Also, DON’T MISS IT! We announce a new feature to the show!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Keith Cosentino: I’m Keith Cosentino, he’s Shane Jacks, and this is the PDR College Podcast, the place for PDR technicians to level up their business. We want you to go home and punch mediocrity in the face. We’re gonna be talking tools and techniques. But most of the time, we’re gonna be talking business, business, business. Shane, tell these boys why we’re gonna be talking so much about the business.
Shane Jacks: Because the more money I earn, the more money to burn.
Keith Cosentino: And that’s what we need, piles and piles of warm, burning money, just to keep us nice and cozy.
Shane Jacks: True that.
Keith Cosentino: So today is a really exciting episode for me. And I know it is for you, too. What we are doing, we’ve got two big things going on. The first one is really exciting. We’ve switched up the format a little bit for PDR College. And here’s what we’re doing now. We’re gonna continue to do the same awesome shows. But we are gonna incorporate your questions into the show. We have this awesome –
Shane Jacks: Yeah, this is pretty awesome.
Keith Cosentino: Yes, it’s really cool. So anytime of the day, from anywhere in the world, you can hop on pdrcollege.com. And there’s a little grey bar on the side of the screen. You click that bar, and you get a little window that opens up. And it lets you leave us a voicemail from a computer. So you don’t need any special software. You just need a mic plugged into your computer. You can leave us a voicemail. Ask us any question you want, anything you want.
And we’re gonna review them. And the best questions that we get, we’re gonna answer them on the show. So you’ve got a chance to have that one question you’ve got rattling around in your head you wanted to ask us. Ask us there. It’s free, we’re gonna answer at least one of those questions every week. So submit as many as you want. And we’re gonna bring the skills that you want to know into your life through a voicemail.
Shane Jacks: It’s gonna be pretty cool, man. It’s really – we really enjoy the questions we get on PRDCollege.com. The remarks that are left – this is just gonna up that even more, hearing your voice, hearing the questions kind of live. So that’s gonna be pretty cool.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I’m really excited about that. So fire away fellas. Go on there and ask us whatever you want. So ladies be careful with the questions. I know you’ve seen me. So today’s episode is kind of a big deal. We took an extra week to prepare it because there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes for it. So sorry we missed our normal weekly schedule. But this it gonna be worth it.
So we had a friend of the show reach out to us and say, hey guys, I need some help on my retail business. My website is stinking it up. I’m getting zero business from it, zero leads. I think it’s a decent website, but something’s wrong because there’s people in my town that are doing well in retail. And I’m getting nothing from the site. Would you mind looking at it, and telling me what to fix?
So Shane and I looked at it. And I got a phonebook of things, just to fix on this thing. It was – although, visually, it’s a relatively nice website, it’s just kind of a train wreck as far as the message and the content. So instead of just firing back some instructions on what we thought he needed to do to change it. We thought, you know what, this is an awesome opportunity to make a case study. Change all these things with everybody watching. And see the kind of change that we’re gonna put through this retail business.
We’re gonna be able to put the things that we’re talking about into use, into practice. And we’re gonna let you guys follow along this journey. And watch this guy’s retail business turn around. So we got with our web developer. And said, would you be willing to go through this guy’s website, tune it up, and put him on the right track? And he agreed to do that, on the house, as well.
So we’re getting kind of a website makeover, free, for our fantastic listeners of the show. Just this one, though, he got lucky. It’s not for everybody. But we’re gonna give you the contact information for the developer, if you want to get a hold of him and have him work his same magic on your side. That’s a possibility for you. So –
Shane Jacks: But it won’t be free.
Keith Cosentino: It won’t be free, but –
Shane Jacks: But it’ll be worth it.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, this is gonna be exciting because you guys are gonna be able to watch along, and see the transformation. We’re gonna give you a way to view the site before it’s changed. And then we’re gonna, obviously, you’ll wanna go back and see it, in the following weeks, when we actually change it. The changes are happening behind the scenes, now. But they’re not live. They won’t be live for a couple of more weeks because there was a lot of stuff to change. But you’ll be able to watch it and see it transform.
Okay, so what we’re gonna do here is, Shane and I are gonna both pull the site up together. And we are gonna kind of walk through what we want to do about it, and what we want to change about it. But before we do that, let’s just talk a little bit about websites. Why are they so important? I mean, I think everybody knows that. Most everybody has one, if you’re serious about being in business, you’ve gotta have one.
But a lot of guys just throw them together. And/or they just make it an electronic business card. It just says, hey, you know, we’re great. We do dent repair. And here’s our phone number. You know, it’s nothing compelling about it. Nobody wants to call it. They just see it. And those are fine if somebody already is looking for you.
But you’re trying to capture people that aren’t yet looking for you. They’re looking for the service. And then, they find you, and decide to call you. So when I first put together my website, it was a big turning point for me in my retail business. It was basically the beginning of the next chapter of my business, going from just a wholesale guy, going from lot to lot, and doing repairs here and there on the wholesale level, to actually creating new customers, and new customer experiences. And I had a presence online. And something that was independent of these wholesalers.
So for me, I’m very passionate about a retail website, and the things it needs to have. And the benefits it can bring to your life. It’s a really big deal. It’s fantastic. But a lot of guys just do it as an afterthought. But I kind of tackled it in a different manner. I knew that was gonna be the next chapter of my life. And I’ve shared this story before. But I’ll share it quickly, now again, here, for those who haven’t heard it before.
I was doing completely, well, not completely, but probably 85 percent wholesale in my PDR career about ten years ago. And things were good. I was busy all the time, all day, every day. I could, you know, work as early as I wanted, and leave as early as I wanted. At that time in my life I was probably working until 4:00, 4:30. And things were good. I was busy. And I was making good money.
But I was stuck. And I didn’t know I was stuck, but I was. I had one wholesale account that accounted for a huge percentage of my business. I was there, three, four, and sometimes five days a week. Just working, and working, and working on used cars. It was one of these monster, mega dealers that just moves a ton of volume. Well, that was great. The prices were fair. They weren’t too low, they weren’t too high. But I was happy because it was so easy to work there.
I basically just picked the cars I wanted to work, and worked on them, turned in a bill. So everything was great. And I had practically worked there, as far as my relationships with the people there. I mean, I was part of their work parties, and all that kind of stuff. And I was at home. Everything was great for years.
Well, they had one management change, and everything changed. All of a sudden, one day everything’s fine, the next day, oh, well, we’re gonna try a new company that’s advertising prices a lot cheaper than yours. So at that point, keep in mind, this is ten years ago. We were at $75.00 a car, basically. And some guy came in at $55.00. And they wanted to use him. And he came on, fixed a couple cars. It wasn’t the worst repairs you’ve ever seen. I tried to convince them that in fact, they were.
Shane Jacks: Of course.
Keith Cosentino: But honestly, they weren’t that bad. The guy had his best – putting his best foot forward. But thankfully, I was popular enough with everyone there, throughout the dealership that they didn’t make the change. But they did bully me into lowering my prices. So I took a 25 percent pay cut in a two-hour meeting, one day. And you know, this account was, in some months, 75 percent of my revenue, you know?
So I came away from that day just dumbfounded. I really got blindsided by these guys. And you know, what are you gonna do? You can’t afford to lose the account at that point because you have so many eggs in that basket. You have to negotiate and take that deal. And I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to negotiate a deal like that. I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t have, you know, other possibilities for pricing that I could have used to help that process.
I just kind of got caught off guard, and I did the best that I could to maintain a competitive price, and the account. And I did, but that really shook my tree up. So I thought, okay, this is the last time a manager of a dealership’s gonna affect my destiny. So that day, I put into a plan to build a website. I didn’t even have a website at that point. But I said, I really need to get some customers outside of this car business because this is not gonna happen to me again, I can’t let it.
So I kept that account for years and years after that, but eventually let it go. Because it continued to spiral downwards towards cost, cost, cost, which is the route that most big dealerships go because they’re in a volume business that’s what they do. But man, they did me a favor. They basically wrote me a $500,000.00 check that day because with my retail business, when I lost those guys, our revenue went up the next month. No joke about that, we were still servicing their account when I had guys working for me.
And we lost the account, and my technician who did the work full time was really nervous. And then the next month, boom, he went up, like, three grand. They were just such a time suck. But you don’t realize that when you’re in it. So man, they did me a favor. I started my process there.
And an important thing to note is, I didn’t just make a website and leave it there. I continued to study retail websites all over the country. You know, looking, looking, looking at different sites. And seeing what I liked about them, seeing what I didn’t like about them. Taking notes to myself. Paying attention to how I searched for PDR services, where I searched. And asking people where they would search, and what they would search for. And seeing what those searches returned in my area. And trying to manipulate the system so that people ended up seeing what I wanted them to see.
So I’ve put a lot of thought into my retail website. I promise you, there’s better ones in the world because there’s guys that are smarter than me on every level. But mine works, and it works really well. And I know, Shane, yours works really well, too. And you’ve started with the site, and then, had to make some changes to it, as well, right, to get you to where you are now because yours is pretty slick.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, for sure. I started out much as many other guys do, kind of as an afterthought, like you said, a business card. And my business card looked sucky.
Keith Cosentino: They were those print it yourself business cards?
Shane Jacks: Pretty much, it had the perforated edges. My website, if it were called a business card, oh, man, it was horrible. It was absolutely terrible. And I got zero, I mean, very little traffic from it.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, wait, I gotta pause you right here. This is gonna be fun. I just came up with this.
Shane Jacks: Okay.
Keith Cosentino: We’re gonna have a little contest.
Shane Jacks: To see how bad of one we can make?
Keith Cosentino: No, not one we can make. But I want everybody to submit the sites that they have found. They don’t have to be yours. They can be somebody else’s. Let’s see if we can find the worst PDR website in the world.
Shane Jacks: That’s a really good idea. Neither you or I have the time to search for one.
Keith Cosentino: No, but you guys do.
Shane Jacks: Some of you guys do that is for sure.
Keith Cosentino: And here’s – it’s not just for fun. It is gonna be fun, and funny. But by doing this search –
Shane Jacks: Oh, are they gonna get something?
Keith Cosentino: No, well, maybe, if you find – if someone does actually find the world’s worst website for PDR, and we can’t top it, we’ll give you a prize. But what you are gonna get by doing that search is you’re gonna see some websites that are really good. And you’re gonna see some that are bad. And it’s gonna help you get ideas about what you do and don’t want to do. Because the fact of the matter is, my site is really profitable, and so is Shane’s. But they look very different. They accomplish a lot of the same things. But they have our own unique spins on them because, you know, we’re different people. And we have different ideas about exactly how we’re gonna convey that message. And neither are right or wrong.
In the end, your website is gonna be a representation of you, personally. So as long as you’re getting the proper information across, you know, you have some artistic license to make it look the way you want. There’s some rules that you don’t wanna break. And there’s some that you can bend. But sorry, I got off on a little sidetrack, there. But I think that’ll be fun. Where are we gonna post them? Let’s put the links – we’ll put them on pdrcollege.com in the comments section.
Shane Jacks: That’s where they’re gonna put – you guys are gonna put those links, in that section, correct?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, yeah, links for the – your submissions for the world’s worst PDR website.
Shane Jacks: This is gonna be fun. And guys, come on, everybody get on this and find one. They’re out there, they’re everywhere. And if you can find my old one, if it were up somehow, it would be a contender. It would – yeah, it would be a contender. So what we’re about to do with this website that this gentleman called us about – reached out to us about. Don’t take it personally. And if we’re saying some things that are relevant to his website that are relevant to yours also, don’t take it personally. Mine was probably just as bad, or worse at one point.
Keith Cosentino: Tell us about the switch. When you decided you need to go from, you know, the walking business card to a real website.
Shane Jacks: The switch was 2011, I believe, and –
Keith Cosentino: That’s relatively recently.
Shane Jacks: Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, let’s go back just a little bit. I’ve got a little bit of a story, just like you did, Keith. My story – and I didn’t think about this until you just shared it with me. It’s kind of a parallel. When I was working at the BMW plant, my wife – this was before kids – my wife was working only part time. No, it was right after we had our daughter. She was working only part time as a staffing accountant at this –it’s actually a telecommunications company, literally, one sixteenth of a mile from where my shop currently sits, okay.
So anyway, she’s working at this place. I’m working at the BMW plant as a dent guy. And she’d been there forever, and she got laid off. And she was really good. She was the best at what she did at that place. And she got laid off. And it was at that moment that I went, it’s kind of like, your eggs in a basket deal with the dealership. I decided, you know what, it doesn’t matter how good I am at this. Inside this plant, to these people, I’m only a number. That’s all I am. And once my number – once I’m not quite as effective, and somebody gets in here that’s a little more effective than me, or if it’s just a numbers crunch, they will get rid of the Shane.
And I decided at that point that I was done. So when I got out, I kind of – when I left the plant, I kind of decided in the beginning that I was not going to get into that eggs all in one basket deal. So I spread myself uber-thin with wholesalers and dealers. And I mean, just ridiculously – just too many of them. You know what I’m saying. And all of them were giving me a small amount of work. Nobody was giving me a lot of work. But I mean, I was running from here to there.
2011, we had a big hailstorm, well, not a big hailstorm. But it was actually a small storm. But one of the body shops that I do work for, they capture a ton of the business percentage wise in this town. So we did between 250 and 300 cars that year, just a buddy and I doing hail damage. And it was at that point I saw the retail side of it, the retail hail damage coming into my shop, also from [inaudible] from past business, and referrals and everything.
And I’m like, gosh, I’m really missing the freaking boat, here, with this retail side of the business. Did I have retail, yeah. But nowhere near as much as I wanted. And this was really, Keith, before you and I really even started talking a lot.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, and this – so you already had your basic website up. You had a presence. But it was not what you wanted it to be. Well, at the time it was.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, presence would be using that term loosely. So I hired a web designer, somebody that knew what he was doing. And told him what I wanted. And it’s still a work in progress, Keith. I have just even, what, two weeks ago I changed it a little bit. Put the video up. And I’m making little changes. I’m gonna make a couple more within the next couple of weeks, just minor. And evolve or die, you know?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, you gotta keep marching forward. And I’m glad you brought up that video because I wanted to talk about that. I took a look at your site. And I like that little commercial you put up. And you guys can go check out Shane’s website. What’s the domain, Shane?
Shane Jacks: Dentsgonenow.com.
Keith Cosentino: On there, on his homepage, you can see Shane’s made a little commercial. And he’s done a couple of key things in this commercial. He’s highlighted in video, himself, his shop, the area. So people have a visual that they can tie to his shop. They see his logo. They see his front door. They see him. He references the local town. So they know he’s a local guy, and he speaks their language. And he shows a couple of repairs there that turned out real nice, and gives them a call to action at the end. So it’s a great, little commercial.
And the only thing I wanna beat you up on on that commercial, is the fact that you’ve got it posted on YouTube. Which is a great place to put a commercial like that to grab people because that commercial will eventually start coming up in a Google search for your local market, and for dent removal, if you tag it properly. But when you host it on YouTube, and then link that to your homepage, after somebody watches the commercial, they immediately get bombarded with like 9 or 12 choices of other videos they could watch. And YouTube is the world leader in distracting you into watching stupid videos.
Shane Jacks: That’s what they’re there for.
Keith Cosentino: Right, so they get done watching your commercial. And if they’re not fully committed, they see a bear in a bikini. And they click on it. And then they’re gone. The next thing, you know, they’re watching rockets explode. And they forgot about dent removal.
So if you want that to be a nice, little commercial, and keep people on your site, I suggest you have a private video hosting service host that video right there on your site. And you can do a search for those. There’s 100 different ones, Wistia is a popular one. I think Vimeo PRO is another one. And I’m not an expert on all the options. But there are plenty, and they’re not that expensive. Now, I have YouTube videos on my site, as well. I don’t have them privately hosted, as well. So I could probably take a dose of my own medicine. But I did –
Shane Jacks: That’s a good point. I guess I took for granted that people would not want to watch more of me, and immediately contact me once they found out how to contact me.
Keith Cosentino: Well, another thing is that you get – if you host them on your own video hosting site, or a service, rather, you’ll get stats on the video that YouTube doesn’t give you. You’ll know how long people are watching, where they jump in and out, and stuff like that. So it’s a little advantage to the data geeks, people who like reports.
Shane Jacks: People like you.
Keith Cosentino: I do like reports.
Shane Jacks: You sure do.
Keith Cosentino: So what we’re gonna do with this website is, like I said, we’re gonna bring it online. And Shane and I are gonna talk about it together. And then, we’re gonna give you guys a link to go and see it. And you can kind of look at it with us, if you’re at a computer. Or you can come back and listen again when you’re at home. And look at the site as we kind of dissect it. But we’ll tell you later on who the site belongs to. And once we start making some changes, we’re gonna hopefully have him on the show, and talk about how that worked out.
So if this is your site, don’t take it personal. We are going to beat you down, bloody, to the floor, and kick you in the nuts on the way out. But don’t take it personal, it’s all – we’re gonna break you down, and we’re gonna build you up better, like Robocop. He was better, right?
Shane Jacks: I don’t know, that was a terrible movie, in my opinion.
Keith Cosentino: They made a new one. Are you talking about the new one, or the old one?
Shane Jacks: No, the old one, which I barely remember. Which means it was either terrible or I was drunk. And I was only, like, ten, so I doubt I was drunk.
Keith Cosentino: Well, I can’t think of a better movie where they rebuild him better.
Shane Jacks: Six Million Dollar Man, it’s not a movie, but…
Keith Cosentino: How old are you?
Shane Jacks: I am 24-ish.
Keith Cosentino: Six Million Dollar Man?
Shane Jacks: Wasn’t that the name of it, the Six Million Dollar Man?
Keith Cosentino: I think it was, I actually think it was A Million Dollar Man because at that point in the world a million dollars could buy you just about anything, not half of a beachfront house.
Shane Jacks: It kind of reminds me of our intro music, is Austin Powers, one million dollars.
Keith Cosentino: A billion, a billion dollars, or what did he switch it to, 100 billion?
Shane Jacks: Yeah, something like that. They all started snickering at him.
Keith Cosentino: All right, so if you want to see the site that Shane and I are gonna start reviewing right now, and critiquing, you can go to pdrcollege.com/retail, and I’ll have a link that says, see the website that we’re talking about. And you can go over it with us. Are you ready Shane? You got it pulled up?
Shane Jacks: I do.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, it’s – lock the cage, it’s about to get bloody in here.
Shane Jacks: Yes.
Keith Cosentino: All right.
Shane Jacks: This is for your own good, dude.
Keith Cosentino: All right, we love you. This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you.
Shane Jacks: Not really.
Keith Cosentino: No, it’s gonna hurt you much more.
Shane Jacks: This is gonna bring up memories for me, is what it’s gonna do.
Keith Cosentino: So okay, so the first thing you do when you type in this website address, depending on which device you’re on – if you’re on a phone or a desktop, it gives you a choice. Do you want to see our main site? Or do you want to see our mobile site? So it’s already doing something I don’t like. It’s giving me a job to do. I have to click and decide what kind of website I want to see. And maybe I don’t understand that. Maybe I do, or maybe I think I’m missing something if I click the wrong one.
And the fact of the matter is, you are missing something because they are two different sites. You should have a mobile site for your website, absolutely, it’s very important. Many, many people are searching from their phones. When I need to look for something, it’s the first thing I reach for, even when I’m home because my phone is usually closer to me than my computer is, hanging out in a room somewhere.
So having a mobile site is crazy important right now, as far as I’m concerned. And you can do them right. And you can do them wrong. To do them right, you should have a bunch of easy decisions to make on the mobile site. There should be not a lot of scrolling. Everything should be right in front of you. Think about when you’re looking at a site on your phone. You’re pinching in or out to try to zoom in and zoom out and read things. And that’s the opposite of what you want to have. Everything should be clean and clear, almost like an application that you launched on your phone.
So when you go here, and you have to make this decision, mobile, or desktop or full version, whatever it says, this is a bad deal. If you build a mobile site properly, it knows what device it’s being displayed on, and will display the proper site automatically. So you don’t need to have this decision.
This is the opposite of helping people. It’s just putting them to work. And I know, it seems like I’m nitpicking because it’s just one click. But it’s unnecessary. You don’t need to do that. It’s like, you know, landing on the homepage, and it says, hey, click to see our homepage. I’m already on it. I don’t want to click anything. Just show it to me. So we’re gonna fix that, we’re gonna –
Shane Jacks: In the spirit of full disclosure, my mobile site sucks.
Keith Cosentino: All right, well, maybe we’ll fix yours, too.
Shane Jacks: We gotta fix mine. I’ve gotta fix mine.
Keith Cosentino: It won’t be free. You should’ve called into the show.
Shane Jacks: Nothing done for me is free.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, so we’re here on the site. It has a relatively decent visual look.
Shane Jacks: I actually like it. His logo, I like, it’s pretty cool. It’s clean, I like the cleanliness of it, how about that?
Keith Cosentino: Okay, I don’t love it, but –
Shane Jacks: I don’t love it, but it the cleanliness is crisp.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I’ve seen worse. But the homepage is hurting. So when you land here you have a bunch of text in a paragraph, and then, more text underneath it. And then, a little number that says, call today. But the main thing that you’re gonna see here is a video. And man, we got some major carnage going on in this video.
Shane Jacks: This video.
Keith Cosentino: It’s in bad shape, where –
Shane Jacks: It’s really bad, where to start?
Keith Cosentino: You know what, and it’s –
Shane Jacks: Did you say, where to start?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: Okay, where to start is there is the actual –
Keith Cosentino: Thumbnail.
Shane Jacks: Thumbnail, where he’s touching up a bumper.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, he’s kind of in a paint –
Shane Jacks: I think, I think that’s what he’s doing.
Keith Cosentino: He’s in a paint suit. And he’s either touching up a bumper or trying to pick a piece of dirt out between the bumper and the quarter.
Shane Jacks: He may be picking a piece of dirt. If it’s not, he’s got the world’s smallest paintbrush because all I see is fingers.
Keith Cosentino: So it’s – the video is professionally done.
Shane Jacks: Oh, it’s really nice.
Keith Cosentino: I’m sure it cost money. But the content in the video is just a train wreck. We’ve got a guy with a tool, seemingly working on a bumper. But the bumper’s not off. It’s just shoved in between the quarter and the bumper, like, working on the bumper. We’ve got what looks like paint touch up, or taping or something. We got computer-generated dents. And the prices for those dents that you can’t see aren’t real dents. They look stupid. And if they were real dents, they wouldn’t be repairable. They look too deep. We’ve got dents on Corvettes.
Shane Jacks: There’s two different Corvettes, or three?
Keith Cosentino: I don’t know.
Shane Jacks: I think there are two or three Corvettes.
Keith Cosentino: If there’s one, there might as well be 100. I mean, I know that’s kind of internal PRD technician stuff. But I mean, you’re the expert. You gotta display yourself as such.
Shane Jacks: Those computer-generated dents – that may be the worst part for me because they are really bad. Not only are they computer-generated, but they look like the paint is burnt around them.
Keith Cosentino: It’s terrible, and –
Shane Jacks: And the prices on it.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, you don’t need to put the prices on. So let’s take a little baby step to the side. And remind everybody the purpose of a web site, for our particular business. The purpose of this website is to generate an appointment with you. Now, sometimes that means generating a phone call to you, and then, you book the appointment. Or sometimes you give them the chance to book an appointment on the website.
But you need to remember the goal of this website. The goal is to get someone on the phone, so you can close a deal with them. It’s very simple. So anytime you’re adding an element to your website, you need to ask yourself a question. Does this entice someone to make an appointment with me? Does this someone to fill out my form, and make an appointment with me? Does this entice someone to pick up the phone, and make an appointment with me? And if it doesn’t, it probably needs to go away.
And in this video, maybe if you didn’t know anything about PDR, it might educate you a little more than where you were to start, if you were at zero. But it also is gonna make it seem weird. It might set you up for expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Like, those dents in the photo, they can’t actually be fixed, if they were real dents, at least a couple of them, the crease and the other one.
But at the end, it gives a bunch of prices. And then, it gives instructions on how to text photos. This is all wrong. You don’t want texting photos. You don’t’ want people emailing photos, as a first interaction with you. You want them on the phone. You need to talk to them, make a connection with them, and make an appointment. That is the goal.
Shane Jacks: The only reason you would want somebody to send you a text, or email or photo, if you want to leaf through and pick out what you want to fix, and don’t want to fix. And that’s not where this guy is.
Keith Cosentino: No, yeah, if you’re that busy –
Shane Jacks: Then it’s possible you can take texts. But it’s still not a good idea.
Keith Cosentino: And let me – I wanna talk about two things. One is that I’m assuming you want to run your business the way I run mine. And that’s getting the most money for the repairs that you possibly can. And that means doing nicer cars, and nice repairs. If you want to be the low price leader, then my advice is no good for you. You’ll get some things from me. But other things, I am not gonna be speaking your language. I don’t think most of you wanna do that. And even if you think you do, you probably really don’t.
But if you do, a lot of the things that I’m saying are not gonna be true. If you want to be the low price leader, then advertise for texting photos because you’re gonna get a ton of them. And if you want to just beat everyone’s estimate, then that’s the market that people who text photos are in. They want to text their photo to 1,000 companies. And then, have everyone text them back with the cheapest price. And if you want to play that game, and race to the bottom, then you can do it via text really efficiently.
So if that’s what you wanna do then by all means, advertise photos, text, email and everywhere else you can. But if you want to run it like me, you don’t want these photos texted to you. You know, think about when you’re shopping for something. You’re just window-shopping. You want to see the price, that’s interesting, but you’re not really in. When you really want to buy something, when you really want to buy something, you almost always want to talk to a person, especially if you’re gonna buy a service.
I mean, I understand there’s some things I know I want to buy. And I buy them on amazon. I don’t need to talk to anybody. But if I want to buy a service, I want to talk to somebody. I absolutely want to talk to somebody. If I’m having a garage door repair, or a plumber, or you know, somebody’s gonna trim my trees, I’m not just gonna fill out some form. And I’m not gonna text photos just to get kind of a quote.
And if I am just getting a quote, well, it’s because I’m not really ready to buy. I would text a tree guy a photo of a tree, and ask him what it would take. But you know why? Because I’m not ready to buy it, I’m just curious. So I’ve wasted everybody’s time. And all I get is a neat, little number. But I’ve done nothing for the tree guy. But if I’ve gotta call him and talk to him. And I’ve gotta pick up the phone and make that call, it’s usually because I’m ready to make a purchase, or at least a lot closer than curious window shopper. So –
Shane Jacks: Can I expand on that –?
Keith Cosentino: Please.
Shane Jacks: – just a little bit, Keith. [Inaudible] I am, okay, I guess, 39 years of living on this planet, and buying stupid stuff the first 35 or so, and getting burned on that. And then, having to buy the better option later, I do not – yeah, price matters, it matters to everybody. But getting a quality product – I had a guy – getting a quality product is way more important to me, if I have to pay even twice as much for it. If it’s within what I can withstand, you know.
And I wanted some of that concrete curbing put down around my beds at my house. And so I do search, right, and these really terrible websites come up. And then, one that is pretty good. So I said, well, I’ll give this guy a call. And ended up going with the highest quote because I talked to the gentleman – actually, I talked to his wife first. She was very, very accommodating. She listened to me. She was very nice over the phone, all this. And she said, my husband will contact you within the next – I can’t remember how long it was, X hours. He will call you and we will get it – and he did.
He contacted me within those next X hours. He come out to the house to measure. And that was where he really sold me was when he came out to measure because he didn’t just walk it off. And he wasn’t looking at me like, yeah, it’s about – I think I ended up getting a little over 200 feet of this concrete curbing done. And he was, yeah, it’s about so and so, and blah, blah, blah. No, he gave me a real written estimate, you know, broken down exactly how many feet, exactly how much it was gonna cost. And he was professional.
The other people that I talked to asked me, over the phone, okay, they did exactly what a lot of dent guys will do. Is they asked over the phone, well, how much do you need? Well, I don’t know, right? You want me to go measure it? Why don’t you come out and measure it yourself? You know, I mean, that’s not what I said. But immediately, it was turned off.
This other gentleman, he was like, I’ll be out there in X amount of days. I’ll measure it off, give you an estimate, no pressure, blah, blah, blah, ended up getting it done by them. You do it yourself, how can we sit – how can I, as a consumer, say that I want quality. And I’ll pay a little more for quality. But then, as a business owner say, well, I’ve got to be as cheap as everybody else in town, makes no sense.
Keith Cosentino: No it doesn’t, and I mean, unless you’ve decided you’re gonna be the cheapest. That’s the only time that makes sense.
Shane Jacks: But why would you?
Keith Cosentino: Well, if you had 50 guys standing around with tools, and you could just pump cars out.
Shane Jacks: Oh, yeah, that’s fine.
Keith Cosentino: I guess you could run the market, I guess. We don’t –
Shane Jacks: Well, I actually was that guy, Keith because I was so much faster than anybody else around here. So I could still make more money than anybody else around here, in the same amount of time, and be cheaper, right? But it just doesn’t make any sense anymore to me, after talking to you for the last three years.
Keith Cosentino: And now, I’m talking to everybody.
Shane Jacks: That’s right.
Keith Cosentino: So when you land here it says, welcome to blah, blah, blah, dent removal. Here, were are committed to quality workmanship, and offer dent repair that exceeds your expectations. PDR is and art that takes thousands of hours of practice. You can be assured that with us, you are making a smart choice. All of our repairs come with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. We come to you, and usually in less than an hour have your dents virtually disappear. Hail damage, not a problem. We are trusted by many dealerships across these particular areas, and surrounding areas. We will not have – with us, you will not have any surprises, just a great result.
And then, that’s the paragraph. And then, some key points about this company include, professional, paintless dent removal services. I’m glad we got that straightened out, there. Mobile repair service, okay, we talked about that already. Pick up and drop off service, so this is a little confusing. Is it a mobile service, or is it a pick up and drop off service? Or is it both? Is there a shop? I don’t see an address for a shop anywhere.
Shane Jacks: If you don’t have this, put available at the end to clear it up just a little bit.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, you can do that. If you have a retail shop, and this is what you’re pushing on that you’re gonna pick them up – or pick up their cars and drop them off again, to their place of work, to your shop that’s kind of a big deal. You could make a real big deal about that because that’s pretty unique. Not many people can do that.
And then it says, direct repair for many major insurances, and satisfaction guaranteed. So these are – half these points were already talked about, here in the paragraph. Now we’re gonna – bringing them to some key points, but none of these are compelling. See, what you need to realize is that if you’re going to be successful in the market – in any market, in any business, you need to know what your unique selling proposition is, or USP. It’s a common popular term in marketing.
But basically, what is the unique thing that you are bringing to the market? Why would somebody want to choose you? You know, for example, if you use a big company, like, Netflix. Well, you can get movies quickly and easily that you couldn’t before. If you’re gonna run your retail business through this website, what is enticing about you? What’s great?
If you really did have a pick up and drop off service, you could build your whole entire vision around that. That’s very unique. Some people would like that. I don’t think this fella actually has that. I think he’s like, hey, if you really want your dents fixed, I’ll find a way to get your car, and then, bring it back to you because I want to do the work. Because. If you have a mobile service, you probably don’t have a shop, unless you have more than one person. So I don’t think this is where we’re gonna hang our hat with this guy.
But it’s just a little bit of everything. And nothing’s exciting. So far, I still don’t have a reason why I’d like to call this guy over somebody else. So we’re gonna transform this whole homepage. We’re gonna get rid of this paragraph. And we’re gonna find out what we’re gonna hang our hat on. What is gonna be our unique position.
But some examples of things that could be included in your USP are, maybe you personally. Maybe you’re a real personable guy. You know, you have a comfort in front of the camera, or with audio. And you can build this whole thing around you. Maybe you’re just a neat guy, and people like you. And you’re gonna be a one-man show. And you’re gonna stay that way. So you put your face on the website. Talk about how great you are, how excited you are to meet people and help them with their problems. That could be your unique position because no one else can be you.
Okay, maybe it’s your experience. Maybe you were one of the first guys fixing dents. And you’ve stayed on top of your game. So maybe you want to push that because there’s other new people in your area. And you want to talk about the things you learned. And really make them have a connection with you, and your experience and how it’s gonna translate into a better repair for them. Maybe it’s your actual location. Maybe there’s a part of town that’s very affluent. And you service that area well, and you’re familiar with it. Maybe that is part of your unique position.
But something has gotta be unique. Maybe you’re the cheapest guy. Maybe it’s the price. Maybe you are the most expensive guy. And maybe you’re proud of that, and you list that, as well. Some people would think that’s scary. But honestly, you’re not gonna be as busy as other people. But you can make more money than someone who’s scrambling around all over town for 50 bucks here and there, if you only take the jobs that are the highest paying jobs. And if you want to really hang your hat on that, you can do that. If your area’s large enough, and you have enough people that’s a viable option, I think that would be really cool.
But whatever it is, only you can decide that. But you’ve gotta make that decision. And that whole website is gonna be built around that fact. So until you decide what you’re selling, and how you’re gonna market that in a unique manner, you’re just kind of scatterbrained. And that’s how we ended up at this website. So after the homepage, we have a list of buttons on the left-hand side, which feels super ‘80s. And I don’t like them. We’re gonna move those to – but the top one is home button.
So you click the home button, well, we’re already at home. So we don’t need that home button for the homepage. Most of the time you just click your logo, and that’s the home button. So it’s an extra button that doesn’t need to be there. Not the biggest deal ever, but I’d like to get rid of it. Also, we’ve got the phone number relatively prominent on the site, but it kind of hides in the text. I would like the phone number to be either larger, or in another place, up at the top of the page.
Remember, the whole point of this website is to get people on the phone, so you can make an appointment. We don’t get paid in website views. We don’t get paid in how long people hang out on your website. We don’t get paid on any of that stuff. We get paid when we fix the car. And you can’t fix the car until you’re there in person. So you have to remember that everything you do needs to march you closer to being in person.
So this is gonna be slightly different if you have a fixed location than if your retail because you can just try to drive people straight to the shop. So you can meet them in person, give them estimates that’s fine, too. But most of us are retail. It’s the exception that a guy has a shop. Shane’s got a lot of insight on running a shop. And he’s gonna chime in at specific times for that stuff. But I’ve got more expertise running a mobile business, and that’s what I’m sharing.
So the next button down is, about us. Click about us, what do I wanna learn about these guys? Okay, about this company, this company is a family owned and operated paintless, dent removal business, located in this community, also serving these communities. We always provide exceptional dent repair services with a smile. Well, that’s good.
Shane Jacks: I do it with a frown.
Keith Cosentino: And always, that’s good because there’s a lot of companies that don’t always provide exceptional dent repair services. Some of them just provide average services, and even terrible services, at times. So that’s good we got that out of the way.
And it says, we thrive on referrals, and have great relationships with car dealerships throughout the area. Our service includes dent removal and hail repair with mobile service. We keep our customers our top priority. The most rewarding moment is when a customer sees their car after a repair. And they realize it was money well spent. [Inaudible] this is maybe one of the worst about pages, ever. It’s just too generic.
Shane Jacks: It’s definitely generic. It’s really just filler, more than anything.
Keith Cosentino: When I read that, were you enticed by anything?
Shane Jacks: I learned nothing about him, absolutely nothing.
Keith Cosentino: Did you try to go to sleep halfway through it, and it’s only five lines?
Shane Jacks: I actually did.
Keith Cosentino: I woke up from a dream. But there’s nothing good here.
Shane Jacks: Nothing.
Keith Cosentino: There’s little key points that could turn into things that are great. But this is terrible. All I see is half a Camaro on the side, and that’s it.
Shane Jacks: Now, we do have the areas serviced.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, we already covered that.
Shane Jacks: Of course, that’s on the homepage.
Keith Cosentino: And that’s a big part of a website. I mean, that’s a great idea that needs to be included prominently about the areas you service, both from an SCO standpoint, and just a basic knowledge of customer reading. Are you in their area? Which leads me to another issue about the domain name.
If you haven’t built yourself a website, yet, and you’re still thinking about a domain name, it’s cool to have your company name. That’s what mine is, but it doesn’t have to be. Shane’s isn’t, and if you have a website that’s relevant to your particular area, you know, like, chickenlipsdentremoval.com? That’s a great website to get because if people are normally searching for dent removal chicken lips, your website is gonna come up more often than not on the strength of the name of the website. And as long as you have supporting facts on the website – on the homepage, and the supporting pages –
Shane Jacks: Now, my domain is dentsgonenow.com, right? And also, I have Greenville because I’m in the Greenville area. And Greenville is – that’s where I make all of my money, you know? And it’s big enough area, we’ve talked about this before. It’s a big enough area to support retail, okay. So I’ve also got Greenvilledentrepair.com.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I have a few of those, too.
Shane Jacks: If you do that, it will help your SCO.
Keith Cosentino: It will help a little bit. But to really make that effective, it’s kind of a more advanced strategy because you have to maintain each page in a little different manner. Otherwise Google sees that they’re clones, and it doesn’t show them. So if you really want those other sites to stand on their own and help other people get to you that didn’t get to you through your other site, it’s a lot more work. But it’s an option.
So in this about section is really where – if you even need it. I mean, you don’t really need it that much. But if you want an about section that’s cool. Make something interesting about your unique position. If it’s your family life, if you wanna connect with people on a demographics level, and you wanna say, hey, these are my kids. And this is why I work so hard. Or you want to tell them about your personal experience. And why you’re so great, what you learned along the way.
Tell a story. You need a story here because nobody wants to read this. This is just generic nonsense. We keep our customers our top priority. Well, I would hope any business I’m doing business with – who’s gonna say otherwise? You know, we’re pretty – we like our customers, mostly. But don’t be a jerk because you will not be our top priority, you know? This should – it goes without saying. If you’re running a good company, yes, we keep our customers a top priority.
Shane Jacks: Do you have an about us page, Keith?
Keith Cosentino: Do I need one?
Shane Jacks: Do you have one on your site?
Keith Cosentino: Do I need one?
Shane Jacks: Oh, you ask – okay, no you don’t.
Keith Cosentino: Can you use one?
Shane Jacks: Can you use one?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah.
Shane Jacks: Of course, what do you mean, can you use one?
Keith Cosentino: Should I have one?
Shane Jacks: Not necessarily, no.
Keith Cosentino: So I don’t have a button that says about.
Shane Jacks: It doesn’t matter. I was just asking. I do and I use my unique position with BMW, and all that stuff as – to tell who we are, it tells a story, you know?
Keith Cosentino: It’s exactly true. I don’t have an about button. I have a home button. I have a services button. I have a before and after. But I don’t have an about. My about is a little bit on the homepage. It references some local places, and some local areas and how much experience we do or don’t have. But most importantly, the thing I like to see on a homepage is pictures of dents and making them go away.
Shane Jacks: And we do not have that on this page.
Keith Cosentino: No, if you go back to the homepage, we have this video. You have to remember something, what we’re selling to people is just a cosmetic improvement in their car. That’s the only thing we’re doing. We’re making something look better. That’s the only thing people are concerned about. Can he make it look like it was never there? That’s the business that we’re in. That’s the service we’re offering. So you have to understand that people who want to see their cars look better, they want to see everything look nice. And they want to be reassured that you’re doing the thing that they’re in the market for. They want to see dents going away. It’s very simple.
But if you don’t show that to them, and offer that reassurance that you’re doing the thing that they’re in the market for, they’re just left to wonder. And you don’t even want them to go and look for your photos, unless you have a ton of them. And you’re hiding a bunch because there’s so many. You don’t want them to have to go and dig them out because that means they’re already questioning you. And they really want to see the pictures to see if you’re the real deal.
So what I want – what this website is going to have is photos of dents, and dents going away. And you’re gonna see those photos whether you want to or not. This is an important part of a PDR website, in my opinion. When they land there, they’re immediately shown a picture of a dent, and it goes away. And another one, and it goes away. And another one, and it goes away. And they keep coming, and they don’t stop. And they’re all different cars.
So you need to have a little bit of content built up. If you don’t’ have those photos, then you just start taking them. And one area where people really screw up, where technicians really screw up when they’re taking photos of damage, is to take photos with their stinking lights, your PDR lights. These are specialized tools for us only.
How many questions do you need to get about your mirrors, or whatever people call them? They call them the craziest things, but it’s so simple to us what it does and why we’re using it. But so many people don’t understand it. So when you show them a dent in a light in the photo, they don’t, half the time, know what they’re looking at, or what they’re looking for. They don’t put lights on dents. They look at them in a driveway.
So you need to take the pictures in the same ambient, normal lighting that they would see the dents. Don’t use a PDR light. Take the picture of the dent the way they see it. And take the picture of the car fixed the way they see it. Hopefully in the same orientation as your before photo. So the colors don’t appear to change, and angles don’t change. Put the camera on a tripod. Take a photo of the dent. Fix it, take another photo in the same exact place. It’s very simple.
And you just get in the habit of doing that for a week. And if you’re at least, remotely busy after a week, you should have enough content that you can build a site with it. But please get rid of those photos with the lights. It’s killing you. They don’t understand it. They don’t know what to look at. It doesn’t make the impact that you think it makes, okay, ditch it.
If you want to make a video that’s even better, but we all include a video and some photos. But for the purpose of the homepage, I want a ton of photos, before and after, no lights. So that’s gonna change about this homepage. And I want you to change it about your sites, too, if you guys are tweaking them, or getting ready to build one. So after about us, the next button is estimate request. Now, before I even click this button, I’m gonna tell you why I hate it. Remember, I keep saying this, but you can’t forget. The purpose of this website –
Shane Jacks: Get them on the phone.
Keith Cosentino: And ultimately, the purpose of the website is getting the person to fix the car. But the best way to do that is to get them on the phone. Some people like filling out a form on line, instead of calling. But we’re after an appointment to fix the car. We’re not after estimates. We don’t want to do estimates. And we don’t want to do requests.
On my homepage, I have a button. And you know what it says? Schedule a repair, okay? Now, some of you might think, Keith, you’re just splitting hairs. That’s not a big deal. But when you make that mental commitment to click, schedule a repair, that is not the same commitment you make when you click, estimate request. I’m just requesting an estimate. Neither one is a commitment, the estimate, or the request.
But when you schedule a repair that’s a commitment, I’m scheduling something fixed, not scheduling for an estimate, not requesting to have something fixed. Estimate request, I hate it. Schedule a repair that’s what the form is for. But if I click estimate request, we have – a form pops up. And it’s an all right form. It says, estimate/appointment request.
Okay, so now, the verbiage has changed from estimate request to appointment request. So I think he understands where he really wants to go, and isn’t really getting there the right way. Like I said, initially, this website has good intentions. But there’s many mistakes made, and this is a big one. So we’re gonna fix this. But here’s what the form says. To request an estimate, or make an appointment, simply fill out the form below. We will contact you within 24 hours.
So I like that, it says when they’re gonna be contacted, and then, contact information. First and last name is a field. Email address is a field. Phone number is a field. Best time to reach you is a field. Desired appointment date, alternate request date, okay, that’s cool, if you want that. And then, vehicle information, year of vehicle, make of vehicle, model of vehicle, describe issues and services requested, and upload a photo of damage. And then, anti-spam security question, and send my information.
So there’s a couple things I don’t like about this. There’s a couple things I do. It’s mostly okay. I don’t like the verbiage on the part where they can type a paragraph. Where it says, describe issues and services requested. They may not know what services they’re requesting. And apparently, unless I watched the video, all you do is dent removal. So what other services are they gonna request? I would reword that to be something like, please describe the damage to your vehicle and how it happened. It’s much more information for you than them to think what they want. Describe services requested, they’re gonna want you to use suction cups and dry ice.
Shane Jacks: I was gonna say, I got a dent.
Keith Cosentino: Upload a photo, I hope that’s not required to fill this form out. I haven’t actually filled it out. But one thing that’s really missing here that’s a big, big deal to running a streamlined, mobile dent repair business, is an area or zip code. If you don’t have the area or zip code, you could have a guy that’s one or two hours in the wrong direction for a place that you service. And I learned this through trial and error on my site, making the zip code a required field.
And people don’t necessarily want to put their home address. But I would like you to have a field for home address, as well, or address you’d like the service to happen, however you want to word that. And here’s why, in my experience, when people are ready to buy, they put the entire address down there because they want you to come. So when you see that form come through with the entire address, you can put it in the bank. They’re ready to buy. As long as it’s something you can repair, you’re in business.
But this is still too vague, this is like, texting a photo. I mean, we’re asking for a lot of things. But we don’t have the physical address. And our whole business is predicated on being there in person. So if you can’t get there in person, you can’t close a deal. And if you’re not asking for the address, you’re not gonna get there in person. They could fill all these things out to a T, and you still couldn’t find them. You couldn’t get there.
So address and zip code, very important. We’re gonna add that to the form. And we’re gonna be able to sift through these because when you have these forms, you get a lot of garbage. You’re gonna get things that are smashed, or people that are jerking you around. And you have to be able to sift through those. And address and zip code are gonna help you do that. So we’re gonna change the verbiage. We’re gonna change the form a little bit.
And when we’re here, we still don’t see – there’s a whole big right side of the screen that’s just dead space. And I don’t have anything compelling to help me be reassured that I’m making the right choice. I would like some feedback here from customers, or photos, or from me, the technician or the owner saying, hey, you’re making the right decision. We can’t wait to help you, something like that. So under estimate request, we have contact us form, a button. We’re gonna click this, and it says, contact us. If you have any questions at all, feel free to contact us at the numbers provided below. Well, it’s the same number from the homepage, right?
Shane Jacks: Yeah, same number.
Keith Cosentino: An email, which if you want to put it, okay, I have one available on my mobile site because some people, it’s easy to email from a phone, and some people like to do that. I particularly don’t love it. I have considered taking it off, honestly. But the reason –
Shane Jacks: Because you can’t get them on the phone, over an email. I mean, they could –
Keith Cosentino: No, you can’t.
Shane Jacks: It’s just another step for them to go through to avoid you.
Keith Cosentino: That’s exactly right, it’s another step between me and the deal. And if they really want to get a hold of me, they’d like to call me, and talk to me, now, not send me an email, and hope for a contact. But I do understand that a lot of people are communicating via email all day, especially if you work in a cube, and you’re talking to people across the building on email. And you want to shoot a note to a business. And you don’t have time to make the phone call, if you’re at work. So I can see some scenarios where an email is okay. So I do have it on the mobile device. But it isn’t my favorite.
But anyways, if you want to put it on the contact that’s fine. It has hours of operation, which could be a button by itself. Or it could be a fact on the homepage, like, when you go back home, and you see these some key points, you could put your hours. But instead, it was hiding under contact us.
I like the hours, by the way. This guy listed hours as Monday through Friday, 7:30 to 6:00 p.m. Most people don’t work 7:30 to 6:00 p.m. But you put those hours so that people aren’t afraid to call you early. They’ll leave you a message, and you can call them when you wake up. Or a little bit – you get home, you know, maybe between 5:00 and 6:00. And they’re not afraid to call you at 6:00 or 6:15.
To me, it takes a little barrier away from them calling you, if they don’t think the time is right. But if you say you’re open, even if you said you’re open from 7:00 to 7:00, it doesn’t mean you have to answer the phone at 7:00 or 7:00. You can take a voicemail. But it entices people to call you. And they might leave you a voicemail that they wouldn’t have called otherwise, and then got distracted. So I don’t think the hours are that important. But I like these, they could even be expanded, I think, just to pick up some extra people.
So contact us, we’re gonna change that a little bit. Feedback is the next button. And all these buttons look the same on the left. Now, this is one part of the site that I like. This is telling me a story, and making me excited to do business with these guys. This is the only thing he’s got going for him. And it’s hiding all the way here on feedback. I want to put this information front and center, right up in your face the minute you land on this website. Hey, guess what, we are people who live in this area. And we love this service.
When somebody’s looking for a company like ours, like, a dent removal company, they want to know that other people have used them to great success. And that they’re gonna be one of those people. So often, they’ll ask for a referral from a friend or family member. And if they don’t have one, then they hit the websites.
And what you’re trying to do is recreate this same comforting feeling that they’re gonna get when they talk to their friend, who says, you’ve gotta use Shane. I’ve used other guys, they didn’t even come close. He’s the best. Look what he did to my car. Somebody’s gonna say, oh, that’s great, thanks for telling me. I will call Shane. But if they don’t have that, you need to create that. And that’s what these feedback stories do.
Shane Jacks: Whenever you’re on Amazon, Keith, do you read the reviews on –
Keith Cosentino: That’s how I’m shopping.
Shane Jacks: Every single time, every time, unless I know exactly what I’m going for –
Keith Cosentino: Right, then it’s different.
Shane Jacks: – then the reason I know what I’m going for because somebody else has told me about it, in person, or on the phone. So I don’t need reviews then, but I’ve already had a review. So everybody goes by these reviews, one way or the other, whether it be in person, on the phone, or on the internet.
Keith Cosentino: Very important, so this is the most valuable thing on the site. And we’re gonna use this to make some money. And hopefully we’re gonna get more of them. To the right of them he’s got an option to give them your review, right there on the site, which I actually like. I like that quite a bit because, although, I use Yelp.com because it’s really popular in my area. That’s where I steer my people. We’ve got a lot of momentum going there, and I want to keep that going.
A lot of people don’t understand that, or they don’t want to log into it. And they – I’ve had customers ask me, how, can I just go on your site and leave review, and leave feedback. And I don’t have anything on my site for that. But he does, so I’m actually gonna give him plus one on this.
This is a great idea because once they’re coming to you, you can decide whether they hit the site or not. You know, just let them submit whatever they want. They can give you one star, and you could throw it in the round file. Or they give you five, and you put it on the site. So that’s great, we’re gonna make it look a little snazzier. And give it a little visual pop. And keep that there –
Shane Jacks: Put it on the homepage, a little bit.
Keith Cosentino: Um-hum, and these reviews, hopefully we’re gonna get some more of them. And the only thing I’d like to add to them, and it’d just be icing on the cake, is a little photo of the car and or the people who are giving the review.
Shane Jacks: It doesn’t have to be the real person, either.
Keith Cosentino: It doesn’t, I mean, you’d want it to, if it’s possible. But it doesn’t have to be.
Shane Jacks: None of mine are, I’ve got some really good looking people on my site. I don’t know where my web guy got them from.
Keith Cosentino: And I’m not saying, make up reviews. No, you don’t need to. If you’re doing a good job, you don’t need to. But you do need to ask your customers for them. And tell them what you’re doing. You know what, I know when I’m shopping for something, I really value reviews, and I’m sure you do, too. And what I’d really love to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind, is to leave your review. And here’s the place where you leave it.
If you wanna push that angle, you can either email them, if you already have an email correspondence set up with your customers. And give them the link, right there to land, where they can fill out a review. Or you can give the web address to them on a business card, or something like that. But make it easy for them to give you a review.
But you can add a photo of these people. And if you have it, pictures of their damage before and after, would be really cool. What you’re doing is telling a story that people can connect with. And after their names, if you have their particular towns that are also in the towns that you service that’s gonna add another layer of believability to your local market for these reviews.
Shane Jacks: Right, you just gave me – I think I’m gonna do that, Keith, on my site. Actually take a picture, especially of some of the smashed stuff that you and I tend to get roped into. To take a picture of the customer standing with it before, outside the shop, and standing with it after, with their arms out, grinning, happy, you know?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, that’s great, it takes a couple extra steps. And you know, you need five or ten of them, then you can be done. But that’s fantastic. I’ve seen a lot of guys do that really well. And you’ve seen just small town businesses do that. You know, taking photos of people when they get whatever service they’re buying.
I’ve seen it at dealerships, when they take a picture of people taking delivery of their new car. And after a year that will – 10-foot wall filled up with photos of people taking their new cars. I mean, you see that, you realize, hey, these guys have delivered a lot of happy cars to happy people.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, one of the smaller dealers, he’s just a used car dealer, but he has these walls of pictures that people have bought cars. And they’re all happy, you know. None of them have a frown on their face when they’ve bought the car from him. But they are three months later, but they’re all happy. And it’s compelling. Every time I go in, I look for a new picture. And I’m just a guy that does some work there, you know.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, and you know what’s interesting about that, just like us, on the outside looking in that’s a small business. He probably has just a handful of cars on his lot. So you would question, in your mind, how much work are these guys actually doing, you know?
Shane Jacks: When you see a wall of 300 people that have bought. And you don’t know when it’s been, you know? You don’t know how long ago that goes. But the pictures look relatively new, all of them do.
Keith Cosentino: And if you wanted to do something similar, you say, like, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a photo shaking hands with everybody I do business with. And if you had 50 or 100 of those just scrolling through, man, that would be another layer of feedback that people could relate to. Wow, this guy is working on a lot of cars.
Shane Jacks: And you may think that’s too much. But people will either go all the way through all of those. Some people that are weird, like me, will sit there and scroll through all of them, and look at them. But then, other people will see 10 or 15, and say, you know what, I’ve seen enough. That’s enough for me. When I say, the people will say I’ve seen enough, they’ll say, I’ve seen enough, positive. I’m giving this guy a call.
Keith Cosentino: Exactly right, I’ve asked my customers that exact question because I have so many before and after photos that I stopped putting them on the website. I was worried I’d have too many. So I asked customers, especially the ones that said, we looked at all your photos, and they looked great. I asked them, do you think there’s too many? Or would you have wanted to see more? Or do you think there can be too many? And a lot of the comments I got back were, I don’t think, Keith, that you can have too many. I just look, and look, until I’m tired of looking at them. And then, I called you.
Shane Jacks: We’re accustomed to seeing this stuff. A lot of these customers are finding you for the first time, online. They’ve got a dent. They didn’t even know PDR was – they’ve heard from somebody PDR was possible. But they may – how many times, Keith, do you get the question, or the statement – a customer will pull up to my shop and they’ll say, hey, I’ve got a dent on this car, right here. And you go out there, and it’s a Dodge Challenger. And it’s right on the bodyline. And they say, you can’t – this is what they tell me, they don’t ask.
They’re almost convinced, but they’re hoping you’re going to prove them wrong. They’ll say, you can’t fix dents on bodylines, can you? And it’s always, well, of course, we can. I sell it as I’m the only guy in town that can. It’s a complete and total lie. But actually, I don’t sell as – I say, if the technician knows what they’re doing, yes, they are a more difficult – and you know what I’m doing right there, bam, it’s upping the price a little bit in their minds because I’m telling them – but that’s another subject that we went over 100 times. But we get that constantly.
And so we’re looking at these things. We see them every day. And it’s no big deal to us. A lot of these people, this is brand new, or they don’t think X can be done. But they’re hoping. So they click on a PDR website. They click on dentsgonenow.com. And then, they see this smashed stuff I’m doing. And all of a sudden, they have hope. And so they’re gonna keep going through those pictures, and keep going through those pictures. And it’s not going to bother them, you know?
It’s kind of like, us looking at – I use this as an example because one of our mutual friends does wildlife, not wildlife, but scenic photography. Some of that stuff, to him, probably looks just this same old run. But I can sit there and look through those pictures of mountains and streams because it’s enticing to me. It’s something new to me.
Keith Cosentino: Right, and you reminded me of something, as well. A lot of customers have told me they really like the fact that they were able to look, and look, and look and find a dent that was just like theirs. So they were confident that I could fix theirs. I hear that more often than not. So you know, it takes a year of photos every day to get so many that it makes somebody sick to their stomach to look at them all. But it doesn’t cost you anything to set up a camera and take some photos. It’s really easy.
Shane Jacks: You know, I actually have a few people ask, that’s too small to fix, isn’t it? And that’s the most – that’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard in my life because they don’t think that it can be done because it’s the size of a dime, you know? And you’re like, well, yeah, if you know what you’re doing, it can be done. And I am that guy, the only one within 600 miles of here.
Keith Cosentino: So when I’m on the feedback page, and I ask myself the question, does this entice me to pick up the phone and call? Yes, it does.
Shane Jacks: Yes, for sure.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, so I want to call them. How do I call them? I gotta click away to somewhere else and find the number. So I would like the phone number right here with the feedback, if it was gonna stay here. But it’s not, it’s moving up to the homepage. And okay, so this is the only saving grace of this site. And it’s hiding in the corner.
Shane Jacks: Well, we don’t know that, yet. We’ve got three more buttons to go through.
Keith Cosentino: Well, I’ve been through it. I know.
Shane Jacks: You ruined it for the listeners, though.
Keith Cosentino: So the next button is coupons.
Shane Jacks: Holy cow, this is awesome, right here.
Keith Cosentino: Or if you have Midwest English, coupons.
Shane Jacks: Actually, I say coupons. Nobody here says coupons.
Keith Cosentino: Well, who’s that –
Shane Jacks: And I’m not Midwestern, just in case any of you all didn’t know that.
Keith Cosentino: Who’s that little cherub then that shoots people with little arrows for love? Is that cupid?
Shane Jacks: No, it’s cupid.
Keith Cosentino: Oh, so you spell it C O U P I D then, right?
Shane Jacks: I’m not saying it’s right, Keith. I’m just saying that’s what I say. When did I say that it was the correct pronunciation? I just say, I say coupons. It’s not right, but I say it.
Keith Cosentino: Well let me axe you a question.
Shane Jacks: Axe me a quortion.
Keith Cosentino: So coupons, why do we have coupons, we don’t need coupons.
Shane Jacks: Because we’re not worth what we think we’re worth. This coupon is terrible. It’s not a coupon.
Keith Cosentino: So the coupon says, free, special, dent removal estimate.
Shane Jacks: If you took the estimate off there, I would be enticed to print this coupon.
Keith Cosentino: Free verbal estimate.
Shane Jacks: Free dent removal.
Keith Cosentino: We work with all major –
Shane Jacks: This is terrible.
Keith Cosentino: It’s a free estimate, Shane. You gotta print it.
Shane Jacks: Okay, but let’s go back to the homepage. Isn’t there a free estimate there, also, or no? Maybe I’m wrong.
Keith Cosentino: Maybe he likes to charge for estimates.
Shane Jacks: Well, you’ve got the estimate request, right?
Keith Cosentino: You got the estimate request. Apparently, that’s gonna cost money, unless you have the coupon.
Shane Jacks: You gotta put your – I did, there’s no credit card information, there, on estimate request. So maybe it’s free there, also. It is free that’s the point. This is stupid.
Keith Cosentino: It’s like a collect call, when you call them back. You want the estimate, you better pay up. But if you get this coupon, it’s free. So this is ridiculous, for a couple reasons. One, coupon shoppers are not the people you’re after in this luxury service that you’re offering. And make no mistake, that’s what we sell, guys. We sell luxury service. This is a high-level service that is not required. It’s no more required than a diamond ring, okay?
The car works fine, it just has an ugly dent. And they’d like it to go away. They’d like it to look better. You don’t need price shoppers for a luxury service, it’s the opposite. You want people who want the nicest things. These are your people. So a coupon, and a ridiculous coupon at that, doesn’t do anything for you. It just takes credibility, and shreds it up in the paper shredder. Just the same place that I’d like this coupon to go.
So we’re gonna get rid of this. If you did a lot of hail, and you wanted to make a free hail estimate coupon, I could see making a case for that because doing a good hail estimate does take some time, a proper one. And you want to engage them, and schedule it, and get their insurance facts before you go out there, and all that kind of stuff. You could make a case for that. And I think in this fella’s area, he does get some hail.
So if he’s in love with the coupon, and doesn’t want to leave it, we’ll change it to have to do with hail. But this coupon needs to go away. We don’t need a coupon. He probably will tell me that some people actually do print this out, and bring it in, or show up with it. But how stupid do you feel when you take it?
Shane Jacks: Yeah, especially or – maybe every customer that he goes to, he asks, do you have your coupon? If not, it’s ten bucks.
Keith Cosentino: And I know a lot of guys use – or they try to use a fee structure for their estimates, as a way to ward off crappy customers, who are just window-shopping. And to me, that is a laziness of doing – or ineptitude at doing proper selling and qualifying over the phone. If you can’t get those things out of the way with the right questions, then that’s when you end up driving out to bunk deals. And then, you get mad. And you say, you know what, I’m gonna have a driving out estimate fee because my time is money.
If you ask the right questions in the first place, you’re not gonna drive to crap. And you’re not gonna drive to people who don’t want to fix the car. But if you don’t, you just take appointment, and you go out there, you’re gonna drive to tons of garbage. And you’re gonna get mad. And you’re gonna make this paid estimate. And then, if you do the repair, we’ll, you know, waive it.
But all you’re doing is getting another barrier between you and that customer. And you’re taking away the comfort that they have. And you’re adding an uncertainty. Oh, I might have to pay if he comes out, for nothing, just to look at it. I don’t know. And you think you’re being crafty as a business owner, but really, you’re being crappy, not crafty with your paid estimates. Don’t do that, it’s just a crutch for your bad phone work. Work on your phone script. Work on your questions. And you don’t need to charge anybody for estimates.
The estimates are free, that’s another thing that makes somebody comfortable. And they think, okay, this guy is confident in what he’s doing. He’s gonna estimate my car for free. And we’re gonna – maybe I’ll do business with him. But you don’t just take a name and address, and drive out there and do an estimate. You can, if you’re slow that’s a great way to close them.
But if you haven’t given them some parameters to know what they kind of can expect, average price range, average repair time, etc., etc. then you’re gonna drive to bad deals a lot. So if you’re driving to bad deals, and you made a paid estimate program, take a second look at the questions you’re asking. And I’d like you to coach yourself in getting rid of that.
Shane Jacks: And again, the only – one of the exceptions to this, probably the only one is hail damage because people will get you to drive to give them a hail estimate so they can collect a check. And that takes a while to do.
Keith Cosentino: Absolutely, to do a good one. Yeah, so that’s a different story. Hail damage and door ding repairs are different stories. I think everybody knows that. So you treat them a little differently. And if you got a lot of hail in your area, I would like you to make a special website just for hail. It’s totally different. Somebody got hit with a catastrophe. Now it’s not just, does the car have a door ding? But the car is looking like a big, giant pile of crap. And maybe they’re even worried that it’s gonna rust, even if it’s a stupid concern. But the car is jacked up. And houses are jacked up. Everybody got hailed on, it’s a catastrophe.
Shane Jacks: It’s a feeding frenzy.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, that’s totally different. So I don’t have hail here. But if I did, I would have a dedicated site with my town, hail repair, talking about the gypsies who come into town, talking about our experience. I would kill it with that program. But I don’t have that because you don’t have hail. I have a specialized website for people with, you know, minor collision damage and shopping cart dings, etc., etc. And that’s what this needs to be.
But if you want a hail site, don’t add it to your site as an afterthought. Make a whole new site about hail, what you do, how you do it, and educate customers. And get those contacts through that site. That’s my opinion about that. And I know I’m right about that because when you’re shopping for hail damage, it’s a totally different animal than a door ding.
Even though, to you and I, as a technician, it’s similar. To the customers it’s not. They think, I mean, when you can fix one little dime sized dent in a door. Everybody thinks you can do that. But then, when you put 1,000 on top of the car, they think you can’t. It’s the same repair times 1,000. You can do it. It’s not that big of a deal. But they don’t make that connection.
So those are two different things. And consider making two different sites if you want to service a hail market. So after our terrible coupon button, the next button on this blood bath is, before and after pics. Now, this is one of the most commonly clicked buttons on a PDR website because people want to see. They want to see the repairs that they’re shopping for.
It’s just like a – I use a jewelry store as an example, again – but it’s like a jewelry store website with no pictures of jewelry on it. Hey, we make super nice jewelry out of gold, and other precious metals. Come in today. Show me what you’re making. What are you, you know, we’re gonna get there, and the stuff looks like crap? What are you selling? It’s the same thing with us. So when I click this button –
Shane Jacks: This is – there are three examples of before and after, and that’s it.
Keith Cosentino: It’s almost as if I called him one day and said, you have 30 minutes to get me three before and after’s, go. Holy crap, okay, so man, it’s ten times of different wrong for these photos. This is probably reason No. 1 or two that this website doesn’t generate any leads.
Shane Jacks: No. 1, without a doubt, I would say.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, okay, let’s just take it one by one. The top – first of all, you can’t zoom in on them. Oh wait, this one maybe you can?
Shane Jacks: No, I can’t.
Keith Cosentino: No, I double click, and zoom, oh wait, if you – no, you can just move the whole image. Okay, so they’re little, tiny photos. They’re with the light. He’s using a good light. So you know he’s a halfway decent technician, or trying to be, by buying modern equipment. You and I know that customers don’t understand or care. But the first – the top photo is, as technicians, we can see, a pretty nasty little crushed rail. And it looks like a clean repair. However, the light is in a different position.
Shane Jacks: The light’s moved. But now, if you’re gonna use a light, and you’re gonna show that, he did the right thing, as far as the customer’s concerned. Because they’re gonna have to idea that he moved the light.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, but we’re not using lights.
Shane Jacks: Right, but I’m just saying, if – he did the right thing using the lighting. He moved it out of the damage, so they couldn’t see exactly what was going on, there. Hey, that looks great, whatever that is.
Keith Cosentino: Some customers are a little more crafty, though. And they’ll notice things you don’t –
Shane Jacks: My customers are Southern.
Keith Cosentino: So this is obviously in some kind of dealer setting, or wholesale setting. And the reason I say obviously is because you got keys on the sunroof in the before photo, with what look like a stock tag. And then, you got keys on the after photo, in the sunroof, and a couple of hammers laying on the car.
Shane Jacks: Two hammers and what is that, there’s something else laying there, something black, it looks like a credit card, I think he had –
Keith Cosentino: Somebody’s coupon.
Shane Jacks: Could be.
Keith Cosentino: Everybody does this in the business, we know that. We have a comfort with paint because we bang on it with hammers on it all day. And we know how durable it is. And so it’s not a big deal for us to throw a hammer on a hood or roof. Everybody knows that in the business, it’s not a big deal. I’m not beating him up over that. But I am beating him up for his putting it in a photo. Nobody wants to see tools scattered all over the top of their car. They think it’s precious. They don’t even want to put a box up there because they’re gonna scratch it. So when you’re throwing hammers down on top of the car, it’s not very confident inspiring about how you’re gonna treat their vehicle.
Shane Jacks: And as we said earlier, this is a luxury item – luxury service that we do. And if they’re paying to get this done, then that’s gonna bother the piss out of them.
Keith Cosentino: Yes, this is the bad practice.
Shane Jacks: Very bad.
Keith Cosentino: So although this repair was probably pretty good, you’ve highlighted it in a terrible way. And you’ve probably done more to scare people away, then to entice them to call you. The second one is a tiny little ding on some type of old, red car.
Shane Jacks: I think that’s a Mustang.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I think, well, can’t tell.
Shane Jacks: No, it’s not a Mustang.
Keith Cosentino: Door handle looks different.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, the side marker light, anyway, it doesn’t matter.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, so it’s a little ding. And again, it’s gone in the light, but you can’t tell if it’s in the same position or not. And you can’t zoom in to see it. Just since we were techs, we know to look in the light. And it looks good, there. You can see the window guard is still down, a beat up window guard. Again, it’s just like –
Shane Jacks: Bad.
Keith Cosentino: It’s bad news. The last one is, like, some minor, little ding and a little crease in a quarter panel of something, Scion TC, or something like that. Again, in the light, and you can’t zoom it. It’s barely visible to you and I in the light. Customers aren’t gonna see that. This is just, this is a train wreck. These pictures are terrible.
Shane Jacks: And there are only three of them. Well, three before and after’s.
Keith Cosentino: And they’re mini.
Shane Jacks: Tiny.
Keith Cosentino: So they need to be big. We’re gonna ditch all these. And we’re gonna have him take new photos. And we’re gonna populate the site with those. And they’re not gonna be using the lights. They’re gonna be using natural, ambient lighting. And they’re gonna be confidence inspiring. They’re gonna show dents that you have on your car, and dents and how they go away.
And if you really wanted to put some extra work in, it would be awesome to integrate videos into your before and after section. So when people really want to go digging deep, they can find more. Or like I said, I want photos on the homepage, whether you want to see them or not. But some people do like to click a gallery, or before and after photos. That’s cool, I have that button. So you click, before and after. Here’s where you’re gonna hang out for a while, and just see, and see, and see more cars. And then, how about the contact us form right here? So they can get to you right after they’re tired of seeing enough photos.
But if you wanted to integrate a video, so you could have before and after, and then, in the middle, click to see this repair in a video. You know, and a quick pan of the before, and a quick pan of the after. That would be fun. It’d take a little extra work, creating the content. But once you’ve spent a week or two taking extra time to make that content, it’s gonna stay up and make you money for months and months, and years and years. So don’t be short sighted on that part. Okay, after the train wreck of the before and after pics, we have this button down here. Now this is where the patient bleeds out.
Shane Jacks: Between the coupon, not coupon – between the coupon, the before and after pics, and blog –
[Crosstalk]Keith Cosentino: I don’t even want to click it.
Shane Jacks: This is –
Keith Cosentino: I’m gonna click it.
Shane Jacks: It’s clicked, I’ve been clicked. My eyes are bleeding.
Keith Cosentino: This is just weird. It’s like your site got hacked.
Shane Jacks: By a body shop, not even a body shop.
Keith Cosentino: A Russian body shop.
Shane Jacks: What’s the first thing, there, Keith? How to avoid scratches on car paint.
Keith Cosentino: On car paint.
Shane Jacks: The wording is bad. The content is terrible because we don’t know – see that’s another thing, when we – the video, right, the video on the homepage?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah?
Shane Jacks: How do we know what he does? We’ve got a guy fixing a bumper, correct? That’s not really PDR. Yeah, you can incorporate that. But that’s not what most people are gonna be bringing their car to you for. It’s a dent on a bumper that can’t be fixed, by the way. It’s you know, it’s not one of those dents that can be repaired because it’s computer-generated, for one.
You’ve got a guy touching up paint, and what else? Oh, working on a fiberglass car, for two, on the Corvette, so we don’t know by the video. We don’t know visually, what he’s doing. Is he painting? Or is he doing paintless dent repair? Is he doing both? Right here, his very first blog says, how to avoid scratches on car paint.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, and Shan’s not just reading that wrong. It says, literally, how to avoid scratches on car paint.
Shane Jacks: Okay, the content’s completely wrong. This is a PDR website. We don’t need to be talking about scratches on car paint. And if we were, just don’t word it, how to avoid scratches on car paint. We go over to the blog itself, in the beginning. I’m not gonna click on the whole thing.
Keith Cosentino: I am.
Shane Jacks: Are you?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I’m gonna use this one, just to make you cringe.
Shane Jacks: Oh, you’re gonna read it?
Keith Cosentino: I’m gonna read it.
Shane Jacks: Okay, I was really wanting to read that first sentence.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, you read it.
Shane Jacks: You ready, I don’t know if you all read it. I want you to get your Russian lexicons out, or something. A sight of a slightest of the scratch on your expensive car paint can be very annoying and frequent, too. I think this was a Chinese guy. I’m not being racist, but this was a Chinese guy that wrote this. It had to be.
Keith Cosentino: You can’t make more mistakes in a sentence than that, unless you jarble up those words.
Shane Jacks: Not even on Facebook.
Keith Cosentino: A sight, I mean, if you’re gonna put this on your site, ask yourself, would I read this, myself? A sight of the slightest of the scratch on your expensive car paint can be very annoying, and frequent, too. I mean, this is like a spam email you get. As an auto body facility –
Shane Jacks: From China.
Keith Cosentino: As an auto body facility in this town and this state, this company recommends you some precautionary measures to avoid and make these aggravating views rare. I mean, what is this about? Why would you put this on your site? It’s ten different kinds of wrong. It’s weird, it’s spammy, it doesn’t add any value. It detracts credibility.
If you want to talk about how to maintain your paint, talk about it in English. Write it yourself. I’m sure if you are running a business, and you decided to make a website, you can probably write a freaking paragraph about how not to jack your paint up in English, instead of this garbage.
Shane Jacks: Just keep reading, park your car carefully. There’s a correct sentence.
Keith Cosentino: That’s probably the only one. Keep a considerable amount –
Shane Jacks: Keep a considerable amount of a distance from the vehicle next in parking zones.
Keith Cosentino: I couldn’t write it worse if I tried to make a comedy out of it. Avoid parking at places where lot of people may loiter and be –
Shane Jacks: I didn’t even catch that one, and I’m a word nerd. I guess there’s so many my brain is starting to convert to this.
Keith Cosentino: Wait, I didn’t finish this one. Avoid parking at places where lot of people may loiter and be sloppy. Come on guys.
Shane Jacks: Is this how to avoid getting chili on your car? Find a shady or covered area for parking of your car to avoid the fading and damage to the paint by the sun’s UV rays and hot temperature.
Keith Cosentino: Also, choose smooth roads and avoid reckless driving to be safe from collisions and scratches. Okay, so that’s just one of these blog posts. And let’s assume it was worded perfectly, okay? Let’s assume that these were all things that you and I would say in a normal, English conversation to somebody about not scratching their paint with their keys in their hands, and stuff like that, stuff that actually might be considered useful content.
Assume all that is right. It says, as an auto body facility in this town. You’re not an auto body facility. And if you are, this whole website needs to go in the garbage. And we gotta build something else. This is just wrong. So we go back to blog and see what else – is there anything here that you would consider useful content?
Shane Jacks: Now, the choosing to write auto body shop in this town. Oh, my gosh, you’re pointing people in other directions.
Keith Cosentino: It’s a bad deal. I kind of see the idea from a blog section because you want to write articles that pertain to your industry. You want to educate people, and help them find you in a web search when they’re saying, how do I pick an auto body place? Or how do I get a dent out, or whatever?
But you can’t phone that in. And farm it out to some company on Fiver, or whatever. This is dumb. It takes any ounce of credibility you may have built with your feedback page, and just flushes it down the toilet. I mean, if this was the site, you wouldn’t even think it’s real. I would be afraid to call the number, or fill out a form on this site. I’m not making a joke. I mean, nobody – that’s like, when you’re searching through your email, and you see something that’s worded like that, that’s number one sign that this is some kind of spam. And you gotta bail. Everybody knows that.
Shane Jacks: I would actually do a little bit of this. And I’m not being funny, here. I would try to find a picture of the guy. And see if he was of a different ethnicity. That wouldn’t make it any better. But it would explain it a little bit that he created the site himself. That this guy’s not, you know, he’s American, I guess.
Keith Cosentino: How to know if your car needs a painting service. 1.) Fading, 2.) Peeling, 3.) Rigorous scratches.
Shane Jacks: Okay, ways to deal with auto hail damage. I’m gonna read the first sentence. A hailstorm, when hits hard, is potent to damage properties.
Keith Cosentino: Wow.
Shane Jacks: I would be worried I wouldn’t be able to speak with him on the phone.
Keith Cosentino: Buddy, what the heck were you thinking with this? If you’re gonna – I don’t recommend making your own website. If you do make your own website, I would recommend you don’t drink and make your own website. So in case you haven’t figured it out, we hate the blog. If you really wanna have a blog, you need to give me 30 hours’ worth of writing. And we’re gonna sort through it and put what I think is –
Shane Jacks: Relevant content, yeah.
Keith Cosentino: – relevant, valuable content on it. But my gut is that you don’t wanna do that, or else you would have done it in the first place. So we’re gonna ditch this completely. This is going away. If you guys want to print this out, and make it like a joke book, you better do it now because this site’s coming down pretty soon.
Shane Jacks: I’ve actually set my computer on fire.
Keith Cosentino: I punched the screen.
Shane Jacks: They don’t burn unless they’ve got some gasoline or something on them. It’s not burning.
Keith Cosentino: Goodness gracious, so we got a lot of stuff we’ve gotta change here. But you know what, there’s nowhere to go but up from here. There really isn’t. The guy reached out to us because he’s getting almost zero leads from the site. And he wants to increase it. People in his town are busy that he knows, doing retail PDR. And he is not. So this is gonna be the main reason.
Now, one thing we didn’t touch on is how people are finding the site. We talked about that before in one of our past episodes, about getting more retail business. And making sure you’re listed in the proper places. We’re gonna go through all of that with him, too. Make sure he’s listed in the right spots. And those changes that we make, we’re gonna tell you guys what we did, and how we got there.
So man, we got a lot of work ahead of us on this thing. But our developer, his name is Nathan Pizzo. And he’s actually our tool review for this episode, for today because his services have probably made me as much money as anything else I do. I mean, without him, my website doesn’t exist. He does our PDR College website, as well. And he is a whiz, man. That’s what he does.
And you gotta recognize the value in going to a professional, and having him do his magic. The same way people hire you to do yours for a pretty penny. You need to recognize when you are lacking skills, and hire out a pro. Don’t make your own website. I’ve said it before. And I’ll say it again. If you’re that good at making websites, go into that business. But if you’re in the dent removal business, hire a web designer. Tell him what you want. And tell him what to do.
Nathan has experience with PDR as a customer, and working with me for years and years, ten years now, I guess. So he knows what we do and what we don’t. So he’s overqualified to tune up this website. And that’s what he’s gonna do as a gift to this guy, to help him, get him on the right track.
Nathan’s website is – if you wanna see what he’s up to, and his stuff, you can go to pdrcollege.com/designwithenergy. You can see what he’s got going on there. He’s got a pretty basic layout there, so you can understand what he does, and how he can help you. But he’s a whiz, also, with the mobile apps. He’s done those for me. And he’ll continue to do them. Awesome guy, so you’ll get to see his work firsthand when we tune up this site.
So if you haven’t yet clicked through, and you forgot how to find the site that we’re talking about, go to pdrcollege.com/retail, and you’ll have the link to this website, and you can see what we’re talking about. And you can rewind and go through everything with us.
But man, this is gonna be really exciting because we are gonna see some changes happen in almost real time. It will take a few weeks to get everything up. It will take a few weeks to have the search engines catch up to it, and kind of get some traction, and see some changes from it. So it’s not gonna happen overnight. But we’re gonna keep you guys up to date, and watch it happen. And I promise you that we’re gonna turn this guy’s business around because there’s –
Shane Jacks: In six months, he’s gonna be a freaking success story.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I’m so confident of that. And I don’t know, honestly, I have done no research about his area, zero.
Shane Jacks: Neither have I, not any.
Keith Cosentino: I don’t care.
Shane Jacks: My best friend could be working up there.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, I don’t know what kind of people live there. I don’t know what kind of area it is. Except that I know it’s not chicken lips, and it’s not Temecula. So it’s not those two places, and then, he can probably run a successful business there.
All right, so don’t forget, we’re taking your comments, now. And we’re answering questions on the show. Go to our website. On the homepage, pdrcollege.com, look for that little grey bar on the side. And expand it out and leave us a voicemail. We’re real excited to hear from you guys on that. Stay plugged into this website, and see the changes we make. And man, we’re gonna help you make some of these changes to your website, as well. Until next time –
Shane Jacks: Get better.
[End of Audio]Duration: 101 minutes
