginning and the goal to get there. You just think that’s where you’re heading and then pretty soon you’re derailed and way off where you’re supposed to be.

So you’ve got to recognize that to get to that endgame it starts the minute you start down the right path and making the right decisions to end up where you’re going to close the deal. So just to say like; yeah, I want to close tons of deals and then respond via text and then tell people they’re idiots and just not have a defined set of rules for yourself on how you’re going to handle all these transactions you’re off the deep end in a matter of minutes sometimes. But you think you’re on-track for your goal because you decided that’s what you want like the power of attraction.

You’re going to talk about it and it will somehow find its way into your life no matter what you do but all these results that you get are the results of the actions and decisions that you made previously. You know, like all those broke brothers-in-law that we have that can’t make one good decision and then they talk about how back their luck is. I have the worst luck; I got arrested again.

Shane Jacks: Imagine that.

Keith Cosentino: Wow – that’s amazing. It might have something to do with the methamphetamine.

Shane Jacks: Every girl I marry is just the wrong girl. You met them all in the bar – where else?

Keith Cosentino: That’s a terrible thing but it’s real. Guys who have been married three times say; man, women are crazy. Well, a third time? Maybe it’s you. You’re taking some wrong steps there and like you said, where did you meet this chick? Well, up at the bar. Well, there you go.
Shane Jacks: So not only is it steps, Keith to get there and like you said the weight loss plan was a great one because if you don’t have a plan of attack you’re not going to lose weight unless you just stop eating. That’s not wise or possible, especially for foodies like you and I, Keith.

Another thing is that at the end of the day you want to close the deal so I don’t want to talk negatively about the pricing guide or anything. I love the thing, right? But if you go into it with the idea that; here’s my pricing guide – this is it. This is how I make the maximum amount of money and I’m not going to deviate from this thing. And you go in there and there are eight dents around the car and they’re each or between one and two inches and there are eight dents around the car. They’re all in eight different panels; how about that?

And then you come away and you’ve got a $1,600 PDR bill and a $400 R and I bill and you’ve got $2,000 worth of estimate on an hour and a half worth of work. You’re stubborn and you’re sticking to that because you’re sticking to the pricing guide. It’s the rule that you’ve made. That’s not wise. That’s not good at closing a deal. Do you give concessions, Keith on your pricing?

Keith Cosentino: Oh, absolutely – you still will shake your own tree when you come up with a price sometimes. You’ll think; ooh, that’s a lot. But that’s your personal pain point so it makes sense to deliver that estimate first even if you don’t think you’re going to get it, to anchor it at that price and then riff off of that. This thing says two grand, but that’s crazy. Here’s what I can do it for. That’s not going to get you where you want to be, but if you say; okay, we have an estimating system and using it properly we have this many dollars per dent. You have eight different panels plus this so this total it spits out is $1,950.

And I’ll wait and I’ll let them tell me it’s crazy and then I can agree with them. I agree. This is kind of an outlier scenario where this pricing guide isn’t really correct. Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll pretend all the other seven dents are on the same panels and that’s $300 so it’s $500 or whatever. But you’ve got to anchor it at that big price so 100 percent I give concessions all the time because what I want is to be paid money to use my tools. I’ll start with the pricing guide and if that doesn’t stick I’ll go to Plan B or Plan C.

We’ve talked about these guys before on the show. There are guys that are so proud they say; I don’t negotiate at all.
Shane Jacks: That’s what I’m talking about here too. Well, fricking paint it then. Bye!

Keith Cosentino: Go ahead and paint it. I’ve got tens of customers that would love to deal with me. I’m waiting for them to call.

Shane Jacks: And if you can get it, great but at the end of the day I want to make X amount of dollars and I want to stay busy all day, Keith. Busy means money to me.

Keith Cosentino: Yes, sir. We’ve talked about it before. I’m pretty stinking efficient at work. When I go to work with tools I’m using them all day, from like five minutes after I leave the house sometimes I’m dug into a dent and then working on it all day until into the night. I stay busy and not every job pays as nice as the ones you want to brag about but that’s not because something affected me. It’s not because the universe sucks and I got sucked in. I made every single price that I worked for. I agreed to it and got my tools out so how can I be upset about that?

When I am upset – and it happens; I’m upset with myself and not the customer – they didn’t make me work, you know? They might have done a good job in negotiating but usually it’s because you crapped the bed with the estimate. Something was harder than you thought. It’s almost always harder than you thought –

Shane Jacks: It’s never their fault. It’s always, always, 100 percent your fault. Sometimes it’s not your fault. Sometimes you’ve really investigated and it’s just deeper than you – you know what I mean?
I guess it still is your fault. I think in the hatch we looked at out there in California, you didn’t know how that was going to work because there were several factors there that you were kind of waffling on. You didn’t know how long it was going to take so is it really your fault? Yes and no – if you think it’s going to a problem you can err on the side of more time is going to be involved so it is your fault.

Sometimes you just get hopeful and they get you down another $100 or whatever; $50, $20 or whatever it is and you’re just; okay, I’m pretty sure that dent on that hatch is going to work this way and it doesn’t. So that is your fault.

Keith Cosentino: I’m glad you brought that up because it’s a big part of my mindset and it’s probably what you would describe as what makes me different from other guys. And that is I’m always looking to accept more responsibility for what happens to me and around me. Because if I take responsibility for it then I have the ability to change it, but if I put it off on the car or the person or the circumstances; the weather – I’m powerless. I’m living in someone else’s dream or nightmare.

But if I decide that I’m going to take the responsibility for his if anything goes sideways at work today – if I don’t make money or if I do make money – if the customers are angry or the customers are happy, those are all my fault. Those are all the result of the choices I’ve made. I made every single one of them. Nobody manipulated me and if someone did manipulate me that’s my fault, too for allowing myself to be manipulated.

Shane Jacks: That takes us directly into the last point actually, Keith. I think you’re right because it is hard for me to do what you do in many situations in your personal life. I’m not going to get crazy-personal but with you and me we don’t argue much – really not at all, honestly. But there have been times – and you probably don’t remember these times, Keith – not an argument, but I will say something about; oh, sorry I’m bothering you, by text, if I’m sending you several texts. And one of them you sent back and you said; I won’t allow you to bother me. Like; dang, I didn’t take it the wrong way, right? You were just being honest.

It’s your choice to be partnered up with me and to have a friendship with me, correct? So everything that happens as a product of that friendship/relationship you take credit/what is the word I’m looking for?

Keith Cosentino: Responsibility –?

Shane Jacks: Yeah, responsibility in every situation in your life. Man that is hard to do. It’s easy to blame other people. Arguing with people – I’m not saying I’m blaming them, but you can let them control your emotion, you know? I’m talking more in personal than in like online or anything like that. They control your emotions and you start blaming them, but Keith you step back way differently than 99.9 percent of other people and you’re like; hey, I chose this to be in my life. I’m like; stop it, dude.

And you’ve told me that before. You’re like; look man this is your choice for this to be in your life and I hate it when you say that to me but it’s exactly what I need. Its truth – people know that I’m a straight-up, 100 percent truth guy and Keith is preaching truth to me and it pisses me off because I don’t want to recognize it.

Keith Cosentino: Yes, because with that truth you’ve got a lot of emotion.

Shane Jacks: Precisely – in personal, exactly – but Keith it permeates every part of your life and I commend you for it, brother. This may not have been the greatest – that middle segment was very enlightening and teaching – but take responsibility for yourself and for your actions and for the things that happen in your life like Keith does. Man you’re a stud at that stuff so my hat’s off to you, sir.

Let’s talk about glue tabs. More specifically, let’s talk about Black Plague smooth series glue tabs. These guys come in a variety of sizes and they’re specifically designed for maximum adhesion. They are 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 large ones these things pull like a tanker. Best of all they pull with finite precision. They pull exactly where you want and in the exact spot you want.

I’ll tell you what: pair these guys with a 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: I appreciate and I want to talk about it for just a little bit because that mindset – whether you think you can adopt it or not – is what’s going to allow you to be successful and to enjoy your success because bad things happen all the time. There are a lot of bad things that happen that you can’t do anything about: medical things and terrible accidents. You can’t control everything but there’s a lot of stuff you can control.

There’s some stuff that’s in the middle, that happens to you that you really couldn’t control, but as soon as you put that off onto something else you don’t come up with a plan to prevent it from happening to you again. So I’m kind of a safe guy, like when you’re talking about bungee jumping or things like that, I don’t have any interest in doing things. I want to take complete responsibility for what happens in my life and I know there’s a 100 percent chance that I don’t die in a bungee jumping accident if I don’t bungee jump.

So if the bungee jump broke and I was paralyzed for the rest of my life that would suck for a lot of people and there’s no reward there for me to just feel like I’m falling and not fall. That’s the only reason you would do it. I recognize that everything I do is going to be a choice that I make and everything good or bad that happens to me is my choice. So what I’m getting at is when bad things happen or when bad things could happen you can make different choices so that they don’t happen. We can go from bad things down to just things that aren’t great, like you didn’t get as much money for this repair or it took longer than you thought it was going to take so this car sucks and this customer sucks.

They may suck – both of them – but if you believe that they are the reason you failed then you’re never going to get better and get through that. So you’ve got to realize; okay, what did I do different? What did I do wrong and what do I do differently next time? And that question I ask you is one that I ask myself every single time something doesn’t go perfectly for me: okay, if I had to do that again what would I change?

Because I don’t want to make that mistake again – but then on the flip side – when things go well and you’re enjoying success you can enjoy it and you can take all the credit for it because you’ve accepted all the responsibility in your life. You’ve accepted the fact that I made these choices that resulted in these fantastic things. This is mine. I didn’t get lucky.

I like to reference fighting a lot. Guys talk about a lucky punch. There’s nothing lucky about a lucky punch. That dude was aiming for your face. He threw it with every intention of knocking you out. There’s no luck involved at all. There’s some bad luck for you because you stepped into it, but there are no lucky punches unless the guy had his eyes closed and was punching at somebody else and then hit a burglar. That’s lucky I guess, but there are no lucky punches when that’s where the dude was aiming.

When you do take responsibility for everything in your life and you have some success you get to enjoy that because that’s yours. You get to own it. I made the decisions that put me in this place. You can only get to that place when you start taking on the bad stuff, the stuff that you wish was gone and taking responsibility for that.

One of the self-help books that I’ve enjoyed over the years is a book on management. It seems like a dry topic but the guy is pretty cool who talks in the book – an audio book – and he says if you look at the word responsibility, if you break it down you have the ability to respond. It’s your response-ability. It’s not what happens to you; it’s you being empowered and having the ability to change and adapt to the situations – responsibility. So I kind of like looking at it like that but like you said kind of a touchy-feely episode but this is the stuff that I do that’s different from what you do, maybe.

Not to call anybody out, but Shane says this is what I do that’s different than what he does so he wanted to share it with everybody else. That’s why guys listen to the podcast. They want to know; hey, what are you – Keith and Shane – doing that are different in your business that I need to do in mine? Most people think the answer to that question is Facebook ads or a mobile site or Google listing or whatever. There’s a lot of that stuff but this is also something that I do differently than some people.

So it’s not always binary things that you can do. You can have a website or don’t. Sometimes its mental stuff – head trash is what we call it sometimes – you have a lot of head trash that will keep you from being successful and this is the kind of stuff that goes through my mind. I am by no means the most successful guy you’ve heard of. I’m not even in the top 100, but in our little world of paint-less dent removal I think I am doing pretty well and I’m happy to try and share all the success that I have had with anyone who wants to listen.

Shane Jacks: Yep – good stuff, Keith. Again, thanks for being who you are man and helping me. I’ve said it 1,000 times.

Keith Cosentino: You’re welcome. It’s a lot of fun. I’m bringing it full circle in this episode but we’re snapping back into that PDR mode. You know what we haven’t done for a while? Two things – one; a tool review, and two; an iTunes review. There are a bunch of guys in our Facebook group, the PDR College Community Facebook group who stepped up and wrote us reviews about a month ago that wanted to but never actually got around to opening the page and plugging them in. There’s a bunch of new ones and I’d love to read them.

Shane Jacks: Sweet. How many are we going to be able to get to today?

Keith Cosentino: Well I didn’t pull any of them up. Why don’t I talk about a tool review because I’ve got one? And you can clickety-click on your keyboard to see if you can pull up a couple of those and you can read them.

So I had a tool show up on my doorstep, which has started to happen more than it used to so thank you, tool companies for that. I enjoy sharing my input. I can’t always tell everyone about the tools because they’re prototypes, but this one I can. It’s a tool that I would guess probably that most of you own already. It is the brand-new version of the Elim A Dent light. Forgive me, I don’t know what version number he calls it but I’m pretty sure it’s the only one you can buy now. Whenever James Lee, the owner of Elim A Dent makes a modification he seems to push it across all of his products.

For the new light he’s added a lot of new features to it. He had a dimmer early on and honestly I wasn’t a big fan. The buttons didn’t have a good feedback and I couldn’t tell when I was pushing them and when I wasn’t unless I could see the light move.

Apparently I wasn’t the only guy who felt like that because James came out with a completely new design that has these big, plastic buttons that have positive feedback. You can feel them click when you push on them and you’ve got an ultimate power switch next to that so you don’t have to go turning all of your strips off. If you always like all of your strips in a certain configuration you can leave those on and then hit the power button and it will power the light up and power it off, which is fantastic.

He has a newly-designed base where the battery clips into. I’m a Makita guy so that’s the version I use. He’s got a couple of others as well but between that, his new lock line, and he’s got an optional cover to go over that to prevent any concern that you may have about marring any kind of finish with the spinal cord – he’s got a cover over that – I think you can cram six strips into this thing. I think I’ve got six on mine or more. There are a lot of different configurations that you can put in this thing.

On top of all that I think that the new lens will come out of the fixture without taking it apart so you could slide the lens out, put a different lens in if you like to go between fog and lines or if you just like different finishes on the fog board. You can do that without unscrewing the entire thing now. To add on top of all that, it’s still bomb proof because I’m hard I stuff. I literally throw it in the truck. I drop it on the ground all the time. I throw it down; I’m not gentle on my stuff. I try to move at a pretty fast pace so that means I break stuff but I can’t break that light. I throw it all over the place.

So it is my go-to light right now. I absolutely love it. You’ve got to check them out online. We’ll have a link on our site. If you don’t have it, it’s probably the one tool that I use on every single repair. I’ve got a floor light but it doesn’t go in my truck because it’s too big. He has two versions of that light. Honestly there’s an 18 inch and then there’s a big one, 20-something inches that’s still on a suction cup. I don’t like that one that much honestly. I’m giving you an honest review. I would like the smaller one and I do. I have them both. He sent them both to me to try and the big one is just too big. It has too much leverage and when I try to move it I pop the suction cup off. I don’t like it that much.

Now, if I was doing more hail I could set it up once and work a wider area. I would probably like that but I move a lot when I work. I move my board a lot. I move myself. I work different angles a lot. I probably move 30 times on a decent-sized repair. So with the smaller light I’m able to move it all over the place and move myself and attach it and re-attach it with one arm without it dropping out of my arm. I like the smaller one infinitely better. That’s the one I use so I would recommend that one if someone was stuck between the two 100 times over.

The website is ElimADenttools.com and that’s E-L-I-M-A-Denttools, two T’s.com. ElimADenttools.com and he’s got all kinds of accessories. I think he’s got your tools on there, Shane along with some of mine but if you go to Lighting you will see all the options. It’s a 14 or a 20 so the 14 inch is the one I like. The 20 inch is too big for me. Some guys love it, but this is what I love.

Shane Jacks: We have several of their lights also. We mainly use the shop lights, Keith simply because we’re in a shop. However, we do a little bit of mobile work and these are our lights of choice on the mobile end, so very nice lights – pretty much indestructible and all that good stuff.

Keith Cosentino: People will get hung up on like what strip configuration and all that. It’s not that important, honestly what strip configuration –

Shane Jacks: On hail it can be as far as speed, you know, on a big light but on these small lights it’s nowhere near as important.

Keith Cosentino: It’s just a personal choice about what you like and what you don’t but James will make any kind of configuration you want because I think you can put the strips any way you like in there. The one I’ve got as a tester from him I believe is six strips. It’s got all the warm colors and all the cool colors but honestly one of my buddies, Kip Brooks – I worked hail with him – and he uses a configuration where there’s a warm and a cool strip together, probably touching inside the fixture. So in that reflection it’s yellow on one side and white on the other. And I enjoyed working with that quite a bit and I run one of my lights like that that has the configuration option in it already.

I like that, so that’s the first change I’ve made to my reflection in a long time. It’s not like I can’t fix it either way, but I like looking at that. I can’t put my finger on if it makes me better but I like looking at it. I see now that James has that same style but infinitely configurable. Like; you have the inside line on the middle of the fixture and on the outside it’s warm and cool together or cool and warm together – two different options he has listed on the inside. So whatever you like he’ll put the strips in there like that but they are not expensive either. The cheapest one is $300. The most expensive one is $475 – that’s the Mike Toledo signature deal with the striped line board on top.

But that’s the outlier – if you take the Toledo out, the most expensive one is $337.50, so it’s not an expensive tool for the amount of use you get out of it. Every single repair needs a light and if you’re mobile getting out that big shop light is pretty silly unless you’re going to be on that car for hours and hours. Getting this thing out is money so I’m sold. I had three of them before he sent me the new version to try and I’m sold on the new version. Get yourself an Elim A Dent tools light. You will not regret it.

Shane Jacks: Yes. Again, great lights – do you want to go into these reviews now, Keith?

Keith Cosentino: Okay – yeah.

Shane Jacks: The first one – Keith and Shane rock – and this is by Tree in Life. Some of these names are pretty funny. How did you come up with Tree in Life? But anyway, what other college offers free tuition and teaches real-world profit techniques? PDR College has helped me personally as well as dozens of my PDR tech friends. And that again is from Tree in Life.

Unbelievable that it’s free – from C.G. Stew – I am not a PDR tech yet. A PDR tech fixed a dent on my truck and I was blown away at the technique involved. I had no idea what PDR even was but became immediately interested and asked if he would teach me. He told me about PDR College during a ride-along, which has motivated me to take the leap into PDR. It may seem ridiculous that I’m even commenting, but I would feel very ungrateful if I didn’t. Your podcast has empowered me and given me the motivation to take action. I will begin learning the trade and have made it a goal to attend the Mobile Tech Expo in 2017 where I hope to stalk Keith and Shane.

I’m just kidding. This is where I hope to meet Keith and Shane and thank them personally. I am shocked at how much information is in this podcast and I am drinking the Kool-Aid. So get better, or in my case get started. C.G. Stew, you sound like a well-spoken guy. I think you’ll be all right.

The next one – good stuff, by Jeremy Jiggler or Giggler – do you know, Keith?

Keith Cosentino: I’m not really sure. I’ll go with gig.

Shane Jacks: All right – we’ll go with gig. Jeremy Giggler and it says; thanks for saying all the things that I’ve been preaching for so many years that I don’t care to count. Well okay – since now you’re wondering – since 1993. That’s not some made-up year; I’ve been chasing hell since then, you know when we use bent car antennas and deck springs and such. That was from Jeremy Giggler.

How many do you want to do, Keith? That was three. Do you want to do five or do you want to hang it up?

Keith Cosentino: Sure.

Shane Jacks: This one is; great guys, great podcast. Apparently he doesn’t know us well. Greg Van Winkle sent this in. Ever since day one of listening to this podcast I have more than doubled my sales at my retail location. Also I’ve doubled my shop square footage for more room and tripled the technicians that he has,

Keith Cosentino: That’s awesome.

Shane Jacks: I think he’s got like one and a half now. There was only half of one of him before. We have more production based off of the advice from these two guys. Their information, sales advice, and best approach in dealing with certain topics is a must for our business. They also return personal messages and always do what they can to help out anyone. Their tools that they have designed for our industry are awesome and are top-of-the-line with great customer service as well. If you do not have those tools you’re really missing out.

I listen to the podcast as much as possible and feel like in the last 15 years of PDR it’s been the biggest asset to my growth in the last two years. I’m very, very thankful for the PDR podcast, and again that’s from Greg Van Winkle.

Keith Cosentino: Dude, that is awesome. We’re going to end on a high note right there. That’s a fantastic review. Thank you, Greg for that if you’re listening. If you want to leave us a review and have your opinion last forever on the internet you’ve got to get into iTunes and log in and then you can go to the podcast and leave a review. But we would love it – we love to hear from you guys because it makes the early mornings and late nights of recording after we’ve spent a whole day fixing cars – it makes it worth it. We love it.

Shane Jacks: Yep.

Keith Cosentino: So thank you for that. I want to give a shout to our – well, that’s personal information I probably don’t want to – one of our most trusted technicians has increased his revenue, his income by over $70,000 and he wrote us a note saying it’s because of the stuff we’re talking about. Thank you. Man that makes me so frigging happy to hear. I don’t want a single penny of that money; it just makes me happy that my information is helping other guys make more money.

I know you feel the same way, Shane so keep listening. As we make more money in our businesses the first place where we come and share that information is here, for everybody else. Are people in my own market trying to beat me with my own tools? Of course they are, but that’s awesome. That means they’re pricing stuff better now, too. So I am completely happy with it. I’ve had a couple of guys ask me like; aren’t you worried that your competitors are going to know what you’re up to? I’m up to great business. What do you mean that they know what I’m up to? That’s it. They should probably do it too.

There are about a billion cars in this state and I only need to work on 1,000 of them. That leaves close to a billion left, still. We can probably both compete in the same market. That’s just an abundance mindset that you and I both have, Shane and it allows us to enjoy sharing all of our best information. There’s not much left behind the scenes that we don’t share with you guys. Of course there’s a little bit, but not much.

We will see you next week. We’re coming up on Episode 100, which is going to be a big deal but we’re not there yet. Hang out with us next week and until then, get better.

[End of Audio]

Duration: 80 minutes