Maximizing Profits at Dealerships

In this show we welcome Derek Reed on as a guest. Derek is insanely productive while working only ONE dealer account!

You’ve got to hear some of the unique things he does to get his numbers up there, way up there!

Check out Keith’s Phone Skills Course (Classic phone skills training for PDR Techs)

BLACKPLAGUE KECO SET

EDGE JACK TOOLS are a MUST HAVE

Transcript:

Keith: Let’s talk a little bit about hot glue. Specifically, 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 get 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 ways to trick me out of more 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, 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. Superglue 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, 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 glue. There’s a lot of glues out there, made for construction and manufacturing, that’ll make this glue look like it doesn’t work. Other glues 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 got to squeeze the last 2, 3, 5, 10 percent of performance out, that everyone else is leaving. It’s just like racing cars. Everything has to be dialed if you wanna go faster than the other guy, and if you wanna do a better repair, with less pulls, or you wanna 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 pulled the whole time. It’s not a lot of money to put in, and there’s not a lot of other expenses in our business. Stop being shortsighted, 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, and the right tabs, you’ve got 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.

It’s still in an early release stage, we’ve got samples out right now. If you buy anything on blackplaguepdr.com right now, you’re gonna get a sample. You can go on there and just pick the sample, if you want, you’ve gotta pay for shipping if you do that. But, very shortly here, in a matter of weeks, Tab Weld is gonna be released, full steam ahead, you can have as much of it as you’d like. Check out the website, tabweld.com, you can bop yourself onto our mailing list, there, so you can be notified the moment we are releasing it, but 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 have enough of it. So, buy it, enjoy it, make more money. Tabweld.com.

I’m Keith Cosentino, he’s Shane Jacks, and this is the PDR College Podcast, where we want you to take your dent removal game to the next level. We’re gonna share with you everything we know. All of our tips, tactics and tricks, to up your sales, up your profits, and make your life a better place. All in the pursuit of giant, giant, unmanageable stacks of cash. Now, I want you guys to stay quiet if you’re listening during the show, Shane Jacks is here, but he’s asleep. I don’t wanna wake him up. So, if you would, just keep the comments to a minimum, and just enjoy the show.

Today, we’ve got a special guest on the show. The guest today is Derek Reed, and he is with the show. He handles a lot of our backend audio, because he’s just a wizard when it comes to that stuff. But, before he is our audio guy, and our behind the scenes guy, he is a fantastic technician, and really, really productive. He works on the wholesale side, at a dealership. This guy is probably, out of all the people I’ve met, one of the most productive techs who stays in a fixed location that I’m aware of. He really, really cranks it out. So, I asked Derek if he wouldn’t mind coming on the show and sharing some of the techniques, or strategies he uses the maximize profit at a wholesale lot.

We talk about retail on the show all the time, and I’m a big, big fan of retail. But, in order to have a completely well-rounded business, and to kind of round out the entire ecosystem of a retail company, it is really beneficial to have at least a couple of wholesale lots, because they’re gonna feed you retail leads, and on a couple of strange days when your phone is not ringing off the hook, you’ve got something to do. So, it is a good practice, and I thought, who better to have on the show than Derek? And, I know I’m gonna learn something from him, because quite frankly, he’s more productive on his wholesale stuff than I am.

So, I know everyone’s gonna learn something from Derek, and we are gonna make more money. That’s the point of the PDR College. So, before we get too deep into the show, I wanna tell you about a couple of things that are exciting for me. We have got the amazing one-inch rubber balls, back in stock at Black Plague. It has been forever since we’ve been without these things. You guys have been messaging me every day, hey, when are your balls coming back, when are your balls coming back? And, I’m starting to take it personally. I never wanted so many people around the world asking about my balls. But, we got them, they’re in transit to my warehouse now, so they’ll probably be there Monday or Tuesday.

So, if you’re listening to this Monday morning, and you pop over to the site, it might still show out of stock, but just pop back over later in the afternoon, or Tuesday, and they will be there, very excited to have those back in stock. In addition to those, a lot of you consistent listeners know about the Black Plague Crease Tabs, and you also know about the new version, that has been in production for, in all honesty, a lot longer than it should’ve been. But, the Black Plague 2.0 tabs are now done, and they are also ready to ship out. So, what are they, why are they different? Well, on first glance, they look exactly the same as the old Black Plague Crease Tabs, they are designed from them.

But, what we did is, we buttoned up a couple of shortcomings that we had with the 1.0 tabs. The original Black Plague Crease Tabs were all plastic, and they had a metal screw, that screwed directly into the plastic. And, the screw – the screw took the place for the tab head, that fits into your slide hammer or lifter, and allowed you to pull that tab. Well, under some circumstances, with enough use, or maybe with a tab that wasn’t perfect, the screw would rip straight out of the tab, and just pull through the plastic threads. Now, it didn’t happen that often. It especially didn’t happen on the big tabs, but the size that we use most, right in the middle, it was happening more than I wish it was.

That’s one of the shortcomings, and sometimes, it would snap a tab when it pulled it out. Still a great product, you can use it 100 times before it goes, but it doesn’t last forever. So, I didn’t like that, so I set out to fix that, and also, there was a gap in the sizes, between the first two little baby crease tabs, and then the third one, which is about just under three inches long. But, I wanted something right in between those two, and I didn’t have one, so when I redid the tooling for the Black Plague 2.0, I was able to create a new size. And, that new size is probably the one I use out of any other tab in that set now, because it’s just the right size for kind of a normal sized crease door ding.

So, that’s probably my number one go-to crease tab, you’ve heard Shane talk about them a little on a couple previous shows, because he’s been using the 2.0 tabs, trying to break them for me as well, and he hasn’t been able to break them. I haven’t seen anybody break one yet, out of all of my testers, so the new size is one difference that you’ll notice right away. So, it’s a seven-piece set, rather than a six. But, the main difference is a new material that is crazy resilient, so you’re not gonna have any material issues, and a brass threaded insert in every tab, where the screws screw in. So, there are no more threads in the plastic to pull out,

It’s metal-on-metal inside the tab. So, it really, it looks similar, but it’s a completely different animal. Much more bulletproof, much higher quality control, it’s a much better product all around. So, if you’re interested in upgrading to those, those are going to be available – the only place they are right now is on the Black Plague site. So, keep your eyeballs over there, if you wanna hook up with them. They will be there on the site as soon as you hear this. So, we’ve got those, and we started carrying the Keiko Super Tabs. Now, these are the big, giant tabs, that are like Nerf footballs, baseball sized.

So, if you guys do collision damage, if you do big, big stuff, or maybe you’re transitioning from body tech to PDR tech, and you’re still working as a body tech, and you wanna shrink some damage before you do a conventional repair, this stuff is phenomenal. So, we’ve got them on the site by themselves, in a variety pack with, I believe there’s six different sizes, the Keiko Super Tabs, and the Smooth Series tabs, all together, so it’s pretty darn well-rounded, if you buy that set. There’s not a lot of – you’ve got everything down from 9 mm, all the way up to a football. Not much you can’t glue pull with that set. So, we put it all together so it’s easy to get all in one place, and knocked a few bucks off of it.

So, all that stuff will be on blackplaguepdr.com, or deadrattabs.com. Check it out, and get yourself some of the industry’s newest and baddest tabs. Okay, Derek Reed, welcome to the PDR College Podcast.

Derek: Hey, good morning, Keith, thanks for having me.

Keith: My pleasure. So, you are a Dent Wizard, tech, as I talked about in the intro, nothing’s changed since we’ve talked last?

Derek: Sure. Hold for the boo noises that I will edit in.

Keith: Well, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on, because there’s a lot of negative opinions about Dent Wizard, but when you really start digging deep, almost everyone has their roots at Dent Wizard, and if they didn’t, the guy that trained them probably did. I know that’s the case for me. The guy that I first started working with, he was an ex-Dent Wizard guy.

Derek Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people sometimes forget that we have a Seven Degrees of Dent Wizard thing going on –

Keith: Right.

Derek: Throughout the industry a lot of times, and some people understand that, some don’t.

Keith: Yeah. Dent Wizard actually trained Kevin Bacon.

Derek: Absolutely. I hear he’s doing real well.

Keith: He’s doing fantastic. So, tell us about your situation. It’s a little bit unique, right? As far as I understand it, you’re 99 or 100 percent at one dealership.

Derek: Sure. I’ve been 100 percent at this one dealership for about the last six years.

Keith: That’s a long time.

Derek: Yeah, I was, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, specifically for this one account. I’m from Detroit, natively, I was working in Indianapolis for a couple of years, and the guy down here, just – he was having problems with the management of this account, and he wasn’t happy, so they asked me to move down and take over, and kinda fix it, and I’ve been there six years now.

Keith: Man, did you fly down and check it out, before you committed to it?

Derek: No. I had, they had given me a couple of other choices, and they said, “Hey, just drive to these places, and tell us which one you wanna correct.” So, I ruled out – I had seven choices to pick from.

Keith: Temecula, Chicken Lips –

Derek: Pretty much, pretty much. I instantly, instantly ruled out anywhere that snowed, more than once a year.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: And, anywhere that had 120 degrees more than once a year. And, that left me, basically, with Atlanta, Columbus and South Carolina.

Keith: And, Atlanta’s almost 120 degrees.

Derek: Of course, and I’m sure I’ll touch on this later. But, I have a unique situation at my account, where I actually work inside with the shop mechanics, and the air conditioning.

Keith: Nice.

Derek: So, I have no complaints.

Keith: No, but one of my best buddies lives in Atlanta, and I went there and visited him when I was, you know 19 or 20, and I’d never been anywhere in the South, all I’d known was California. And, it gets hot here, but when I got there, I finally understood what this humidity was all about. It’s terrible. I thought, if you don’t have air conditioning, you might as well just either move away or just lay down and die.

Derek: Absolutely. I mean, it’s one step away from – if we had more trees, it’d be a rainforest. I mean, it’s nasty here.

Keith: No doubt.

Derek: As it’s – I mean, as it’s literally pouring down rain right now outside my window.

Keith: So, let’s put a pin in the timeline, and let’s go back a little bit, and let’s tell everybody a little bit about your background. How did you get in the business, and how’d you end up where you are, and all that kinda stuff, and then we’ll talk about working one account, and making ridiculous amounts of money there.

Derek: Sure. I’ll go way back, well, maybe way back. But, 18 years old – my uncle’s actually been with Dent Wizard for 20 years.

Keith: Okay.

Derek: He’s been around for a while. At the age of 18, I was a struggling musician, thinking I was a rock star, but honestly kind of a struggling musician. And, he was kind enough to say, hey, you should check this out, I think you’d be really good at it. He went and got me an interview. I went and did this interview, and they said, “Where do you see yourself in five years, Derek?” And I said, “Well, I’ve got this band, right? And, we’re pretty awesome, so I’m hoping that works out.” So, they said, “Okay, well, thanks for your time. Lunch is on us, good luck with your music.”

Fast forward five years of eating ramen noodles and Taco Bell, and I was like, hey, can I get another interview? And, he hooked me up with another interview. I pretty much left Detroit, moved to Indianapolis, started with the company, and within I week, I just, I knew this was what I needed to do. I’ve never felt more comfortable doing anything in my life, other than PDR.

Keith: Talking to your uncle, you had an idea about the possible income you could make, and the lifestyle and all that?

Derek: Of course. He was doing really well, even back then, and still, to this day, blows my mind. He does – he’s a phenomenal dent guy, he’s one of the best guys I’ve ever seen do a repair in person. And, he bills like it, so.

Keith: Cool. So, when you started with him, what was that like? Don’t they have like, a corporate training, or something like that?

Derek: Yeah. I obviously, I had no – I’m not a car guy at all. Coming from Detroit, and everything –

Keith: You weren’t a car guy.

Derek: Right, yeah. Well, I’m not. I’m still not. I hate cars. I’m not into them at all. I can fix anything, but I just – I’m not into owning or driving cars. Coming from Detroit, everyone in my entire family had worked on an assembly line for one of the Big Three, and I had seen how cars can ruin families, and stuff, so I was kind of opposed to it. So, when I got to school, training, I was one of those guys that like, so, what’s the difference between a fender and a quarter panel?

Keith: Oh, man.

Derek: You know, so this is, this is the left rear door, correct? So, I had no clue.

Keith: You were looking for corner panels?

Derek: Exactly. Like, you’re talking about this bumper, right? The training is – was and still is awesome. So, I know, a lot of people know that in the ‘90s, they had an amazing training program, and they still do. The trainers there have been doing this a long time, and they really care, and it’s an eight-week training program in St. Louis, at the corporate office. They have a huge training warehouse, basically, and they go through numerous setups, and it’s five days a week, full day job. And, it’s phenomenal. They walk people through that have no idea, and then they have people come in that are like, oh, yeah, I’ve been doing this for about two years by myself, and things aren’t working out.

So, they’re – the spread of knowledge is kind of all over the place. But, it’s intense. You have tests, one or two tests, every single week. Tests on theory and physics of metal, and tests on actual metal, where they’ll put some damage in, and if you can’t get it done in the time limit that they deem appropriate, you probably won’t take the test the next week.

Keith: Oh, you’re out, huh? Reality [inaudible] [00:19:15]

Derek: Yeah, it’s a pass/fail thing.

Keith: That’s cool. So, you obviously did well there. Did you feel like you picked it up easily?

Derek: I did really well, I was, within the first or second week, I was first in my class. If – and it is, it’s a scored class, so very competitive. They have races, and they’ll put in some dents, and see who can fix them, stuff like that. So, very, very competitive nature, by week two, I was first in my class, and I never fell below that. So, I left the class number one, got me some fancy toolboxes and some extra stuff that got – and I knew, I knew. I remember leaving school after eight weeks, going back to my uncle’s house. I was gonna be living with him in Indianapolis while he did my field training.

We have an in-depth post training, up to six months, where you work with a mentor, basically, and fix dents for free, and they take all of your billings, and they show you kinda what’s going on. And, I told him day one, I was like, “Man, I was meant to do this. This is my calling in life.” And, I’ve never looked back.

Keith: Did you feel like you got your teeth kicked in when you got in the real world?

Derek No, I don’t know if you heard me, but I was number one in my class, I was pretty awesome. No, absolutely. I went right out of school and went right to an auction. The auction was very, very high volume. I’m talking two sales a week. One sale was about 1,000 cars a week, and the other sale was 1,500 to 2,000 card a week, at times. I was on the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep team. We had about ten guys on that team, and about three guys on other various accounts selection – GM, Ford, etc. And, it was non-stop. It was a lot of work.

Go to work every day, do $1,000, and go home, you know? And, it was no questions asked, consistent work every single day, a huge, huge auction. So, I definitely got pushed to my limits, and there were some guys out there that were – were and still are some incredible technicians, that’d be like, “Aw, man, I did 78 panels today!” “Well, screw you, I did 120 panels!” And, I’m like, “Man, I finished three panels today! What did I build?” Nothing. You build nothing. You build in my name.

Keith: With that many guys, at that fast pace, did you see any of that trademark auction work that wasn’t up to par, that was just getting pushed through?

Derek Not really. On our account, on the Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep account, it was very, very, very, very picky. So, we would run down the lines, every week we would get a list. Say, here’s your 2,500 to 3,500 cars for the sales next week, go find them and fix them. So, we would fix them, we would turn in the invoices, and then the actual representative of those companies would go and walk every single car. Along with a representative and a coordinator from Dent Wizard, they would walk every single car, and if you drilled a hole, you were out. If you cracked some paint, you were pretty much out, and they had to paint it. They did inspections on every repair, and if it wasn’t good enough, you’d get a redo.

You’d show up the next day, and they’d give you a redo list, and you had to go and find those cars again, wherever they were in the process, and make it right. They were very, very, very picky. So, they were – I can’t say that on the other accounts, I didn’t work the Ford or GM accounts, but I’m sure it was similar. They were very, very, very picky.

Keith: I’ve experimented with an auction account for my company, a place that had a BMW account, and there wasn’t a huge auction, but any decent auction is still pretty big. And, they were exactly the same way. We didn’t drill any holes anywhere, and just like you said, maybe even the same company, because they would come and inspect every car. And, man, I wish they were looking for dents in the first place, the way they were looking at our repairs.

Derek: Oh, absolutely, man. There’d be days where I’d walk up to a car, they’d be, okay, fix this quarter dent on the left front door. And, I’d be like, what about this baseball sized dent on the right rear door? And, they’d be like, well, don’t worry about that. The auction block’s on the other side of the car.

Keith: Oh, wow. Yeah, so, there was – I get what you’re saying, from an auction standpoint. People have the idea of them, generally, you’re just slamming out 52 cars, and they just go through this hole, and they never come back out. But, in reality, those guys are babysitting every little aspect of the car. You think they’re not, because everything’s moving so fast, and there’s so many people around, but everybody’s driving the show.

Derek: Yeah, they’re on top of it. They’re on top of it out there.

Keith: They sure are.

Derek: And, it was a lot of pressure, and those guys, the guys that I had working with me, they put me through it, man. They would – they would always somehow manage to give me the nasty stuff. You know, the roof – they’d be like, hey, Derek, we’re gonna knock out these 300 cars, but we got this roof times seven over here, what do you think about that? I’m like, sure, man, bring it on. I don’t know if you knew, but I was number one in my class.

Keith: And, I got time.

Derek: Yeah, yeah, they were putting me on some nasty stuff. I remember, one of the first repairs I did after school was a Caravan, Dodge Caravan, and it was like, the deck lid, right under the license plate, and this was 2007ish, so it kinda swoops out, that big, huge bodyline, right? And, this was like a baseball shot, I mean, like a baseball bat shot, right to the bodyline. And, they sat me there, and they said, listen, this car goes on sale Tuesday. I don’t care if it takes you that long, fix it. This was, like, Monday of the week before. Fix this dent, and don’t leave until it’s done.

Keith: Wow.

Derek: And, it was pretty much like that non-stop. They would always find a project for me, and really push me to my limits, which, at the time, sucked. I hated every second of it. But, looking back now, I do the same thing to my guys that I trained, so I definitely understand the value of it.

Keith: Yeah, you learn kind of what you’re made of, Like Navy SEAL training, or something. It’s not about fixing the car, it’s about how long can you stay on this piece of crap and keep working?

Derek: Yeah, it’s a testament to patience, you know. And, I tell a lot of the guys I train, too. I’m like, listen, you can fix anything that I can. It might take you three months to get it right, when I can get it in an hour. It might take you three months. But, if you take the time, and make every single push count, you can probably do the same quality. You’re making less than a penny an hour, but if you can sit there and do it, doing it that way will make you better in the long run, I feel.

Keith: Yeah, it’s a very seldom you find a guy that will do that, but I agree with you that it’s possible.

Derek: Yeah. Absolutely.

Keith: So, how long were you working there in Indy? Couple years?

Derek: A couple years. I did my field training at that auction. I was there, not as long as – I was hoping they’d just kinda forget about me, and leave me there forever, but that didn’t happen. Eventually, they took me out of there, they gave me a Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover dealership, three service drives in one.

Keith: You can’t win, dude, from Chrysler to Volvo Jag Land Rover?

Derek: Listen, it gets better and better. So, they give me this Volvo Land Rover Jag account. There’s three service drives in one building. One on each end and one in the center, and I was responsible for, basically, running from service drive to service drive, and did mostly just service work. The used lot was really small, 50 cars, maybe. I mean, it was tiny. But, it was in this complex that also had a bunch of other accounts in it. All one dealer group, Tom Wood, in Indianapolis. And, they gave that to me, just to see if I could do it.

And, once I proved myself, it was, okay, well, here’s the rest of this cul-de-sac, and it was one cul-de-sac of dealerships. And, it was those three, Porsche-Audi, Lexus and Mercedes. And, it was just this one circle, and eventually I was running all over the place, doing pretty much all the service drives, and then all the used stuff. And then, once I succeeded in proving myself there, was getting consistent work, they said oh, okay. Well, how about we move you to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where we have no accounts, and see if you can start marketing?

Keith Oof.

Derek: So, they pulled me out of there, sent me up to start a market. I was two years out of school at this point, maybe, at the most? Maybe three years, at the most.

Keith: And, you were just down for the challenge, huh?

Derek: You know, I was pretty young. I started 23, so I was still in my mid-20s, and I was still of the opinion that if I didn’t do what I was told, I was gonna get fired.

Keith: Got it.

Derek: I didn’t really understand my value at the time. So, I just did whatever they wanted. So, at one point, right after this, I was still doing the service drives in Indianapolis. I would go at 7:00, 6:30 in the morning, do all my service drive work, and then, around 10:00, 11:00, I would drive two hours up to Fort Wayne to try to build my route up there.

Keith: Man.

Derek: At one point, I had an apartment in both cities, and would basic – no, I’m not joking.

Keith Team player.

Derek: And, Dent Wizard was great, they paid for both of them. You know, I was like, I’m willing to do this, but I’m not billing a ton of money doing this, so you need to help me out, and they paid for me to have two apartments, and really went out of their way. Obviously, we get a gas card and a company vehicle, so that wasn’t a big deal, driving back and forth every day. But, eventually, I was able to – I landed a Mercedes service drive in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by myself. Did some demos for them, landed that one, got a –

Keith: Was there an incumbent you had to boot, or was it kind of open?

Derek: Yeah, it was, it was pretty rough, that Mercedes. I remember the first time I walked in there, you know, I was pretty young, pretty naïve to the industry. I walked in there, I was like, oh, where’s the manager’s office? He came out, I shook his hand, gave him my card, introduced myself. He literally ripped up the card, and threw it on the ground, and said, “Don’t ever come in here again.”

Keith: Nice.

Derek: And walked back in his office. So, I immediately went to the service drive, and handed my card to the service drive manager, and was like, hey, you know, I’m pretty good at doing these cars, I don’t know if I told you, but I’m number one in my class. And, you know, a couple of weeks later, he called me, and said, “Hey, I have a car our guy passed on. Can you come check it out?” It was an S550, with a pretty big dent in the door. Laminate glass, you know. So, I went and, quote unquote, glassed it out, and he was like, okay, you’re my service guy now.

Keith: Cool.

Derek: And, I went and hung out there, and keep in mind, this sounds like a big win, but this was Fort Wayne, Indiana, and they had, like, one service advisor, and their RO count was like, seven. It was horrible. I mean, it was a great experience, and I had fun hanging out with the one service advisor, and two technicians, but it was just a horrible dealership in the middle of nowhere, in Indiana.

Keith: And, the guy ripped up your card.

Derek: Yeah, well, he actually, he ended up getting kicked out of there, which was great. Because I had landed a couple of other accounts. I had landed a Subaru-Acura account, a couple Ford accounts, a Lincoln-Mercury account. I ended up building a decent route up there.

Keith: I mean, you talk about that pretty nonchalantly, but that’s not easy to do, walk in and just land franchise stores.

Derek: Oh, no, it was hard, and it was really hard. I got my teeth kicked in quite a bit, chased off a lot of accounts.

Keith: Yeah, but you know what I like about brand new guys like you who are at that point? I mean, you weren’t brand, brand new, but pretty green, two years. Is that, when you’re new, you don’t know that it’s supposed to be hard, and you don’t know that – you don’t know what it’s like to have an account for eight or ten years, and have some new guy come in, and try to take it from you.

Derek: Yeah, absolutely.

Keith: So, you just kinda go in stupid, and it serves you right, because you don’t come up with your own excuses about why it shouldn’t work. You just say, hey, I just figured out that I can fix these cars.

Derek: Yep.

Keith: I gotta tell some people about it. I gotta show these guys. Do you guys know that I can fix all this stuff? This is amazing!

Derek: Have you guys ever seen this? I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about this. But I do PDR. You know, and of course, everybody’s got a dent guy. But, I had a system, I had a very, a good system that was kinda tailored from information from a couple other veteran guys, and then just what I knew I had to do, to basically throw someone under the bus. I knew what was expected, and I knew what bad work looked like, and I was not ashamed, or afraid to go in there, and be like, you need to come see this car. You need to see what your guy did. And, it worked, I got a lot of accounts up there, and they weren’t all the best. Some of them were pretty horrible, and looking back I thought, why did I even go to that place?

But yeah, that worked out, and then of course, a year of doing that, a year and a half. It didn’t take me very long up there, it was a pretty untapped market. After about a year and a half or so, Dent Wizard said, oh, okay, well, now we need you back in Indianapolis. So, moved back to Indianapolis, I gave my Fort Wayne route over to a newer guy, and moved back to Indianapolis, and kinda took over –

Keith: Did he do okay? Did you kinda follow up with him, to see if he kept everything?

Derek: No, he lost pretty much everything.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: Yeah, unfortunately, he just didn’t – I don’t know. I don’t know why he did it, but he lost, the market was gone. Within six months, he lost everything.

Keith: Yeah, so obviously, the car market didn’t change in six months. It’s a testament to the fact that this business is as much about you as a person and your relationships with the people as it is the repairs you do.

Derek: Absolutely. Even moreso.

Keith: Yeah, it really is. So, and I’m sure you’re gonna touch on that later, when you get to your current gig, but you know, these guys come in thinking they’re just gonna fix the cars, and they can lose entire businesses. Like, not just an account, but an entire route, gone.

Derek: Yeah.

Keith: Because they don’t know how to find the right people, and shake the right hands, and ask them about how the kids’ softball game went, and all that stuff.

Derek: It’s mind boggling to me, you know, I’ve trained – and when I say trained, everybody goes through the training program, but I do a two week pretraining, that I require all my hires to go through with me, where I work with them for two weeks, then I do all the field training in my market. So, I’ve trained a few guys. When I say that, that’s what I mean. I’ve done their field training, and I’ve given a lot of old accounts to people, and I’ve really had only one of them that stays successful. And, I’m sure he’s listening right now. He’s a religious PDR College nerd.

Keith: All right.

Derek: He’s one of my guys, Kevin Culture, I’ll go ahead and throw his name out there.

Keith: Shout out, Kevin.

Derek: And, he –

Keith: You’re famous.

Derek: He’s famous now. He’s one of the few guys that I’ve given that opportunity, that’s really taken it to another level. And, he – but, it’s that relationship. He is a super relatable guy. He knows how to talk, he knows how to push some dents, but he went in and built those relationships, and I’m sure, after six months of hearing, like, oh, when’s Derek coming back?

Keith: Right.

Derek: It just, it stopped, and now they’re his accounts, and he’s doing really, really well. So, yeah, it’s all about that relationship.

Keith: They all say, yeah, that Derek guy, he was good. But Kevin? Oh, over the top.

Derek: Yep. Well, as long as they’re not saying, oh, Derek used to do that for this amount.

Keith: Right.

Derek: Why are you costing so much money? But, I know that’s not happening.

Keith: 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 Auto Mobile Technologies. This stuff has proven invaluable. I had a mountain of paper invoice books, stacked up in a room, in case I wanted to look something up. It was archaic, ridiculous. Now, all of my technicians are on iPhones, they scan the vin of the car, they enter a few pieces of information, including capturing the email for your customers. It’s 2015, you need to be building a mailing list for your customers, so you can keep them updated.

If you wanna run specials, you wanna 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, no paper in the truck to get lost. This is the way to do it. You guys, there’s a lot of options you can take, there’s lots 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.

Derek: But, yeah, so after Fort Wayne, went back to Indianapolis, had a few months there, and what happened with – basically, I took over all the accounts I had left, which I had given to my uncle and another guy to run while I was doing the Fort Wayne thing. When I came back and took them over, I was there for a couple of months, and then, what happened was, Tom Wood, the dealer-owner, he passed away. Gave the dealer group to his son, and his son, of course, had a friend from high school, that owned some PDR tools. And, it took all of a week for me to get the news that I was no longer the servicing technician, right?

And, that’s when Dent Wizard came to me, and said, hey, we have seven options for you, we do not want you to leave the company, we don’t wanna fire you. But, you can’t stay here, there isn’t enough room. All of the other guys in the area were tenured, they were 10, 15, 20 year techs, and they needed the money more than I did, right? So, they gave me seven choices, and I went to Atlanta, and –

Keith: Was one of the choices back to Fort Wayne?

Derek: No, no, no. Hell no. That was not an option for me, it was not an option for them. So, I wanted to get out of there, I was ready for a change. I had just gotten through a pretty bad relationship, and was going through a divorce, and just needed a change of pace. So, I chose Atlanta, and, real quick – it only took about three or four months of me being in Atlanta before all of the Tom Wood stuff was our again.

Keith: Wow.

Derek: And that guy got kicked out. Not my uncle, he runs pretty much all of those accounts still, to this day. And does really, really well, obviously. He’s a great tech, so those ended up getting – we ended up getting those back, which was really nice. I wish I wouldn’t have moved halfway across the country before that happened, but it is what it is, and I love living in Atlanta, so.

Keith: You know, that’s what a lot of guys need to remember, when that happens, because that scenario happens – not the death and the friend from high school. But, the management change, and they bring in somebody else, or they go in house. Just be patient, because it’s all gonna fall to pieces in five minutes. And, if it lasts three months, it’ll probably last forever.

Derek: Yep.

Keith: But, almost none of them make it that long, because they butcher a couple of nice cars, and it takes, like one or two vocal managers, to like, stand up at their meeting and go, what the heck are we doing here? We had no problems with this, now we have problems. Why are – why did we switch this? And they go, all right, we tried this, but let’s get Keith, let’s get Derek back here.

Derek: Yeah, absolutely.

Keith: And get them back, let’s get back to selling cars, because that’s what we do, we don’t even – we figured out, we don’t know what we’re doing.

Derek: I think that gets kinda looked over a lot. I see a lot of guys complain about, so-and-so stole my account, I lost my account to this person, I lost my account to that person. Usually, it’s a pricing thing, usually, the cheaper guy wins, which is horrible, but that’s how it goes, it’s a business. But, in my opinion, if you were any good, you’ll get it back.

Keith: You will.

Derek: You’ll get it back, and you’ll get some –

Keith: It also depends on how tenacious you are. You know –

Derek: Yeah, absolutely.

Keith: Like, if you look at it like the dealership is a girl, and you were going out, and she says, you know, I’m thinking I’m gonna see somebody else, and you’re like, I’m out, then. I’m never gonna see you again in my life.

Derek: Right.

Keith: But, it’s those – you know, we’ve all got that one friend, who’s like – he’s so persistent with girls, you’d think, like, how come no one’s stabbed him in the face yet? But, the dude always has a lot of girlfriends, because he just won’t give up. Like, they say no, and he asks again, and again and again, and if you treat the dealership the same way, they say, you know what? We’re going with somebody else. I understand, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Derek: Yeah. He’s a facilitator.

Keith: You just show up again.

Derek: You just show up again.

Keith: And, it’s like, just making sure you guys are taken care of. Let me just – did you know this was going on? And they just, they don’t go away. I have – I don’t actively pursue wholesale accounts here, but I get pulled into them, once in a while, when someone can’t or won’t do something. And then, I’ve been given a couple of accounts, and I’m not gonna turn the work down.

Derek: Sure.

Keith: I’m not really in the business of going and trying to take guys work, because I don’t really need it, but my phone – someone says, hey, will you do this franchise store? I’ll say yes. But, the couple of times that’s happened, the incumbent guy has gone in and done what I probably would never do, and it’s like, literally cry, and complain and yell, and they give them the store back.

Derek: Right. You have to be willing to sit outside their house, at 3:00 in the morning, with the headlights off, revving your engine, day in, day out, day and night, throwing bricks through the window. But, like I said, you can get it back.

Keith: You can, it’s been amazing to me, and this happened at one particular high-end dealer, and I thought – I said, dude, I don’t really need your work, but I’m perplexed. Like, why did you go through all this effort, of calling me out here, and then making the switch, and now you’re switching back again? Like, like, that’s the same girl that cheated on you, right? You know that, right? But, they stay, so that’s the lesson. If you’re on the verge of losing an account, dude, get nasty. Go in there and start –

Derek: Get greedy.

Keith: Yeah, start crying. Lay down in front of a car they just sold, and don’t move.

Derek: Yeah, you know, just show up, kick in every panel on every car, and see how the other guy handles it. You know? Don’t do that, that’s not good.

Keith: 6:00 on a Monday, nobody’ll be there.

Derek: But, yeah, you know, as long as you’re worth it, get it back. If you’re the guy that needs to be their technician, figure it out.

Keith: Yeah, and you can.

Derek: Absolutely.

Keith: So, they move you down to Atlanta, how did they entice you to take that move? What did they tell you about that place?

Derek: It’s funny, they said, we’ve got this account – you know, they gave me seven choices, like I said, I narrowed it down really fast. It took me maybe five minutes to say, nope, nope, nope, nope, yeah, maybe. And yes. I drove down to Atlanta, I drove down on a Sunday, showed up Monday, met the technician, met the management, and I walked into that dealership, and it’s huge. It’s huge, it’s insanely – it’s the biggest dealership I’ve ever seen. It’s three buildings, three parking decks. They have offsite parking for the employees, you have to be shuttled into work, It’s a beast. And, I went on the service drive, you know.

I had come from, my service drives were predominantly – my Porsche-Audi store had three service advisors. My Lexus store had five service advisors, my Mercedes store had seven service advisors. This place had 18 service advisors.

Keith: Man.

Derek: And, they’re doing 150 ROs a day on the service drive, they’re selling 300 used cars a month. And, I looked at this tech, and we went out that night, to dinner, and I was like, dude, so, what’s wrong, man? Because this is insane. Why would you ever leave? This place is like a goldmine! He was like, you want it, take it. I can’t do it anymore. He was just having problems getting along with management, he was a really reclusive guy, he was never a part of the dealership. He went and did the dents, never built the relationships. When I went there, the GM at the time pulled me aside and said, “Hey, this is so-and-so, she runs the show.” This lady, she owned the paint operation, paint and wheels.

And, he said, “She’s in charge, do whatever she tells you to do.” And, I said, “Okay, that’s fine.”

Keith: So, she worked for the dealer?

Derek: No, she owned her own company.

Keith: Oh.

Derek: But, she was the main vendor. And, I’ll tell you now, that woman now works for Dent Wizard.

Keith: Got it.

Derek: Her company went under while I was there, and she is now employed by us. But, that’s how it went. I said, “Okay, that’s fine. She reminds me a lot of my mom, so I know how to handle this type of person.”

Keith: That’s pretty, that’s kinda strange. They have a vendor, and he’s saying she runs the show here?

Derek: Well, reconditioning wise, I mean, basically –

Keith: Yeah, but that’s weird, right?

Derek: Well, you know –

Keith: It’s unique.

Derek: I guess.

Keith: I’ve never had a dealership tell me, check in with this other vendor to do it.

Derek: Oh, that’s how it goes here, because now, I’m that guy. Now, I’m – they send the new people to me, and they’re like, oh, here’s the new detail team, if you have any questions, here’s Derek, he does the dents. Ask him if you need any help.” Now, I’m that person.

Keith: Oh, just like, where do I put the car, where do I get the keys, and all that.

Derek: Right, right, where do I – well, a little bit of that, but moreso what cars need to be done?

Keith: Interesting.

Derek: Where is my work approved, and that’s completely different now, I changed that really quick, but that’s how it was. I went in there, and the guy that took, I basically took over for, he went in there and said, “Okay, here’s the deal. Do all the certified pre-owned cars. BMW only. They’re gonna go through every process, and then, at the very end, before it goes to the lot, they’re gonna be parked here. If it’s a CPO car, just fix it. Don’t touch any off-brand cars, don’t look at any non-CPO.” And, I said, “Wow, that sucks. You’re missing a lot of work.” So, I did that for a year, and then started just pushing my way into other stuff. And, I was really fortunate, I’m at the point now, I’ve been there so long, I have more time at this dealership than any manager that works there.

I’ve gone through four GMs. I’ve gone through, like, ten UCMs, I’ve gone through inventory managers left and right, and blah, blah, blah, And, how I’ve done it is, is every time someone new shows up, – like, I just had a man, the GM got fired two weeks ago, and they brought in this new young guy. Super cool guy. So, I go in, I always – I try to be the first person to introduce myself from the vendors. Because there’s still another paint company there, I just do all the PDR. There’s still another paint and wheel company, interiors, etc. I go in, I try to be the first one to hand my card out, and I say, “Hey, my name is Derek Reed. I work with Dent Wizard; I do all the PDR here. This is what I do, and this is how I do it.”

I basically lay down my pricing structure, I tell them I work on everything. I do this, and I do that. As long as you’re okay with that, you won’t have any problems. I will make sure that PDR is never an issue in your office. You’ll never hear anybody bring, come in here with a PDR complaint. And, they always go, okay, that sounds great, keep doing what you’re doing.

Keith: Cool.

Derek: And, every time I’ve done that, I’ve added something to the list. So, the first time I did this, I said, “Okay, my name’s Derek Reed, I do all the CPO and non-CPO BMWs, and this is what I charge.” Okay, that’s great, keep doing what you’re doing. Next time, I said, “Okay, Derek Reed, I do all the CPO, non-CPO and all of the off-brand cars, under 100,000 miles.” Okay, that’s great. Keep doing what you’re doing. Next guy came in, I said, “Hey, I’m Derek Reed, I fix everything.” He said, “Okay, keep doing what you’re doing.” So, I just kept adding more and more and more cars to my list, and now, I’m involved in processes, so I get to – I get to fix everything. It’s phenomenal. I don’t even have to ask questions; I just fix cars all day. It’s great.

Keith: Yeah, that’s how my best accounts were, they’re just happy that you’re there, just show up and fix stuff.

Derek: Yeah.

Keith: And give us a bill for it.

Derek: Yeah, you know, and it, you know, I made a list about the topic, how to make more money at these mega dealerships. Number one on my list was time, dedication, and patience. If you want – at this level, this caliber, if you want to be at this level, to where you can fix anything, it’s gotta be a full time thing, it’s a marriage. And, I tell a lot of people, when my – Dent Wizard managers, if we get a new management or something, they’ll come to me, and they’ll say, “Hey, is there anything I can do for you? I hear you’re the guy in town.” I say, “Yeah, you can leave me alone. Don’t call me, don’t ever ask me to go anywhere else. I’m married to this place, for better or for worse. I might have a bad day, but I know I’m gonna make it up the next day.”

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: Like, I know the work is here, and it’s consistent. Don’t try to pull me out anywhere else. Don’t – just leave me alone. Let me live here. And, I do, I’m there 7:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, every single day, no exceptions. I work inside with the shop technicians, I’ve got a spot, I’ve got a box of tools, just like all the shop guys, you know. I mean, I’m integrated, I’m a part of the dealership. It took a long time, but that’s part of what it takes to really maximize a dealership of that level, is to really be a part of it. Not just show up once or twice a week, and fix some dents and leave.

Keith: Yeah, I’m sure at this point a lot of guys are saying, yeah. They sell 300 used cars, that’s pretty unique. Not many stores do that kind of volume, and that’s true. But, it’s the same principles that work at a 300 used car a month store work at a 100 or a 150 car store.

Derek: Yep.

Keith: You may not be there as many hours, but you’ve gotta be all in. Everything else is the same, except maybe you’re there 7:00 to 2:00 instead of 7:00 to 4:00, you know?

Derek: Absolutely. It takes dedication to really maximize a big account like that. And, it’s – some days I go to work, and have a ton of work. I’m doing 10 to 15 used cars a day, plus all of my service stuff, on average. Some days, I go to work, and there’s like, two used cars on the trade walk. And, I’m like, oh, man, today is gonna suck. But, I might not bill a ton of money that day, but that’s when I’m building that relationship. That’s when I’m going to meetings, you know. I’m at the point now where, if they have management meetings, they say, hey, something’s going wrong. We need to solve this process, or come up with a solution. I’m in there, at that conference table, with all the other managers. Because I’m the only Dent Wizard person there, so I’m the representative for my company, right?

So, I go in, and I sit down, and at this point, I’ve had my hand in developing the protocol. I specifically came up with a protocol for the dealership a couple years ago, that said, when the cars get traded in, they get parked right here. When they get parked here, then we do a trade walk, which, the trade walk, I wanna talk about that, because I don’t know if many people know what that is, or have one. But, if you’re not involved in it, if your dealership has one, and you’re not involved in it, you’re an idiot. It is where all the money is made.

Keith: All right, well. Let’s talk about that.

Derek: Okay, so I work at Global BMW in Atlanta. It’s a Sonic Automotive Company, and they have a very – of course, a dealership of this caliber, is gonna be some sort of dealer market, you know, dealer group. So, Sonic Automotive, and they have this playbook. Everything is supposed to run by the playbook. Every day. We have what we call a trade in, or a trade walk. It’s the day before’s trade ins are all parked at one location, this bullpen. Every day, at 10:00, all of the vendors show up and say, this is what’s wrong with the car, this is how much money it’s gonna take to get this car sellable.

I show up early, and do it every day, before any other vendor. I always wanna make sure my price is the first one on the window. I write it on the window, I put PDR=this, and then the paint guys come in, say bumper, wheels, etc. etc. So, then, at 10:00 every day, all of the managers and all of the sales associates that are available come out, and we walk around these cars. And, they say, okay, we have a 2012 X-5 with this many miles on it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We paid this much money for it, it needs $150 in dents, it needs $200 in wheels, blah, blah, blah, blah. What can we sell this car for, and make money? So, they add up all of the vendor costs. The CPO costs, the wheels that need to be replaced, or the tires and the windshield. Everything that goes into this car to get it on the lot, they add it up, and they say, okay, to make this car sellable to our qualifications, we need to spend $4,000.

We paid $19,000 for it, what can we sell it for and make a profit? And then, everybody gets to decide what the car’s gonna cost on the lot. So, obviously – and I’m involved in that, too. I’ll be like, aw, $43,000! It’s like The Price is Right for me. I have no idea what it takes to sell a car, so I’m just always the highest guy. And, they’ll look at me like a fool, and then they’ll say, “Okay, we can get $26,9 for this car.” But the most important thing with doing this is, I don’t care what they sell the car for, they are gonna make their profit. That’s what their goal is. And, I have already been added into the markup of the car; to make sure my money’s in there. If you’re coming in after the car’s hit the lot, it’s said and done.

Like, if you’re walking around the lot, saying, all right, well, this car has got $100 in dents in it, they’re gonna say, oh, well, we spent $4,000 in other stuff, before you got here, and there’s not enough room.

Keith: Yeah, nobody’s a strange – if you work in the wholesale world at all, you’ve heard it 100 times. “We’re buried in this one, smoked in this one, upside down in this one.”

Derek: Yep. You have to make sure that you’re what buried them in it. You have to be ahead of the game, man, and like I said, I wanna be the first cost on that car. So, when they come up, they’ll say, okay, we have an inspection for this much. And, their inspections have various tiers of inspection, depending on the miles on the car, and the value of the car, and then we need a detail. And then we need – what else do we need? I mean, everything needs an inspection, service and a detail. Every car. And then, they’ll say, okay, what else we got? We got PDR for $200, we got a front bumper for $165, we got a rear bumper for $200. Whatever. And then they’ll say, sales guys, what do we need to fix on this car to make it sellable?

And, it’s up to the sales guys to decide where all this money’s being spent, because ultimately, it’s their profit.

Keith: Interesting.

Derek: And, if those sales guys hate my guts, you better believe they’re gonna be like, we don’t need to do the dents. It doesn’t matter about them selling the car to the customer at that point.

Keith: No.

Derek: Because I know for a fact, they don’t like the paint company very much, and they’re always like, oh, man, we’ll just touch that bumper up. The bumper’ll be hanging off the car, and they’ll be like, just buff it and touch it up, but let’s fix all the dents for sure. Because you know, I’m there every day. I eat lunch with these people. I buy them lunch sometimes. I hang out with them, I’m part of the family. So, my cost is first. And, I know, as it gets added up down the window, and it gets further and further, they’re like, “Do we really need to paint these wheels? Do we really need to do this bumper?”

And it’s always paint. Do we really need to do the driver interior? It’s always interior. It’s all one company that does all that stuff.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: It’s never do we need to do the dents? Because I get my money in there so fast. And, I’m also at the point right now where I’m involved in appraisals. So, if a car – my pricing guide. I know, some people have seen my pricing guide, I know you guys talk about it all the time. I took my pricing guide, and I gave every single one, my retail pricing guide, to appraising managers, for wholesale work. And, I said, “Listen, this is what I cost, for me to do my job. Take away the fact that you guys get a crazy deal on the wholesale end, but this is what I cost, this is what my time is worth. So, when they do the appraisals, they’ll take my retail guide out there.

And, they’ll say, “Oh, man, we’d love to have this piece of car in our inventory, but look at this big dent in the quarter panel. And, they’ll hold my guide and say, “Oof, that’s gonna cost $1,000 for our PDR guy to fix. Gotta make some room in the budget, you know?”

Keith: That’s a great tip right there, just using that.

Derek: It’s huge, it’s huge, and it’s gone a long way. Man, they love it, because they can show the customer, this is why we’re not giving you this much money for this car. If it’s something really crazy, they’ll call me. I’m always there, I’m always available, so they’ll call me and say, hey, I’m doing appraisal, and you come up here and take a look at this car? And, that is the perfect opportunity, I can make as much room as I want on this car. I can go up there and say, “Yeah, I can absolutely fix that, it’s gonna be $1.200.” At this point, we’re talking to the customer, so I’m customer pricing.

Keith: Right.

Derek: So, it’s gonna be $1,200. It’s gonna be $800, whatever. And then, we’ll walk back inside, I’ll go sit down in the office, and the manager will say, “Okay, what are you really gonna charge me?” And, I get – it’s a win/win for me, because I go, “Well, I just told you it was gonna be $1,200 for the customer. I’ll tell you what, because of our relationship, I’m here, I’ll do it for $600.” And, they’re like “Oh, so we don’t have to pay?” I’m like “Nah, come on, man, you don’t – I don’t know if I told you, I was number one in my class.” And I get my money right then, because they build it into the cost of the car, instantaneously. And then, the next day on the trade walk, when we’re trade walking that car, it’s not a question.

They’ve already added it into the price, they’ve already taken it into consideration. So, they’ll say, okay, we’ve got an inspection, we’ve got detail. Derek’s gonna do the dents for $600, and then we’ve got all this paint stuff. Do we really need to paint this bumper? Do we really need to paint these wheels? And, it’s a great opportunity to just get ahead of it. Build the room in the price to start with, and I know a lot of places don’t do trade walks. Everybody does. Every dealership does something like that, but most people aren’t involved in it.

Keith: Yeah, sometimes, it’s just one manager doing all of that by himself.

Derek: Yeah, exactly.

Keith: He’s looking at it, he’s appraising the damage, he’s deciding the sale price, etc.

Derek: Right. And, at the very, very least, if that guy, or woman, not to sound sexist. If that person doesn’t understand what they’re looking at, or how much it’s gonna cost, they’re never gonna leave enough room for you to get what you want.

Keith: That’s really a great tip. I’ve been in this business a long time, and no one’s ever presented that scenario to me like that.

Derek: It’s so valuable. I’ve been able to raise my prices so, so much since I – I started doing the trade walk at this place, probably four years ago. Before that, it was set pricing, you know, it was panel pricing. I averaged about $100 a car back then, to go around a whole car. And, I – the cars would show up after everything was said and done, and I was like, the last person on the list. I was the low man on the totem pole, and I would have to show up and just fix it, and if it was over $100, I would have to go beg for forgiveness, and feel like an asshole.

Keith: Right.

Derek: You know, like, oh, man, I just, I don’t know, man, it’s pretty nasty. And they’re like, we’ll give you $110. But now, since I’ve been involved with it, my prices just go up and up and up and up, because I’m smart enough to make it a part of the process. Now, I can say, well, maybe you should bump this car a grand. Instead of wanting $25,9, let’s ask $27.9, because I’m gonna need $1,000 to do all this hail damage on it. Oh, we didn’t even see the hail damage. Yeah, well, it’s there. So, before we get to the pricing, let’s have that built in already. And then, they can go out and say, well our PDR guy says it’s got hail damage on it, and he’s gonna charge us $1,500 or $2,000. And, the appraisal goes down.

So the customer, unfortunately, gets less money, but the dealership has more room to work with.

Keith: And, you know, it’s a great parallel to the retail business, because what you’ve done is you’ve – by being involved in all of these processes, by meeting all of these managers, and by doing – I mean, you’ve told us about a lot of stuff you’re doing, and none of it is fixing a car, yet.

Derek: No, that’s – honestly, most days, that’s the least of my concern.

Keith: Right, so –

Derek: Because I know I can fix dents. It’s – getting the most money is the hard part.

Keith: So, you have taken the focus off of the price – what is the cost to fix a dent, which is what everyone thinks a dealership is hung up on –

Derek: Yep.

Keith: And, you’ve brought value in all of these other areas. You’re helping appraise cars, you’re helping move, you’re helping coordinate the reconditioning. You’re there alongside the used car manager, or inventory manager, when they’re appraising stuff in the back and the front.

Derek: Lease turn ins, everything. The lease, especially –

Keith: Everything.

Derek: When she’s got a lease turn in, she’ll call me and say, “Derek, come take a look at this car.” Okay, perfect. Because I don’t wanna have to do this for wholesale prices. If we can get it priced appropriately, I know BMW charges – like, our account, charges about $400 for anything over golf ball-sized. So, if I can come in there and say I’ll do it for $389, they’re gonna save $11 or whatever, they’re gonna save a couple bucks, and then I can get the retail job, as opposed to getting a trade in the next day, where I’m like, I’ll do the whole car for $200.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: I’m losing money, but you know, you’ve just gotta be involved in everything. And, it goes so much further than that. Now, with the trade walk, at the point that I was dealing with, after the trade walk, they’re all parked in this bullpen area, right? And then they have these two porters. My Sherpas, basically, but these guys are really lazy. They don’t do a whole lot of work, because they don’t make a whole lot of money.

Keith: I know that they have a golf cart.

Derek: So, yo, there’s so many golf carts, it’s out of control. Everybody gets a golf cart. I’m the only one who doesn’t have a golf cart. I have a mountain bike that I ride around from place to place, it’s awesome. So, these guys – we get done the trade walk, and then they would go in and eat breakfast. We have a restaurant in the dealership.

Keith: Wow.

Derek: So, they would go in and eat breakfast, or take an early lunch, and I would be like, man, I need these keys, I need these keys. Because now, I’m the first in line. After the trade walk, I get the car before anybody. So, I get the car first, then it goes to the mechanics. After mechanics, it goes to paint, wheels, interior, after that, it goes to detail. I am first in line, at all times. Again, I need to make sure my invoice is in first. Because, by the time it gets to paint, they’re already looking at a list of mechanic estimates, and everything else, and they’re saying, well, do we really need to do the bumper, do we really need to do the wheels? If my invoice is first on the RO, it’s just eating up money that’s meant to be taken up.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: It’s not even getting close to that line.

Keith: And it’s done with, you’re not gonna undo it.

Derek: And, it’s done with. Yeah, hell no. So, I noticed these porters were slowing me down, so what I said was, okay, here’s what I’m gonna do for you guys. Here’s the value I’m gonna add, and I’m not gonna charge you for it. After the trade walk, you give me the keys first. I will tag them. I’ll tag them, and I’ll put them in the key track. I’ll punch them in. So, I put the little yellow tags on there, and I fill out the information in the card, I punch them into the key track, make sure they’re programmed into the system, and that’s – to them, that’s something their porters don’t have to do, basically, it’s free. It’s something I’m doing for no charge. But, I am, because they don’t question when I need more money for cars.

Keith: Right.

Derek: That’s where I’m getting paid on that stuff.

Keith: And, quite frankly, you’re gonna be in that car anyways, putting a sticker on the windshield.

Derek: Yeah. It makes no difference to me. Even the service advisors that run the used car part. We have two service advisors, that do all my POs, the coordinate with mechanics and stuff. At one point I noticed, every car, every CPO car, they have to reprogram the keys on a BMW. So, when we’d done the trade walk, and they’d be like, can I have those six keys to the BMW, to reprogram them, I’d go, okay, sure. Ten minutes later, 15 minutes later, I’m waiting on these cars, so I said, “You know what? Just let me do it, it’s one less thing he has to worry about, and I get to get to work faster.” I took out everything that slowed me down throughout my day, and just decided, I’ll do it.

I don’t wanna rely on you anymore, let me handle it, go about your day, do your other work, I’ve got this covered, no charge.

Keith: And, the only reason they were willing to put that trust in you is that you had spent so much time building it in other areas. Like, if it was your first day on the lot, or first week, and you were like, hey, I’ll put those stickers in –

Derek: Yeah, yeah.

Keith: They’d be like, yeah. Thanks but no thanks.

Derek: Yeah, no, no. This is – like I said, I’ve been there awhile, and I’m there every single day. You know, I get invited to be on the softball team, and I get invited to the company picnics, and I’m – so, there’s, that’s the uniqueness. You know, I know there’s a lot of stuff I can get away with that a lot of other people listening can’t. But, it’s not impossible, you just have to – and, it’s funny. It almost goes against everything you guys normally talk about, but you almost have to just put all of your eggs in that basket, and make it work.

Keith: Yeah, and there’s no doubt that you have risk there that you wouldn’t, if you had 12 other stores.

Derek: Sure.

Keith: But, you’ve decided to go all in, with the knowledge that that could happen, and you’ve got enough experience landing cold accounts that, I’m sure, if you got canned from there tomorrow, by the end of the next week, you’d be working somewhere else, doing something.

Derek: Well, yeah, and you know, and that’s another thing about working with Dent Wizard, I never – I’m never worried about having work. We have a lot of accounts, you know, I know a lot of people like to talk about, we’re non-existent in their market, we’re not – we’ve been kicked out of every single market, they’ve pushed us out and pushed us out. But, in Atlanta, we have a fair amount of work. So much work that I always have to bring in new people, and we have a lot of guys that are really busy all the time. And, if it came down to it, I lose my account, I’m gonna say, okay, well, Kevin, give me all those accounts back that I gave you, and good luck finding some new stuff.

And then, I’m gonna go find work, and they’re gonna have something for me to do. I might not be billing what I am billing now, but I’ll be billing something.
Keith: So, let’s talk about billing. Give me an idea about what kinda numbers you can squeeze out of this place, and do you keep track of what’s coming from the service drive, and what’s coming from the used car department?

Derek: Absolutely. When I got there, the guy who I took over for, he was like – he was really proud of this, he was like, “I have no problem anywhere between $10 and $13,000 a month here.” And, I was like, okay, sweet. Because you ain’t doing much. I think I can push this pretty far. And, it took me some time, but within a year, I was doing 14 to 16K a month. Within a couple years, I was 16 to 18. And, I kinda – I plateaued at 16 to 18, for a while. Last year, I would say thanks to PDR College, and getting involved with the industry, Facebook groups, Door Ding, over the last couple years, I started to get up into that consistent 20K a month range. This year has been record-setting for me.

After incorporating my price guide – shout out to Paul Corban for blowing the doors open on that one, because –

Keith: No doubt.

Derek: Oh my goodness. Oh, my goodness. If I – I feel retarded for all the years I wasted, not making this much money. It’s stupid how – it’s ridiculous. That pricing guide has boosted me between 5 to 7K a month, on average. Some months more, some months a little bit less, but I’m consistent. Every month this year, between 25 and 30K a month, at this one dealership.

Keith: That’s awesome.

Derek: It’s phenomenal, I mean, you know there’s guys out there going, oh, that sucks, a Dent Wizard guy, only billing 30K a month? But, for me, it’s incredible.

Keith: Now, listen, Derek. I talk to a lot of guys through the show, and through some of the coaching that I do. 25 to 30K, especially from one account, is almost unheard of. I’m sure there’s guys doing it, and doing better, but it’s so far into the exception, that you, it almost doesn’t exist.

Derek: Yeah, no. And, even Dent Wizard, I’ve become –

Keith: Oh, yeah, you’ve got all the data right there, they’ll tell you.

Derek: Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I’ve become really involved over the years with Dent Wizard, to where, now, I’m involved in a lot of corporate policy. Because once I started getting involved with the industry – I know a lot of people listening have seen me on the Facebook groups, bring up Dent Wizard, purposely, to have these conversations, and I want everybody to know that it’s only because I want to understand, because even though you don’t think I have a voice with the company, my voice is heard. I go to these meetings, I talk to the vice president, he flew out, hung out with me, last week, the week before, just to pick my brain on stuff that we could be doing.

And, to make the company better for our technicians in general. And, the stuff that I hear online, all of the negativity, I bring them that stuff, and positive suggestions. So, I say, we need better tool selections, we need better discount programs for tools, we need this, we need blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, everything that I’m trying to do is to make my company better, in the hopes that it helps everybody else that’s not a part of the company. I’m regularly like, I need to be doing everything I can to help my local competition raise their prices.

I’m – I’ve talked to guys like Matt Moore, and other guys in my area. Not necessarily my area, but in my state, and we talk regularly about how to get our prices up. And, he doesn’t work for Dent Wizard, but if I help him raise his prices, I can raise my prices, and it’s – guys like Hayes Freeman, I talk to him all of the time. So much so that he sent me a referral the other day, and I hope to have the chance to give him some work someday. We don’t work together, but we have a respect for each other. And, I do believe that me being with Dent Wizard offers me somewhat of an ability to try to help. And, if I’m not trying to help, I’m being lazy.

Keith: You know, your attitude is really awesome, and I like it. I’m gonna swing back a little bit, and it might seem like I’m a little self-serving, but let’s go all the way through this. With Paul’s pricing guide, and your knowledge, meeting all these people in the industry, and listening to the podcast, and all of these other sources together, 5 to 7K a month more, on average, doing the same amount of work, same amount of hours.

Derek: Less work.

Keith: Less work, okay.

Derek: Less work.

Keith: 60 to 84K a year, in the same place, doing less with the same tools.

Derek: Yes.

Keith: Okay, so that’s the kind of swing that you can have, when you have the right people in your Rolodex, when you’re in the right places, having the right conversations, and listening, and then making some executions, back at your normal stuff.

Derek: Absolutely, it’s mind boggling.

Keith: Yeah, so you were at our advanced skills seminar last year, and Paul was there, and he touched on just a little bit of his pricing and his strategies. And, this year, Paul and I are gonna be presenting together for half a day, and we just did kind of a, what, an hour, hour and a half on pricing last year. So, if these are the kind of changes that you wanna make, what would you say, Reed? Should they come to the seminar?

Derek: I’ll tell you what, that seminar – not only was it a blast just to meet everybody, it was the first time I’d – I’d been working on the podcast for months, before I got out there, and I met you guys for the first time. But, meeting guys like Paul, and the other guys that came out? That, in and of itself, having the opportunity to communicate and dialogue was invaluable. Forget the fact that we learned anything else, that was incredible.

Keith: It really was.

Derek: Just, the bond and the friendship that was built there was outstanding. And then, add in the fact that we saw some pretty impressive repairs done, we got to play with some tools that turned out to be junk or not, and we got to learn a lot of stuff. I wouldn’t wanna miss it. If you’re thinking about going, and you’re not sure, you’re probably – you should either go, or say you’re not going. It’s stupid to be on the fence.

Keith: It really is.

Derek: If you’re on the fence, get off the fence and go. Because if you don’t get off the fence, you’re not gonna have a spot. Because I guarantee, it’s gonna sell out, fast.
Keith: And, I’m sure it is. Guys are already messaging me and emailing me, asking if they can get a spot, and it’s like, well, we haven’t opened it yet, so I appreciate that. As soon as it’s ready, we’ll let you know, but just seeing some of the guys there, that I’ve stayed in touch with, and hearing the connections that they made at that seminar, and then later in the year, they’re at a hailstorm, working with guys they didn’t know last year, and making 20, 50K, right there. And, that’s all from the connections, and that’s not even from information at the seminar. That’s just from networking –

Derek: Right, that’s just network.

Keith: Other high-level guys.

Derek: Yeah, it was incredible, because you know, MTE, in and of itself, it was my first time going. I loved it. It was incredible.

Keith: It’s fun, isn’t it?

Derek: It was so much fun. I don’t know if I would call what you guys were putting up with would be fun. I got to have a blast, but you guys were sweating, you guys were hustling all week. But it was an incredible experience, but there was something about the seminar that was completely different, you know?

Keith: Well, here’s the difference, Derek. MTE, anybody’s in the front door, right? So, you just have a giant building full of guys who think dents are cool. But, the seminar is like, you know, you grab that whole MTE and squeeze it all out, and just dropped out the essence into a jar, and that’s what was at the paid seminar. These are the guys that are willing to cough up their own money to talk about dents and try to get better. So, those guys – those are all the high-level guys. Those are the guys that, if somebody could say, okay, there’s 35 guys at the seminar, or at the trade show I want you to meet, let me introduce you to them one by one, they’re all in that building at the same time, with no one else in their ears, and no one else clouding their face, trying to ask some stupid questions.

Derek: Right.

Keith: So, that’s the difference. These are the guys that you make sure you wanna meet, instead of the –

Derek: And, you could almost say, touching back to an episode a couple weeks ago, that – it’s almost like its own mastermind group.

Keith: Yeah, absolutely.

Derek: That seminar is like – are there other people at MTE I hoped would have been there? Absolutely, they’ll be there next year. That’s the mastermind group, for sure. Those are the people that wanna take the time, invest in their career, sit down, have a round table discussion, in a low-key level environment. And, it’s priceless, absolutely priceless.

Keith: It’s funny that you touched on that, because Shane and I have alluded to the fact that we’re changing a few things here and there, and one of the things that we’re talking about is, requiring guys, as an exercise, at the show, at the seminar, to form a mastermind group at the seminar, with two other guys, and they’re gonna be –

Derek: Smart.

Keith: And, they’re gonna be on weekly calls with each other, working on their stuff.

Derek: It’s smart.

Keith: You get your book out, and you find two other people in there, and you make sure you guys schedule a call once a week, and it’s a mastermind call. It has nothing to do with Shane and I, it’s just making guys network with other high-level guys, and it just makes you ridiculously powerful at the end of the year. I’ve experienced a similar swing, like you’re talking about with Paul’s pricing guide. We’re doing stuff, sometimes 40 or 50 percent more expensive than we used to, with less resistance. And, my prices were already good, they weren’t bad at all. That’s why I’m on a podcast. But, with some of the really big stuff, we’d fall off. We’d hit a mental barrier around $1,000.

Derek: And, that’s really the difference, too. When I implemented my price guide, the way I did my account, yeah. A lot of people are just gonna have their one, and they’re using it with their customer. But, I have 18 advisors. I gave each one of them a copy. And, I trained them, and I educated them how to use it, and the only real resistance I got from them was the first day I took it to the service director, the manager of the service department. And, he was like, “Woah, giving yourself quite the pay raise this year!” And, I was like, absolutely.

And, the only thing that was different was the big stuff. I said, well, you have to understand, my low price? My one-inch dent, my half inch dent, my three-inch dent, that’s always been the same price. But, from this and every day forward, the six and seven-inch dent? That’s a completely different ballgame now. I’m done doing foot-long dents for $350.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: That’s not gonna happen anymore. And, he said, “Well, just, why the price boost?” And, I said, listen, I’ve been doing this almost ten years, and I’ve been charging the same price for almost ten years. How often do you give yourself a raise? How often do you make more money? Every year, I bet, you have a meeting with someone, they evaluate you, and if you’re good at what you do, you get more money. Well, that’s how I wanna run my life. I get better every year, I get more efficient. I buy more tools, my quality is exceeded year after year. Why shouldn’t I charge more money? And, he was like, absolutely, I agree. Go ahead, give it to everybody.

Keith: Cool. I’ve given it to my advisors, and I haven’t got anybody really – nobody’s resisted it, but I haven’t got anybody really using it either.

Derek: I have – it’s give or take. I have 18 guys, I have six of those guys, actually five guys and one girl, who kill it. They fell in love with it, and I have had one guy, he, two weeks ago, he sold over $4,000 in retail, by himself. And, his goal – he told me, his goal – and he’s like a super car nerd guy, he loves what I do. He’s always back there watching me work, and we’ve become friends. We go out and have dinner every now and again. He told me, my weekly goal – because here’s the other thing. Every Sunday, I run a report. And, this’ll go back to what we were talking before, how it breaks down.

Every Sunday, I run a report for my service department. It lists every sale I had through the service drive for the prior week, listed by advisor. And, then, it breaks every advisor down into day, how much they sold that day, what their maximum profit was, etc. etc. etc. So, I have very detailed information on all of this stuff. Every Monday morning, as soon as I get into work, I send that to everybody. All 18 of them. And, the six, seven people that are always on that list get to see how much money they made, and blah, blah, blah, and then the other ten people get to say, “Damn, how are these guys doing this? Because that’s, they just made twice as much money as I did last week, selling dents, you know?” So, it builds this competitive nature, which is really nice.

Keith: That’s a genius idea. Most of – I don’t know if it’s a regional thing or what, but most of the service departments here, and around the area, all the ones that I talked to, I guess, the advisors don’t get paid a commission on sublets.

Derek: Oh, yeah, that sucks.

Keith: That’s crazy, right?

Derek: That sucks.

Keith: And, I can’t find a reason for that, and I’ve talked to a couple of managers, and they’re like, oh, yeah, we just can’t get them to sell dents. I’m like, well, have you talked to them?

Derek: Pay them.

Keith: You don’t pay them, and even worse than not paying them, they have a chance to have their income reduced if the survey comes back crappy, due to something I did or didn’t do. And, they all tell me, “Keith, I know that’s not gonna happen, because we’ve been dealing with you forever. But, you have to understand, there’s a possibility.” And, I said, not, look, I’m all about risk, and mitigating it, and if I was in your shoes, it’s a no-win, only a chance to lose, I wouldn’t play either. What – that’s a stupid game. But, they won’t change it, they won’t pay the guys on a sublet, and I still haven’t gotten someone who can tell me what the logic is.

I think, since it’s at so many different places, it just spread around the area sometime, 50 years ago, and that’s how it’s ever been, and no one’s ever questioned it.

Derek: It took a long time. It probably took me, I would say, three or four years at this account to really get dialed in. But, nowadays, I have it dialed in. I pay them, Dent Wizard pays them for everything they sell.

Keith: How do they – do you know how they calculate the commission?

Derek: Yeah, it’s the percentage of, based off the billing, the net. So, if a certain, Service Advisor B sells a $150 dent, he gets a percentage of what I bill the dealership. We pay them that, and then, they also get a vendor sublet pay from the dealership. Plus, it affects their gross, so their gross goes up, they’re basically getting paid three times on every repair that they sell for me.

Keith: And, there you have it.

Derek: There it is, I mean, it’s as easy as that. These guys love to make money. They work retarded, stupid hours, and deal with horrible BMW customers all day, because they love money. And, you know, the report that I run every week is huge. Phillip, he’s my best service advisor right now, and he’ll come and tell me every Monday. He’s like, “Oh, man, my whole goal right now – “He’ll tell them, you don’t need tires. It’ll be like, sir, you have tires that are at, like, 1 mm, and he’s like, “No, no, man, you don’t need those things, but, man. Really, this dent? You gotta fix this dent! You’re looking like crap on the road right now, who cares if you’re sliding all over the place?”

But, he’ll come back, and he’ll say, man, I just want, every week, my goal is to sell more in retail PDR, than everybody else combined.

Keith: Awesome. I would take Phillip to dinner, too.

Derek: That’s his main goal. Oh, yeah, he’s a killer. And, you know, we’re both around the same age, we both have beards and tattoos, so we both get along really, really well. You know, we just kinda get shoved in, hey, you got tattoos and beards, and like PDR? Yeah, me too. It works out. But, then I have some other people, you know, and the most important thing is training all of them. Our service director there, his name is Andrew. When he hires a new service advisor, for instance – I’m a part of the dealership, so when new people get hired, they bring them to me.

They bring an advisor to me. They bring all the new sales guys down, introduce them to me, Here’s Derek, he does dents, here’s his card. This is where he works in the dealership, should you need anything, this is where you can find him. Everybody that gets hired, except for valets, and people that don’t need to know me, get brought down, and they get introduced to me. The service advisors, Andrew will bring them back, and say, “Okay, this is Derek, he does all the PDR. He’s really, really good at this, sit here, and watch him do this repair.” And he will make them sit and watch me repair a car or two.

Keith: Wow, they’re all in at you, they’ve integrated you. Have they made runs at you to come work for them in-house?

Derek: Never.

Keith: That’s amazing.

Derek: It’s amazing. I promise you, I have that entire conversation locked down in my head. Because every day –

Keith: It’s coming.

Derek: It’s coming man, I know it. Because I’ve gotten it at every other dealership I’ve ever worked at. Like, hey, come to the meeting office, we wanna make you an offer. Like, damn it!

Keith: We are prepared to offer you $48,000.

Derek: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that’s not happening. But, no, I have that conversation played out. The day that it happens, will be like my chess game of all time.

Keith: You’ve been practicing.

Derek: I am 20,000 steps ahead of every word that comes out of their mouth. I know exactly the words that I will say and I know what it’s gonna cost. And, when it’s – when those numbers come out of my mouth, they’re gonna be like, just keep doing what you’re doing.

Keith: You’re killing it.

Derek: Don’t worry about it.

Keith: So, you’re right, a minute ago, we teased how we were gonna break those numbers down, and we kinda skipped over it. So, 25 to 30 –

Derek: Yeah, so 25 to 30, like I said, I’m fortunate, I have the opportunity to do that report every week. So, right now, I’m averaging, on a slow week, in service, I am at about three grand to 3,200ish, on average.

Keith: Okay.

Derek: But, I can do four to five grand a week in service. Right now, I’m billing over six grand a week, so I would say, typically, it’s close to 50/50.

Keith: That’s a lot of money coming out of the service department.

Derek: Yeah, I do a lot of work for them, and it’s – I don’t even go up there anymore, that’s the crazy thing. I used to – when I was brought in to this, I was trained to go stand up there from 7:00 to 11:00. Do estimates on every car, write them all up, beg for money, basically, is the way I saw it. Was, go stand up there, and crust punk it out, and be like, hey man, you got any spare change? I know you need that oil changed.

Keith: Wadded up newspaper on somebody’s windshield.

Derek: Yeah, if you got anything left over at the end of the day, man, I’d love to fix your dents. I hate that. I’m not a big fan of that. So, that was the beauty of the price guides, and we’ve always had price guides. Dent Wizard has always had price guides. They sucked.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: I’m not afraid to say it. They were horrible, black and white, done on crappy paper. Really confusing matrices, and really confusing scaling mechanisms, and then the prices weren’t that great, you know? They were so on board with, like, well, you have to end everything in a nine. And I just can’t stand that. They’d be like, that’s an old restaurant trick. And, I’d be like, well, I’m not – this is not a restaurant. We don’t serve food to people. I don’t need to end everything in a nine, I don’t like to play that game. My wife was, she’s a graphic design – she’s got a degree in graphic design, so she was kind enough to one-day sit down with me, and she designed my current price guide.

Which you can see on the internet, all over the place, I did the PDR Talk interview a couple weeks ago, It’s got it up on there. And, actually, there’s a picture of one of my advisors using the guide, and that is Phillip.

Keith: Awesome.

Derek: I came out there, I was like, hey, man, I’ll make you famous. I was like, I need to take some pictures of you. He’s like, for what? For this PDR interview I’m doing. He’s like, you guys do interviews? You guys have people who actually read stuff that you say? I’m like, you have no clue, man. Just get down here, and let me take a picture. But, yeah, anyways, I would say my service to wholesale, some weeks, is 50/50. Now, some weeks, I do get really bogged down with wholesale work. Mondays are crazy. My Mondays are so busy with wholesale that I will tell service providers, like, I will do it if you need me to, but otherwise, it’s gonna wait until Tuesday. Because I do everything from Friday and Saturday, I do on Monday.

Keith: Yeah, I knew when you were talking about the 10:00 walk that Mondays must be nuts for you.

Derek: Monday is crazy. I already – like, yesterday, they did a trade walk. I don’t ever work on Saturdays. I’m not into that, so I don’t show up on Saturdays. They do a trade walk without me, and they send me a list of all the cars. And, the rule I have for my Saturday cars is, just fix what you think needs to be fixed. So, they’ll send me a list. They sent me a list yesterday. And, it was like 17 cars. So, I know that was like, everything they got in from Friday.

Keith: Saturday, Sunday, so on top of that.

Derek: Yeah, so, when I get into work tomorrow, I will have all those cars, pre lined up. I will go in early, I usually go in around 6:30 on a Monday, and I’ll go in, those keys will be sitting in my toolbox. I’ll grab them, and I’ll start pumping them out. Hopefully, I have them all done, or most of them done by 10:00, that way, I can get to Saturday and Monday’s cars. And, that usually ties me up the rest of the week, I can pretty much fit in whatever I need to, and put the wholesale on the back burner. Again, because I’m first in line, I don’t have people breathing down my neck, like, we’re waiting on you.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: If you don’t get this dent done, we can’t sell this car. But, I also have the advisors trained to not only sell the dent, but I give them estimating sheets. These yellow, write up sheets, and they write – put an X on the door, and write what they told the customer. So, when they sell a dent, they will fill out that sheet, slap it on the window, and then they will, or they’ll have a valet bring me the car into the shop. Just like a normal technician would. They’ll bring me the car, they’ll park it next to my bay, and then they’ll say, hey, just call me when I’m done, or ring one of the valets.

So, I’ll fix the dent, and I’ll usually chirp – all the valets have walkie-talkies, I’ll say, hey, come pick this car up. They’ll come get the car, and they’ll take it to the mechanic that needs to work on it.

Keith: Nice.

Derek: So, it’s perfect. I basically get to keep pushing dents all day. I do a lot of running around. I recently got a Fitbit, My steps per day average around 17 to 20,000 steps per day, from station to station.

Keith: So, that’s a lot of walking.

Derek: That’s madness man. And, not only that, but where I put the cars, like the used cars, for instance, I pull them off the trade walk, which is on one parking deck, I pull them into the shop, which is in another building, and then, when I’m done with that, I park them on another parking deck, on the eighth floor, all the way at the top of this parking deck, and then I gotta run down eight floors of steps, get another car – run down eight floors of steps, run across a building, run up three flights of steps, grab a car, drive it down, take it back up to the eighth floor again.

Keith: I gotta get you one of those Zoolander scooters.

Derek: Oh, it’s madness. Like I said, I have a mountain bike that I ride around every now and again, but now that I’m in the shop, it’s not quite as convenient. When I was working on the parking deck, it was a little bit more fun, I would zip around those things like crazy. But, yeah, the system works out for me. It’s very fluid.

Keith: If you’re talking about doing 4K a week through the service drive, that’s over 16K a month, just in the service drive. So, you’ve got a ton of experience there, and that’s where most guys are falling off, and they’re not producing what they could be. Give me a few tips that you would say if you had to go and – forget about a used car department, but you had to go start a service drive program at a dealership that doesn’t do it yet. What are the first three things you would do? This is gonna be something that’s gonna be really actionable for all you guys out there who are listening, who do wholesale work.

So, get out your pen and paper, and write down what Derek says to do, and do it. Because there’s 16K a month hiding in some of these stores, that you’re not capturing.

Derek: Sure, well, not all stores.

Keith: Sure, not all stores. But, let’s call it half of that. Let’s call it $8,000.

Derek: So, step one –

Keith: That’s almost 100K a year.

Derek: Yeah, the most important step in my mind is, do your homework. Don’t be going after accounts that don’t do enough work. Go in there, and find a way to find out what their RO count is, every day. You need to know how many cars are coming through the service drive.

Keith: So, let’s do some quick and dirty math. About how many ROs do they write there, do you know?

Derek: 150 a day, on average.

Keith: So, 150 a day, and they’re open all –

Derek: 18 advisors.

Keith: Are the open all 30 days?

Derek: No, they’re not open on Sundays.

Keith: Okay, so they’re closed, they’re open six days a week, times 4.3 –

Derek: Yeah, they’re open 24 days, basically.

Keith: Call it 25, because I’m a stickler for the math. So, 25 days, times 150, what’s that?

Derek: This is taking way too long. 3,750.

Keith: Yeah, so, 3,750.

Derek: Yeah, and count walk ins. These are ROs on the books, appointments.

Keith: So, call it 4,000.

Derek: This is such a big dealership that if you want a loaner car, you better have a two week –

Keith: That’s nuts.

Derek: Advance appointment. You cannot walk in there and get a loaner car, ever. So, let’s call it 4,000 cars a month.

Keith: So, $16,000 is what you’re kinda averaging there. And we’ll divide that by 4,000 ROs, that $4 per RO, right?

Derek: Now I feel like an idiot.

Keith: Well, but, that’s the kind of numbers we’re actually talking about, how many people actually close. If you can find out the number of ROs written in your particular dealership, you should be able to generate $4 per RO, if you can follow Derek’s steps.

Derek: Yeah, it’s really important, I have – like I said, I’ve been doing service drives since day one. After I left the auction, I’ve always had a service drive. Never, ever been without one.

Keith: Right.

Derek: Because I knew, that’s where the money’s at. That’s where the potential is.

Keith: So, I cut you off, step one is to do your homework, find out what kind of volume that service department is doing.

Derek: Yeah. Then, step two, go in consistently. It’s no different than wholesale, it’s no different than landing any account. You have to go in there, you have to meet the service director, the advisors, you know, you wanna be shaking their hands, giving out your cards. But, what you don’t wanna do is give a card to an advisor if the service director is not interested in their employees having your card.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: You have to get with the director, you have to get with the guy in charge, you – just like you have to have a GM approve you on the wholesale side, approve you to be on that lot, you’ve gotta get with the director. I personally do not subscribe to the how’s your family, how was your softball game this weekend mentality. I don’t. I’ve never done that.

Keith: Derek.

Derek: What?

Keith: What is Phillip’s hobby?

Derek: Cars.

Keith: All right, so you know him.

Derek: Right, sure, sure, sure. What I mean is, don’t get caught selling, is what I always tell a lot of people.

Keith: Yeah, it’s gotta be real.

Derek: It’s gotta be real. I, personally – I’m not into people’s kids, and I’m not into their sports, I’m not into sports at all, so –

Keith: Right, but you don’t have kids, or play sports.

Derek: Right, exactly.

Keith: So, you’ve just gotta find things that you’re interested in.

Derek: Yeah, yeah, and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Absolutely, you need to do this, to build the relationship. But, just don’t get caught faking it. You have to find something honest, that you’re concerned about, or that you care about, and put some valuable time into that service director. Get to know him a little bit, and then it all comes down to the demo.

Keith: I’m glad you clarified that a little bit, and you – because we should spend a minute talking about this. I know it’s a long show today, but this is super-valuable information. There’s not many guys who do this kinda stuff who are willing to share it all with you, so.

Derek: Yeah, it’s gonna take me five hours to edit this all down. My whole Sunday is shot.

Keith: So, you know, I always say how’s your wife, how’s your kids, and the softball game. I don’t play any sports, really, but I say those things, because that’s something that I talk about with a lot of my people. That’s something that I have, I’ve got a wife and I’ve got kids, and a lot of guys do, so it’s an easy way for me to find commonalities. But, Derek is completely right. I don’t go in there and talk about things I don’t know about. Like, I don’t say, dude, how was your online poker tournament?

Derek: Right.

Keith: I don’t know anything about that, it would be super fake, and anybody who was actually into that stuff wouldn’t wanna talk to me about it, because it would be the lame conversation for them. So –

Derek: And, keep in mind, these people are busy.

Keith: Super busy.

Derek: They do not waste their time, so don’t be going in there, asking about stuff you don’t know anything about, just to make a conversation. Come in there with a sincere thought, present it as fast as possible, then get on with the dents. That’s what they want.

Keith: Yeah, and just touching them a couple of times, throughout the month, two months. Something’s gonna pop up. Oh man, I’m tired today, when you’re walking out to look at something, because I did XYZ over the weekend. And, you just get into a normal conversation. Try to care about them as people, I guess, is the rule. And try to find – and, don’t fake it, 100 percent, because everybody sees through that, and it’s even worse than someone who doesn’t talk to you, is someone who talks to you about stuff that is insincere.

Derek: Right.

Keith: But, if you can sincerely find something that you have in common, that’s the game, and then build a real friendship like you have with Phillip, I’m sure you guys are buddies, because you actually have stuff in common, but you say, because you listen to him, and you talk to him, and ask him questions eventually, and you both figure out that you like each other, and hey, it’s no coincidence that you both have beards and tattoos, and you like each other, and he’s your number one producing guy. That’s not on accident, you know?

Derek: Oh, absolutely not, no.

Keith: The number one producing guy always likes you as a person first, and then as a technician second.

Derek: Yep, absolutely. So, definitely get with the director. That’s number two. Once you’ve deemed that, yes, there’s potential to make money here –

Keith: Wait, number two was be there consistently.

Derek: Well, no, be there consistently, that happens –

Keith: 2B

Derek: Yeah, 2B. 2B: Be there consistently. Even if you go there the first time, and he’s like, no, we got a guy. Show up two days later, show up for sure the next week. Keep showing up, eventually, they’re gonna realize you’re there more than the guy that does the work, and they’re gonna throw you a bone. And then, eventually, it just comes down to fixing that car that the other guy can’t. There’s always that opportunity, where the valet wrecked the quarter panel of this brand new M3 customer car into another car, and the dent guy says, “No, there’s no way. Paint it.” That opportunity always comes up. Somewhere down the line.

Keith: Yeah, and you know what we didn’t actually touch on a lot was your actual skill level. And, I know that you’re not gonna give yourself many pats on the back, aside from reminding us that you were first in your class. But, Derek’s work is really high level. He’s not just a basic, right out of school Dent Wizard guy, he’s a nerd for dents, and he’s always trying to take his work to the next level. I don’t think there’s a tool made that you don’t own.

Derek: That’s true, I am a tool nerd.

Keith: You’ve got them all, and if there’s a new piece of technology, you’re one of the first guys to adopt it, and try to find a way to work with it. So, your – to do these numbers, not only do you have to be good with the systems and the strategies and the people, but at the end of the day, you better be able to fix the cars right.

Derek: Yeah, and that’s on my list.

Keith: You don’t have to be the best guy in the world, –

Derek: That’s on my list.

Keith: You’ve gotta be trying to be, I guess.

Derek: You know, quality and consistency is definitely – if it’s not on your list, don’t go to that dealership. Because if you’re not aiming for quality and consistent work, you probably are not gonna land a conglomerate mega dealership.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: Because those are the people that have the money to care about quality. If you don’t care about quality, keep working your rock lots, keep working your little tiny stores, that care about the cost over everything else, and you’ll be fine. But, if you want a mega dealership – and, trust me, a lot of people are gonna disagree with that. They’re gonna say, the bigger the dealership, the more it is about the money. But, I am regularly being told that I am the most expensive dent guy that these managers have ever seen. But, never once is it a negative thing, like, man, $600 on this trade in car, for that crushed in quarter panel and fender? I’m like, yep. Man, my last guy would’ve done it for $200. Okay, $600.

Like, I just, I don’t – I had my first run in with our new GM. This is a funny story. My first run in with my brand new GM, he’s been there a couple a couple weeks now, he’s a young guy, very cool. There was this ’06 5-Series, grey 5-Series with hail damage on it. Nothing too bad, came in on trade in, you’re talking retail, maybe $1,500. Nothing too crazy.

Keith: Pretty light.

Derek: Yeah, pretty light. Less than – honestly, less than $10, $15 per panel. And then, it had some regular side panel stuff. I wrote it up for $500, and said, “You know, I’ll knock it out. It’s 120,000 miles on this car, not too bad. I’ll do it for $500.” So, on the trade walk, they’re like, okay well, let’s make sure it passes service, if it passes service, then we’ll go ahead and do the dents on it. Because, obviously, you don’t wanna –

Keith: Right.
Derek: If it’s less than $100, they’ll let me fix a car that’s going to the auction anyways, just because they know it’s gonna make them money. But, when I get above $100, they start to get a little weird. So, I’m like, okay, that’s fine, I’ll wait a couple days. It gets through service, it passes everything, it’s ready to hit the lot. GM comes down, it’s my first introduction with him. I do my handshake, I tell him who I am, how I work, what my pricing is. He goes, “Well, that’s kinda what we wanna talk about. You have this car written up for $500. It’s really not that bad.”

And, I said, “I can go grab my light. Let me go grab my light.” Because he was looking at the one golf ball on the hood, and the one quarter on the deck lid, and so, he was like, oh, it’s not that bad. So, I said, “Let me go grab my light, and I come bring it over.” He goes, “Okay, let’s talk about this. How much just to do the hood and the deck lid?” I was like, “$500.” He’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, how much just to do the roof?” I said, “$500.” He’s like, “Oh, well, what about just the side panels, don’t worry about the hail?” I said, “$500.”

And, he was like, “So, wait. It’s $500 to do the hood and the deck lid, but it’s also $500, just to do the roof, and it’s also $500 just to do everything else?” And I said, “Absolutely, because I’ve been here a long time, and I know for a fact you cannot fix just this hood. If you fix this hood and put it on the lot, someone’s gonna complain about the deck lid. If you fix the roof, and don’t fix the rest of it, someone’s gonna complain about that stuff. So, no matter what you tell me you want me to fix, if I work on this car, I’m fixing everything, and it’s $500. I’m not gonna – I’m not playing the pick a panel game, I’m not playing the, hey, just make this fender look better game.”

“I fix the whole car, or I don’t fix anything. And, he was like, “Okay.”

Keith: That had to have rubbed him the wrong way.

Derek: No, absolutely not, absolutely not. He looked at the inventory manager, kinda laughed and smiled at him, and he was like, “You know what? I see your point, let’s go ahead and knock it out.”

Keith: Cool.

Derek: And, I shook his hand, and I said, “Smart decision.” Because I’ve had too many instances in the past, where, hey, this is an X-5, we don’t need to fix the roof on this thing. It’s so high, nobody’s ever gonna see the dents up on that roof, I say, okay, all right, fair enough. Fix the hood, fix the side panels. And, sure enough, that owner buys the car, gets hit home in his garage, gets up and fixes a lightbulb, and realizes there’s hail damage all over it, you better believe I’m fixing it. So, I don’t play that game anymore. I’m fixing it all, or I don’t fix anything. I tell them that all the time on the trade walk. I don’t do the pick and play thing.

And, I – you would think it would rub them the wrong way, but the way I handled it was very friendly, and just a matter of fact. Like, hey, I know these customers. I’ve been here a long time. You just came from a Honda store. Trust me. I know these people, and to fix everything is $500. It’s such a deal!

Keith: And, I’m sure you’re doing it with the smile on your face and everything.

Derek: Oh, yeah, the elbow in the ribs. I do it well, I know how to play the game.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: Thanks to this show, and stuff like that. I’m not being like, “$500, dick!”

Keith: “Take it or leave it, punk!”

Derek: Take it or leave it! I don’t work for you!

Keith: I’m busy!

Derek: No, but I’m just saying, and I knew from that point on, I’d earned his respect. I know that’s something that you guys have touched on in the past. Don’t – you can’t fold for these people. They don’t want someone in charge that they can push around. They want someone in charge that’s in charge. They want a confident person.

Keith: Yep, they sure do.

Derek: And, they want someone that has the ability to say, I know your clientele. Almost, probably better than you do, because I work with both wholesale and service. All you do is look at spreadsheets.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: And, you talk to a customer every now and again, and I tell these people all the time too, on the trade walk, whenever I get a new manager, which, I said, is a ton. Lots of managers, it’s a revolving door at this place. And, the first couple times, they’ll come on a trade walk, and they’ll say, “Where are the dents?” And, usually, before I say anything, another manager will go, “Don’t worry about it, you don’t gotta ask him that. Do you wanna spend the money or not?” Because the know it really pisses me off. I get really annoyed when people say, where are the dents in this car? And, I always get another manager that backs me up, and says, “Derek, he’s been here a long time, and we trust him.”

Just, can you spend $150, or can you not spend $150? Because the cars are gonna look great, and he’s gonna make sure that it’s sellable. If you don’t have the room, you don’t have the room, but if you have the room, fix it, because his quality’s up there.

Keith: Are you trying to stay on the cutting edge of paintless dent removal when it comes to your tools? Well, if so, you need to make sure you have two things in your arsenal. One is the Shane Jacks Jackhammer Blending Hammer. Find it at blendinghammerpdr.com. If you wanna learn blending, we’ve got an awesome tutorial to go along with the hammer, right there on the site. You’re gonna love it. You’re gonna learn something, and get better, and make money. In addition to the hammer, if you are doing any glue pulling, you need to have the Black Plague Crease Tabs.

It’s a six-piece crease pulling set. The two largest are absolute monsters, they are gonna pull out collision damage like nothing else you’ve got available, and the smaller sizes are gonna be for the normal, everyday kind of door edges, and minor, minor collision dents, and a dogleg, and a bottom of a door. I’m telling you guys, it is gonna change the way you do your repairs when you have the cutting edge tools, and these are two of them. Blackplaguepdr.com, blendinghammerpdr.com. Check out the sites, guys, bring yourselves into the 21st century.

So, on our Black Plague PDR site, Derek, we just started carrying the Keiko Super Tabs. And, I haven’t even used them that much to be honest, but I started carrying them, because everybody has been talking so great about them for so long, and it fits great with my product lineup, because I don’t have anything that big. And, you were telling me you do use them pretty regularly.

Derek: I use them all the time. I do quite a lot of big stuff, again, that’s one of the things with having such a big account. And, keeping the prices up, and doing a lot of work, you gotta do – I do a lot of push the paint stuff, a lot of – we haven’t sent a car to a body shop since I started working there.

Keith: Those guys are out there, trying to slash your tires.

Derek: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we have an onsite paint group, and pretty much, I do push to paint at least once a day, and then slap it to them, they’ll scan it, and put it on the lot. So, I use them quite a lot. They are incredible. I know a lot of people kinda question the strength of them, because they are a little floppy. But, it all depends on what you’re using to pull them off the car, honestly, in my opinion.

Keith: Are you pulling them with the Dent Dial?

Derek: I have, I do not currently.

Keith: Slide hammer?

Derek: No, never. I’ve only one time ever used a slide hammer with those things.

Keith: Okay.

Derek: I am not a slide hammer guy, I’m not a fan of it. I think using a slide hammer early on is what made me dislike glue pulling. Now, I use mostly the K-Bar.

Keith: Okay, Keiko’s lifting device, yeah.

Derek: Yeah. For a while, I was using the Dent Dial, then I was using the Anaconda for a while, and the Anaconda was really nice for that. And, the only reason I did that – don’t get me wrong, I love Sal, his tools are incredible. I use Dent Dials all the time. But, I wanted something dedicated to glue, that way, I could keep the Dent Dials dedicated to pushing.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: So, I keep my Dent Dials now dedicated to pushing, the Anaconda gets no use, basically. I use the tips on it, because the tips are out of this world. But, the K-bar, man, it’s incredibly easy to set up, and it has some leverage like you wouldn’t believe, So, I use those with that, predominately, because it also has an adapter made for that specifically.

Keith: Oh.

Derek: So, it has an adapter that will screw into the actual tab, like the screw that backs out, right?

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: You screw the adapter in there, and then it backs out the K-bar just perfectly, and you can just move – you can move some stuff, man. If you’re using this Tab Weld, and those tabs, and a controlled leverage system, you can just destroy big damage, absolutely. And, my theory on that, and I tell a lot of my new guys that I train is that, say you have a big crushed in quarter panel. The last thing anybody would ever do is go in there with, like, a 1-inch rubber ball. That’s, like, what I’m gonna use for a push in, but I’m not gonna go in there, and take a run from, like five feet away, and slam in the center of that dent with a tool. And, to me, that’s what a slide hammer is doing to that stuff.

Keith: Right.

Derek: You know you wanna place that thing, and then very slowly, carefully, push that pressure out. And, that’s where I see having things like the Dent Dials and the K-bar, that is the huge advantage. It basically gives you the same exact result. Really slow, controlled, single angle – which is the most important thing. Continuous pressure at one angle. Versus the floppy, rubbery armed slide hammer thing, where you’re – I don’t know, I break every tab I have, I snap the head off of it, because you use a slide hammer on everything.

Keith: That’s great advice. I don’t – I use the Dent Dial to pull on some big stuff like that, but I haven’t purchased the Keiko K-bar yet, maybe I’ll give it a shot, on your recommendation. But, if you guys wanna try the tabs, in combination with the Black Plague tabs, we’re gonna put them all together in a set on the site. So, you’ll have the Black Plague 2.0 tabs, the Keiko Super Tabs and the Smooth Series Tabs all together in a set, so –

Derek: Yeah, they’re great. I never thought – when I first got them, I saw that football sized one, like, the biggest one they have, and I was like, holy smokes. There is no way I’m ever gonna glue pull with this. And, sure enough, I found some dents that fit that thing perfectly. It’s the perfect tab for it, and you’re pulling out a football shaped, sized dent with it, in one pull.

Keith: Awesome.

Derek: It’s incredible.

Keith: I should probably sponsor those tabs. I think it probably takes a decent amount of glue to fill them up.

Derek: Oh, yeah, that’s – you will burn through some sticks on those things, for sure.

Keith: All right, awesome. Well, thanks for your insight on that.

Derek: Sure.

Keith: Man, Derek, so much information you shared, so many things that I could especially incorporate into my business, to streamline our wholesale stuff. So, thank you for being so open about it, I know you helped a lot of guys make more money this year. When you see Derek in January, at the MTE, you owe him a steak, because he just made you some money. As long as you don’t have to work.

Derek: Yeah, I don’t eat lobster, but double steak. I love steaks. But, yeah, no, it’s great. It’s an honor after, what episode are we on? 70?

Keith: 81.

Derek: 81, holy smokes. After 52 episodes, to finally get my voice on the air, it’s pretty awesome.

Keith: Yeah, and I alluded to it earlier, but in case you didn’t understand, Derek does all of the edits for us, behind the scenes. So, Shane and I make the recording, we hand it off to Derek, and he masters it, and makes sure when I’m mumbling it’s loud, when Shane’s mumbling, it’s loud enough. And everybody sounds right.

Derek: And, I get to hear all the stuff that I cut out, that’s unacceptable for public ears. Which, man, you should hear their dirty jokes. If you think they’re funny in general –

Keith: All right.

Derek: The stuff that – I’m removing two hours of content every week, it’s incredible.

Keith: Right, right. It’s gonna come out in the uncut version. The unrated.

Derek: Yeah, I’m gonna do B-sides. How about we do a B-sides episode one day?

Keith: Well, everyone, thanks for sticking with us so long. Oh, before I forget, I wanna remind everybody about the Periscope app. Derek, are you on it?

Derek: I am, I just got hooked up the other day. I watched you eat dinner with your wife.

Keith: Yeah, so that sounds creepy out of context, but the Periscope app allows someone to open the application, and just start streaming whatever they’ve got in front of them. So, you’ve got video and audio, and then, if you’re watching someone, you can’t speak, but you can comment in a comment box, like, chat comes up. So, it’s just a really cool, spontaneous way to share stuff, and I’ve been doing Periscopes, mostly at work. I did that one that Derek’s talking about, I had dinner with my wife, just to remind everybody that it’s not always about trying to grind it out, so hard that you forget you have a life. Enjoy your time with your wife or your girlfriend, or just do the things you like to do sometimes, so you can go back to work more powerful.

But, most of the time when I’m on there, I’m talking about PDR, and all this same kinda stuff that we’re talking about on the podcast. But, it’s pulled out of video, and it’s live. So, the way that it works is, you can watch whoever’s streaming live, and then, once they go offline, that video will hang out for 24 hours. But, after that, it’s vaporized. So, it’s real spontaneous stuff. So, you’ll get a little beep on your phone, it says someone that you’re following is live, and you can watch it or not watch it. So, it’s kinda cool, and it’s all free.

Derek: It’s definitely interestingly creepy.

Keith: Yeah.

Derek: It’s really cool, but there is – it’s kinda weird. I like it.

Keith: I like it, too, I was kinda weird – it was weird to me when I first started watching other people, and then, when I started broadcasting stuff, it was kinda strange. But, I’m getting into it, it’s kinda fun. It’s a cool way to interact with guys who are into the show, so –

Derek: I bet you can find some crazy streams on there.

Keith: I’m sure you can. Somebody said they were on somebody’s stream from New York City, and he was freestyle rapping with whatever you put in the comments. So, that sounded cool. But, somebody else –

Derek: Well, that’s the other cool thing, is you can comment and actually communicate, and actually – I didn’t know that at first, until I saw it start popping up, and that’s pretty cool.

Keith: Yeah, it is cool, the interaction. And, there’s a little number that tells you how many people are watching that stream, and if you like it, you tap the screen, and little hearts float up, to let people know you like the content. It’s just kind of a fun little thing, but you gotta make sure you follow the people you wanna look for. So, if you download the app, you follow PDRCollegeKeith, and PDRCollegeShane, we both have our own stream, and you’ll catch some cool video in between shows here and there. So, I just wanted to remind guys about that, because I’m having fun with that. I’ll probably do more of it rather than less.

Derek, thanks again for coming on the show, much appreciated, and thanks for all the work you do behind the scenes, you make it happen.

Derek: Yeah, man, thanks for having me. Like I said, it’s an honor to be a part of this. Anything that I can do, to help anybody at any time, I love it. It’s – I have a passion for this, and it’s what I wanna do. I love fixing dents, but I love helping people fix dents.

Keith: Atta boy. All right, fellas, until next time, get better

[End of Audio]

Duration: 119 minutes.