We welcome Tony Frasher with PDR Nation on the show to give us a run down on what PDR Nation is and more importantly, what YOU can do with it to get better.
We review the Dent Dial Tool from Sal Contreras, and we debut our New Program for the highest level of PDR techs and company owners: The Inner Circle
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Keith: I’m Keith Cosentino, he’s Shane Jacks, and this is the PDR College Podcast, your number one source for expert level information for the paintless dent removal industry. Once a week, we are bringing you brand new information, that you can crunch up into little pieces, put in your food, and make yourself a superhero in the dent removal business. My man, Shane Jacks is here with us each week, to tell us how to make more money.
Shane: Yeah, Keith, speaking of money, my wife is currently in auditions for the Real Housewives of Greenville County. I’ve got to up my income quickly.
Keith: Yeah, that’s gonna go bad pretty quick. Either that or she’ll get some fake breasts or something like that. I don’t know, I don’t watch that show, but I’ve seen the commercials. You have to have fake breasts to be on any Real Housewives of Anything.
Shane: Are they really fake? They’re real.
Keith: They’re probably real, yeah. If you can touch them, they’re real, I guess.
Shane: That’s right, they’re still real.
Keith: How those –
Shane: Boy, this show went south immediately.
Keith: If you say so, if you say so. How’s everything going over there with you, your family, is it good?
Shane: Oh yeah, really good. How about yours?
Keith: We’re good. A bit crazy, as ever. My kids are getting excited, because we’re taking a new trip pretty soon. There’s a new zoo that just opened up in Temecula.
Shane: Is it a zombie zoo?
Keith: No. They’re just starting out now, they’re kinda small. But, there’s no zombies. I think the zombies are all gone, and the people are starting to rebuild. So, of course they don’t have all the amenities you’d expect at a normal zoo. But, they do have a stripeless zebra, and the world’s most motionless crocodile. So, we’re gonna go – we’re gonna check that stuff out. So, today is a topic that, maybe if you were online a lot with dent removal, you’ve heard about, and maybe if you aren’t you haven’t heard about. But, there’s a new organization that’s called the PDR Nation, which is basically geared towards helping techs in the industry band together, and represent the industry well, and keep a set of standards.
A lot of guys have a lot of questions about what it is and what it means, and how it works. So, we’ve decided to ask those fellows to round up their brightest individual who represents them, and have them come on the show with us. So, we have today Mr. Tony Fraser, representing PDR Nation.
Tony: Hey, guys.
Shane: Welcome.
Tony: Thank you.
Shane: So, how are you doing out there, Tony?
Tony: Good. Just on the hail trail still. So, it’s been an exciting season for the most part, and just trying to finish the year as solidly as possible.
Keith: So, what I’ve done here is, I’ve come up with a handful of questions that I’ve heard, and some that I have, personally. But, before I get to those, Tony, why don’t you give us a basic rundown – if you’re going to explain PDR Nation to us for the first time, tell us what it’s about, why it’s here, and where you’re going with it.
Tony: All right, well, first, I know that there’s been a lot of discussion online, so, the one thing that I’ll say real quick about PDR Nation is that one thing that it is not is, it is not the saving grace of every bad aspect of the PDR business. So, that’s one kind of misconception, that, you know, everybody wants all of their problems to be solved immediately, and that’s just not gonna happen. But, what it is –
Keith: That’s silly, because that’s what we’re doing here on the PDR College Podcast.
Tony: Yeah, exactly.
Keith: We’ve got that covered.
Tony: Right, and you guys are, what, 30-some shows in, and you still haven’t finished, so, you’ve got a ways to go.
Keith: Yes.
Shane: It’s perpetual with this business, I can say that.
Tony: Yes, exactly. But, what PDR Nation really is is, it gives the guys an avenue to get their name out there into kind of the public realm, but in a number of ways, from people just doing an organic search of paintless dent repair, and coming across our website, to actively using the PDR Nation site, and taking it into body shops, or to retail customers, or dealers, or anything like that, and showing them your profile, and your reviews, and so that they can see, who you are, the people that you serviced before, and how they thought about your service, and things like that.
So, that’s kind of the basic tool that everyone can use. If Beyond that, by grouping a lot of dent guys together, a couple years down the road, we’re hoping that it gives us a major voice in the industry, rather than some of the bigger players, that we kind of individually compete against now.
Keith: And, mostly, you’re talking about the hail stuff when you talk about that aspect, right? Like, when a storm hits, and you’ve got a big, organized company, that’s doing suit-and-tie deals with insurance companies, versus guys in their rig, trying to get a gig.
Tony: Yeah, definitely. But, you know, there still are – I mean, as far as big players go, you know, still on the wholesale side, not so much retail, but on the wholesale side, there still are – especially on the East Coast, I know, there’s a lot of dent wizard guys that are going into dealerships and stuff like that. So, it’s not just hail, but I would say, you know, the majority of those issues with those bigger companies is on the hail side.
Keith: Yeah, and it seems to me that you guys there have done a pretty good job of trying to make it a comprehensive PDR program. Not just a hail guy, not just a local guy, a program. And, I know there’s a lot of guys who do local retail work, on the board, so that influence is pretty heavy there, too. So, there’s a lot of aspects that seem promising from a retail side, if you can open your mind a little bit, and consider something a little bit different
Tony: Yeah.
Keith: It looks, well, we’ll talk about it a little bit more, but it seems the review system, and um, the SCO aspects of that tech locater, and the reviews together would be pretty powerful in a local setting.
Tony: For sure.
Keith: Especially the more competitive your local situation is, the better.
Tony: Yeah, without a doubt.
Keith: Shane, do you have some questions there for Mr. Tony?
Shane: Yeah. Well, we’ve got a ton of them, I guess. Where to start, honestly? Tony –
Keith: Let me interrupt you for just a moment, like I always like to do. For the purpose of transparency, Shane is a member of PDR Nation, I am not.
Tony: That is correct.
Keith: I have not joined yet. I’ve talked a lot about it, I’ve talked with a lot of the fellows since it was first opened, but I have not actually put my money on the line to join, Shane has. So, that being said, what are some of the questions that you either have had yourself, or you think other people might have?
Shane: I had a ton of questions, and I spoke with one of the leaders, or two of the leaders on the board. In the beginning, before PDR Nation actually kind of got started, and I had a ton of questions, and a lot of guys have these same questions. But, as dent guys go, a lot of the questions are really not as far in depth and some of us would’ve liked to have gone, but some of the –
Keith: That’s a nice way of saying it.
Shane: Yeah, that’s a nice way of saying dent guys are dumb, for the most part. But, one of the things, I guess one of the big things that comes across – and, it’s a valid question, I guess. It goes along with, I believe, some of the questions you have, Keith. Is, where does my money go? How much is it, for the first part, Keith. We have listeners, basically, all over the world and some of them may not even have heard of PDR Nation. So, tell us what the cost is, and where does my money go?
Keith: Yeah, isn’t that funny, that that is the standard question?
Tony: Yeah, exactly.
Keith: Not what are the benefits?
Tony: Right, right, right.
Keith: It’s what is this gonna cost me? What’s the bottom line?
Tony: Yeah.
Keith: Like, shoot straight with me, chief.
Tony: Exactly. You guys are the typical dent customer, that you are always fighting with.
Keith: Right.
Tony: So, to answer that question, the cost is an annual fee of $300. And, what that money goes towards is, it’s quite a few things. I mean, the actual website itself, the – maintaining it, the SEO and stuff like that. We run ads, you know, it’s – one thing I will say, is that what we’re spending money on today might be entirely different from what we spend money on next year, and four years from now, just because we are so new. We’ve got a long way to grow, so the expenses that we have currently are not what they will be in the future, so –
Keith: I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down. How far into the future will that yacht be purchased?
Tony: Right, yeah. Well, we’re gonna lease it, and then we’re going to lease out as well, so hopefully we can keep the books about even on that when we charter it out, so –
Keith: It’s a joke! They’re not buying a yacht or a yachet.
Shane: Somebody out there’s going, I freaking knew it!
Tony: So, to go over some of the costs that we currently have, we do have one fulltime employee. She kinda runs all the day to day stuff, as well as far as going through, when people take their tests online, and stuff like that. And, she creates their member packets, and gets all of their information sent out to them, so we do have a little bit of payroll. You know, we’ve got – we haven’t had to utilize this too much, but there are certain things that we’ll have to utilize expense-wise, with the lawyer. So, we have to pay him, if we have any legal questions, things like that.
But, the majority of the money we’ve spent so far is, we’ve run some ads in some of the body shop magazines, and, just to kind of get our name out there in that – in the body shop industry. Other than that, right now, we’re working on a budget to get everything set up for Mobile Tech, so that we have an even better presence there this year than last year. But, I mean, we’re looking at quite a few other things. I mean, there’s other advertising avenues that we can go down. So, those expenses are just something that we’re gonna have to work on and figure out, but that’s kinda the basics of where the money goes currently.
Keith: Yeah, that’s – well, it’s great point that you bring up, that it’s going to probably change as the thing grows and gains momentum, because it’s a pretty big endeavor, it’s a worldwide endeavor. It’s not just North America, I’m correct about that right?
Tony: Correct, yep.
Keith: Yeah, so you’re talking about educating the globe, that’s not cheap, and the way you do that is going to change, so that’s interesting to note. So, the main questions that I’ve heard before were not really what the costs were, it was, why should I join this thing? What is the purpose of it? And then, if I should join, then how do I join it?
Tony: So, you know, the reason that you should join is, I mean, it’s just like anything. The, you know, it’s the same thing when you look through a tool catalogue, why you decide to purchase one tool over another, or purchase both of those tools. You know, this really is just another tool, in your arsenal of whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish. So, I mean, there’s a lot of guys that are using their PDR Nation accounts currently. I mean, they are heavily marketing themselves. So, they are actively going out there and speaking with their customers, getting them to review the work that they’ve done on certain jobs.
They’ve put their logo and whatnot on their brochures, to let everybody know that they’re part of this organization. And, basically, at that point in time, it kind of gives them a selling tool, you know? I shouldn’t say kind of, it definitely does. They’re able to speak with customers, and say, hey look, this guy, he’s given me this review, this guy’s given me this review. And, mainly, right there, I’m talking about guys that are more in retail. But, even in the body shop and hail side, where I’m working this year, in Pennsylvania, there was a shop that was looking for a hail guy, because they were hard to find.
Back in May, there were two separate storms that came through Pennsylvania on the same day, and I mean, just massive damage. Really bad damage, real widespread, hit a couple of areas, and so they this guy was out looking, actively, for a dent guy. And, he came across a PDR Nation page, and contacted a couple different guys, in the area, and found them on there. So, there’s a few different aspects that really can help you find business. So I mean, that’s kinda the main tool. It just gives some legitimacy to your business, if you kinda wanna put it that way, as well.
Keith: Are you trying to stay on the cutting edge of paintless dent removal when it comes to your tools? Well, if so, you need to make sure you have two things in your arsenal. One is the Shane Jacks Jackhammer Blending Hammer. Find it at blendinghammerpdr.com. If you wanna learn blending, we’ve got an awesome tutorial to go along with the hammer, right there on the site. You’re gonna love it. You’re gonna learn something, and get better, and make money. In addition to the hammer, if you are doing any glue pulling, you need to have the Black Plague Crease Tabs.
It’s a six-piece crease pulling set. The two largest are absolute monsters, they are gonna pull out collision damage like nothing else you’ve got available, and the smaller sizes are gonna be for the normal, everyday kind of door edges, and minor, minor collision dents, and a dogleg, and a bottom of a door. I’m telling you guys, it is gonna change the way you do your repairs when you have the cutting edge tools, and these are two of them. Blackplaguepdr.com, blendinghammerpdr.com. Check out the sites, guys, bring yourselves into the 21st century.
Go ahead, Shane.
Shane: So, it’s not automatic? And, this is – we’re just going through some of the questions that we’ve seen online. I think that some guys get the impression that this thing is automatic.
Tony: Yeah, sure, yeah.
Shane: This tool is automatic, and it’s automatically gonna put you, when you type in dent repair Pennsylvania, or hail repair Pennsylvania, Tony Fraser’s mug is gonna pop up, and PDR Nation is going to save your business, because you suck at business, you know what I’m saying?
Tony: Yeah, exactly.
Shane: That’s not true.
Tony: That’s not true at all. So, I mean, it’s definitely, I mean, it’s – a glue puller is a good example. They came out with the Ding King thing about 15 years ago, and a bunch of people went out and bought a Ding King, and used it on their own car, and they ruined their own cars. But, as dent guys, you know, we’ve perfected how to use glue to fix amazingly bad damage. So, it’s whatever you put into it, you’re gonna get back out of it.
Keith: So, the basic – the basic premise of PDR Nation is that we’re gonna band together, we’re gonna represent the industry well, we’re gonna hold each other to a set of standards, right?
Tony: Yeah, you know, I mean, I know that a lot of guys talk about banding together, and things like that. I mean, that is definitely part of it, and holding guys to standards, and whatnot. But, I mean, in my opinion, really, that’s kinda the smaller aspect of it, currently.
Keith: All right.
Tony: Because I think that just as an individual business owner, I mean, you have a lot of ways to grow your business that – the banding together part is really kind of on the hail side. As far as pricing goes, guys have a lot of issues with deals being lowballed, and things like that. But, if you’re just a dent guy that’s in wherever, you know, whatever. I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a big town like Dallas, or if you’re in a small town in Nebraska. You’ve got different things that you’re trying to overcome there. So, competition in Dallas, and then a lack of knowledge in a small town in Nebraska.
People don’t even know what PDR is, maybe.
Shane: Yeah.
Tony: So, I mean, this is going to be something that you’re able to overcome both of those. Standards are a part of it, but really, that’s more on the doing a quality – not necessarily, I mean, definitely a quality repair, but just not doing, not shortcutting things, as far as standards go, more than anything else.
Keith: So, can somebody be kicked out of it, if they turn out to be some kinda hacker, or their bad business practices start showing up, or anything like that?
Tony: No, I mean, that’s kinda the thing that we – I don’t wanna say that we want that, but we want those guys to be brought into the light. Because there’s just so much anonymity right now, and, I mean, that’s from the hail side to the retail side as well. You know, I’m thinking of guys back in the – I don’t know if this still happens, but I’m thinking back to the doording.com days, and Mike, those guys, used to post, you know, the gypsy guys that would do dent repair on cars, and they would –
Keith: Oh, yeah.
Tony: Wipe it with, I don’t even know what they put on there. Putty, and then they’d say, well, you wipe this away three days later, and your dent’s gonna be gone. I mean, those guys are still out there, and –
Keith: Let me tell you, that’s alive and well. I had a retail customer just yesterday –
Tony: Really?
Keith: Yeah, she hit a pole, and then she paid some dude $400 to wipe wax on it.
Tony: Right.
Keith: And then, she wiped the wax off, and I’m sure that – I wish that’s all he did, but I’m sure he butchered it up a little bit, too.
Tony: Yeah, yeah.
Keith: She called me, and by the time I got back with her, because it was not a high priority call for me, she had already taken it to a body shop, because it needed to be painted.
Tony: Right.
Keith: One thing about those gypsies, man, they know how to price a repair. I think a lot of you jokers could learn from the gypsies. I mean, who gets $400 for doing nothing, out in front of a WinCo?
Tony: Right, so you know, I mean those – anybody that has a bad business practice, we don’t want those guys to be able to continue to hide. We’d like everybody to be able to be on PDR Nation, the good, the bad, the ugly, and –
Keith: Let the review system sort them out.
Tony: Exactly, let that –
Keith: Filter them.
Tony: That’s exactly right. Let that system work itself.
Keith: So, assume I wanna join. What do I have to do, or what do I agree to, or is there, like, a test? What do I – what’s the onboarding process for PDR Nation?
Tony: Yeah, so basically, you go to our website. Like I said, it is – there’s two ways to do it, there’s a flat fee of $300, or a monthly fee of $30, if you prefer to do it that way Take a couple of tests that we’ve got on there. Most of those – those both can be done in a couple of hours. So, you watch videos that we’ve put together, and then, at that point in time, you take your test. Everything gets sent into – Irene is who does – she’s the lady who works for us and does all the kind of back office stuff.
You’ve gotta fill out your profile, send in a picture. She gets you put on the website, and then, you can start to market yourself.
Shane: That was actually my next question. What do I do after I join? Like, how do I go about making this work for me?
Tony: You know, I mean, there’s a lot of ways. At that point in time, once you become a certified tech, you get put into the certified Facebook page. And, man, that’s really the best place to figure out what to do. Because there’s a lot of guys out there that are doing a lot of things that I certainly wouldn’t have thought of, just as a hail guy. But they, as far – they put the logo; they put it on all of their flyers, and all of their papers, and stuff that they use to market their business. And, you know, beyond that, it’s just being active about it. If you are actively trying to sell a job, and somebody else has underbid you, you should be taking that customer to your PDR Nation profile.
And say, hey, look, I’ve got 15 reviews, and they’re all five-star reviews. This guy that’s underbid me, what’s his profile look like? Oh, he doesn’t have one? That might say a little bit about him.
Keith: Is he really serious about dent removal?
Tony: Right, exactly.
Keith: I think it’s a good thing. One of the reasons I haven’t actually pulled the trigger yet is, I’ve got a company full of guys, and I feel like we all need to join at the same time. I’d only be the owner of the company, that’s part of it, and my techs are not. So, it’s a larger pill for me to swallow than just $300, But, I will be on the roll, eventually.
Tony: Right.
Keith: Shane, is – have you noticed, with a local search, can you find anything about yourself via PDR Nation?
Shane: No, but that’s my fault.
Keith: Yeah.
Shane: 100 percent. I haven’t used it to – but, like Tony said, guys are using this on their brochures, their flyers, their websites, and everything else. I just haven’t done that yet. And, the guys are using it effectively, that I’m sure, if we could think of an example of a person – but I don’t wanna throw names out on the air without their consent.
Keith: I don’t think anybody cares, if they’re doing well with it. I know Dave Pinto is doing a good job with his, at least as far as his reviews go. He was telling me –
Shane: That’s the exact person I was thinking of, actually.
Keith: Yeah. He’s got a ton of reviews on there already. So, he’s probably a good guy to talk to about how to get people to write all those reviews. Maybe he’s just bullying them. He’s a pretty tall guy.
Shane: Yeah.
Keith: But, he does a lot of retail work, just like we do. I think he’ll do hail; I don’t think he travels for hail. So.
Shane: No, I don’t think so either.
Keith: Maybe it just tends to be that as a retail guy, we’re gonna have six – we’ll say three to ten customers a day, and a hail guy’s gonna have one customer every two months.
Shane: Right.
Keith: So, with all of the volume, you’ve got a good chance of – if 20 percent of them leave, your reviews are gonna stack up pretty fast.
Tony: Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel that the door ding guys definitely have an advantage, in that sense. I’ve been out there since, I guess April of this year, and I’ve only worked in two shops, so I’ve only had – and, one is kinda, he’s a friend of mine. The other guy, I’m in a body shop currently, but I’m still, I’ve been there for months. So, I’ll be lucky to get one real good review this year, so.
Keith: Your friend’s not gonna give you one?
Tony: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, you know, I mean, I’m looking – I want the review from the body shop manager. That’s what’s most important to me, because that’s probably where I’m gonna end up next year, you know?
Keith: And, just like you said, it’s a tool, so I would imagine, if you really – if you got paid $10,000 for every good review you got, I’m sure you’d go back through the Rolodex for the guys you worked for in the last three years, and talk them into getting on there for five minutes, and writing your review.
Tony: Right, yeah, for sure.
Keith: You can – that is the main thing with anything relating to your business. It is what you make of it. Your website can suck, or it can be great, or a PDR Nation certification can do nothing, and it can just sit on a computer somewhere, or you can really promote it, and it can be great. It is what you make of it. I think that’s a big part of it, that you brought up, that a lot of guys really overlook. They are looking for, hey, if I give you $300, you’re gonna make me successful.
Tony: Right.
Keith: That is not how anything works, let alone this organization.
Tony: Right, yeah. Well, the other thing to is that, beyond that, beyond making them successful, they also want us to go in and beat up every guy that lowballed a hail car in the last eight years, and that’s not gonna happen either. I mean, this is just another tool to help you compete against higher percentages and things like that. I mean, a hail guy is gonna be able to use it in the same manner that a door dinger is using it, you know, by going in, saying hey, look, I’ve got – I worked in these two body shops last year, I was there for six total months, and both of them led me grape – sorry, they both left me great reviews.
And, this is why I deserve to be in here at 35 percent, rather than 25 percent.
Shane: That kind of leads into another question that I have, Tony. Or, that some guys have. Is, are you going to standardize PDR? Are you going to make a percentage, X percent, which only goes with the hail guys, not so much with retail dent guys, like Keith and myself, for the most part? But, is that a goal of you guys, is to standardize things like this?
Tony: No, not at all. I mean, that’s not even – you know, it’s just not possible. I mean, one, we shouldn’t try for that anyway. But, I mean, it’s just – the way the industry is set up, it’s just not possible. I mean, this year is an exception compared to last year, as far as the amount of hail goes. So, naturally, you’re going to be able to negotiate some higher percentages this year than last year. So, I mean, that’s just not possible. I mean, the hail side especially, is just too – it just, it fluctuates too much. So.
Keith: I don’t recall, I don’t think we covered this question earlier. But, is the PDR Nation, when it gets big enough, do the guys take a profit off of it? Is it a business?
Tony: No, I mean, it is not. It’s definitely a not-for-profit. You know, I mean, basically, the more revenue that we’re able to generate, that just is gonna give us more money to spend, you know, on advertising and things like that. So, there’s always new avenues that we’re gonna be able to go down, when we have more capital to work with.
Keith: So, but the only person taking a paycheck from it is Eileen, who’s working fulltime as an admin for it.
Tony: Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Keith: I think that’s important to get out there.
Tony: For sure/
Keith: Because when you finally get the two millionth dent guy to join it, there’s gonna be some serious jacking there.
Tony: That’s true.
Keith: If we could get to that point, then we could just buy Google, Then, we get free AdWords.
Tony: Right, exactly. We’d just run that whole deal.
Keith: I’m searching for apples and chicken lips. Well, here’s all the local dent removal companies. So, has there been anything that’s surprised you, with your personal membership in PDR Nation, Tony, after you started? Like, what you thought it was gonna be, and then what it ended up being?
Tony: Yeah, well, there’s a couple of surprising things that have happened. Just randomly, I’ve got – I mean, I’ve been out of Denver. Like I said, the whole season, I’ve been on the road. I got random calls, from retail customers that found me on PDR Nation. And said, hey, I’ve got a hail car, I found you on the website. And, I mean, I haven’t been that active with it, you know? Just because of the way the storms hit, they’re both in areas where I had good connections previously, so I wasn’t having to be super active with it so far. And, yep, I’ve had people just call me up and say, yep.
I’m in Denver, and I saw your profile. You know, I got hit – Denver had who knows how many hailstorms hit them this year, five or six I think, that actually did damage. And, yeah, they just gave me a call, and so I had to refer them to other people. But, I mean, that, to me, was pretty surprising, just because of the fact that I hadn’t done that much with my actual profile,
Keith: Yeah, you didn’t try –
Tony: I think that’s pretty encouraging.
Keith: That’s really encouraging. I mean, if you look at it strictly from an investment in advertising, that’s a 10X return on one call,
Tony: Right, for sure
Keith: That’s pretty good.
Tony: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Keith: I mean, a door ding guy, we’re not gonna get a 10X return on one call, but shoot, if we get the entire year’s dues paid for in one job, that’s pretty good too.
Tony: Yeah, for sure.
Keith: So, what is the website?
Tony: Pdrnation.com.
Keith: Dot com or dot org?
Tony: Or, dot, well, either will take you.
Keith: Okay.
Tony: So, I think if you – I’m trying to remember.
Keith: Because dot orgs are legit nonprofits. If it’s a dot com, I don’t trust anything you’re saying.
Tony: Yeah, I think technically, under the dot org is where you sign in to your member page, and the dot com is where, like, a customer might find you.
Keith: Got it. I might have to be persuaded to join. I’m waiting for someone to buy me dinner or lunch, or both at the MTE.
Tony: Right.
Keith: I’m kind of a big deal, so you want me on that.
Tony: Your whole crew, see, that’s kinda the whole reason [inaudible] [00:33:13] go with the monthly fee as well. For guys like you, that – $30 is, that might be what you can afford. It’s kind of like a PBS, or Public Radio donation.
Keith: Just $30 a month and we can continue to show you boring shows.
Tony: Right.
Keith: I can’t –
Shane: Keith has stacks of freaking money, and he’s worried about $300.
Tony: Right/
Keith: Hey, you don’t get stacks of money like this by giving it away.
Shane: You are correct sir, you are correct.
Keith: That’s why I wear two different shoes when I have one wear out. I don’t wanna start the whole new set, you know; I don’t wanna wear new shoes right away. So, I’m getting twice as much life out of them by wearing just the right shoe, with my old left shoe. You wonder why one shoe wears out ahead of the other, that’s a great question.
Shane: It’s because it’s too much money in one pocket.
Keith: Competitive hopscotch.
Shane: Oh.
Keith: That’s my hobby. Well, Tony, thanks for coming on, and sharing all of that information about PDR Nation. I think it’s cool, I think it’s started with a great intention; I will be a part of it sooner than later. I especially like the stuff that’s coming up on the local searches.
Tony: Yep.
Keith: So, once I’m – I got my act together, I will be on the list. Once you guys accept my rider. I sent that in, and haven’t gotten a response yet.
Tony: What was your list of demands?
Keith: Well, you call them demands, I call them basic requirements. But, fresh water, Evian only.
Shane: Not Vos?
Keith: No. I’m not stuck up, I just wanna make sure my body has the nutrients it needs.
Shane: Right.
Keith: Fresh kiwi, it doesn’t matter about the season, also strawberry. I like turkey jerky, but not the kind you get at CostCo, the bag you get is too big, it goes bad. Fresh Oreos, and if you don’t know how to tell if they’re fresh or not, then just, we’re done with the conversation right here. And, an Easter egg. I don’t think it’s that outlandish.
Tony: That’s out of season, though.
Keith: Make it happen or don’t make it happen. Do you want me?
Shane: I think you said the key a few minutes ago, two statements ago. I think this conversation is over.
Keith: So, you mentioned being an expert with glue up there in Pennsylvania. You don’t have my new tabs, do you? I have them, do you have them?
Tony: I do not.
Keith: You’re not on my short list of testers.
Tony: I guess I’m not that special. I mean, it took – you didn’t even give me your other, the original tabs until November of last year.
Keith: Because you told me –
Tony: That’s how low I am on the –
Keith: If you saw a crease on anything, you knew you were in the wrong place.
Tony: That’s true.
Keith: Dents need to be round.
Tony: That’s literally true.
Keith: And, but the new tabs are for round dents, and I did an – I don’t have hail very often, but I had an entire hail car here the other day, as a test rig, it was an SL 550, so almost all aluminum, except for the quarters, and a couple little pieces on the top, and I did that entire car with my new tabs, phenomenal. My little tiny, 9mm tab.
Shane: They stick like stupid.
Keith: Yeah, and it was ridiculous, I was really excited. In fact, I made a little video. It’s super low-quality, I made it on the fly, I was there to work, not really to test the tab and make a video. But, they were working so well, I made a cool little video, and I’m going to be putting that up that soon, so you guys can see what they’re all about. But, I think when we get off the call, you give me your address, your information, I’ll send you a set to test on that smacked stuff up there.
Tony: Sounds good.
Keith: We’re having fun with them. So, let’s do our tool review in the middle of the show, Shane. We skipped it last week; we shortchanged all of these rascals. You good with that?
Shane: Oh, yeah. Let’s do it.
Keith: Shane, what is the tool we are reviewing today?
Shane: We are reviewing the Dent Dial.
Keith: And, we were gonna talk about it while the man, the creator, Sal Contreras was on with us last time, but we got so caught up with other stuff we were talking about, we didn’t get to bring him in to talk about the tool. So, we’ll be reviewing it without Sal here. That way, if there’s anything we don’t like about it, we can say it.
Shane: Loud and proud.
Keith: Which – there’s several different Dent Dial models. Do you know which ones you have?
Shane: I only have one. The – is it the 35 heavy? Does that sound right? 33 or 35 heavy?
Keith: Yeah, I think 35 is the length.
Shane: Okay.
Keith: Basically, what he has is lengths, and then light and heavy, which means thinner or thicker. So, a little more stout, or a little more forgivable, or forgiving. But, they’re all, even the light one is a stout tool. It’s just not as stout, for doing like, crushed bed stuff.
Shane: Right. That’s where I use – I don’t use the tool a ton, but when I need it, it is needed. The bottoms of beds – this is gonna be kind of hard to explain. Keith, you know exactly – and, guys that have used the tool in an area, used the Dent Dial in an area that I’m about to explain will understand exactly what I’m talking about. But, on the bottom of beds, you have zero leverage, unless you’re pushing off of the tire, or if you drill a hole in the interior flange of the bedside there, if there’s metal that comes down on the inside, kind of like a quarter-panel does, inside on an automobile?
Keith: Right.
Shane: You have very little leverage there, but the Dent Dial, and other tools like it, that have the adjustability in the middle, you can pull instead of push. You stick the end of the tool up into the bedside, where you have traction on the inner panel of the bed. The meat of the bed, the frame of the bed. And, you adjust the tip down the center channel of the tool, and pull instead of push. And you’ve got tons of leverage that way. I’ve fixed tons of bedsides on the bottom, that I would normally, a lot of times, take out a dead blow hammer, and tap, tap, tap, from the inside.
Keith: Yeah.
Shane: And, it kind of makes a mess on the inside, and then you’ve got a mess on the outside to knock down, and it takes a good bit of time to do that, because I simply cannot find leverage. And, with this tool, on the bottoms of beds, tons of leverage, and you don’t have to use a hammer inside the – or, I don’t have to use a hammer inside the bed anymore, to repair the bottoms of these truck bedsides, and we have tons of trucks out here. So, it happens quite a bit.
Keith: Yeah, I know Sal could do just about anything with that tool, because he created it. But, for me, it is for fenders and bedsides. And, once in a while, you can shove it in a door, if you’re the kind of guy who likes to take everything apart. I’m not, unless I have to take it apart. It’s gonna stay together, so I don’t use it in a door that often. I see Sal uses it all the time, because he guts the thing. But, for fenders, you just pull the liner, or bedsides, when they’re open, that is where this thing really shines.
So, when I got them, I didn’t think I’d use them that much either, and per car, I don’t. But, when you’re on those trucks, or those big, open panels, and you need it, this is the only tool that really is gonna work. Fenders, you can make something happen pushing off the tire. But, if it’s a big crush, and you take the tire off and the liner out, and it’s all wide open, a Dent Dial is a machine again. I’ve done some big, ugly fenders that I wouldn’t have wanted to do otherwise, much more quickly with the Dent Dials. So, I would recommend it. If you’ve never seen it before, and you’re comparing it to a dent craft tool, it’s a lot more handmade.
It’s a little more rough around the edges. So, you might not think this is the tool for you, you think it’s not as high quality. But, it couldn’t be further from the truth, because it’s – Sal’s heart and soul is poured into every single one of these things. He evens stamps your freaking name on the tool, before he sells it to you. I think it’s pretty cool. But, they don’t break. Sal’s been through tons and tons of different metals, and construction styles, to find the style of metal that will bend, but then have the power you need to push without cracking over the years. I’ve had mine. I think, over a couple of years now, and it’s not going anywhere.
It’s not as shiny as when I got it, but it’s not breaking. So, I believe – I should know the website, but I believe it’s dentdial.com, but I don’t know if that’s right or not. Let’s look it up. Do you know, Shane? Yeah, it’s dentdial.com.
Shane: Yeah, dentdial.com, yeah.
Keith: And, just as a special little treat from last week, I will click on his paid ad, here. There you go, Sal.
Shane: You just cost him 80 cents.
Keith: No, he’s down to 8 cents, or something, I thought.
Shane: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Keith: So, that is the Dent Dial, it’s a fantastic tool. The other fantastic tool that I use every day is ReconPro, the software that I run my dent removal company on. It runs on my iPhone, just like Angry Birds, and I can take it around all over the place, and take a picture of the vin of the car, all of the information is popped into the phone. I enter a few other key items, including the customer’s email, which I now have to communicate with them, send them their invoice electronically, and, at the same time, that invoice is being beamed back into the home system, in real time.
So, you cannot lose invoices like Shane and I have been talking about, losing paper and losing money. You can keep all of your information in a digital format, and become richer because of it. Not to mention, your professionalism. That same hail car that I was just talking about? The invoice, or the estimate, at this point, is all computerized, and shows up in the adjuster’s email. And, trust me, it went from an $1,100 estimate by the adjuster to a $5,000 estimate from me, so he needed to look at it.
But, guess what? The thing was so clean and pretty, and everything was spelled out perfectly, he didn’t even come look at the car again. He approved it over the email. With some photos, of course, to support it, with my thousand green circles. But, I – to contrast that, I looked at a friend of mine, posting his stuff on Facebook. He had a $3,000 hail car that got denied, and they’re going conventional. And then, he posted a photo of his handwritten estimate, and I couldn’t help but think, that’s gotta have something to do with it. If I see a bunch of pencil on paper, scratched off and erased, and written over, like a second grader’s homework, they’re not approving that.
Just on the – just on pure principle. So, if you wanna look professional, and deal with these guys, I think it pays to be playing in their world. And, have something that works the way that everything they have works. An emailed pdf that they can open, and make their notes, and send it back to you. So, I believe it made me money on that job. Maybe it’s in my head, but I don’t think it is, because now, it’s in my pocket. So, ReconPro, automobiletechnologies.com is the website. Make sure you tell them we sent you over there, and they’ll take good care of you.
Shane: Good stuff.
Keith: So, Shane and I have been talking with a lot of guys, before we ever started doing this podcast, and during this podcast. And, we have discovered that there are a lot of guys out there that take this business as seriously, if not moreso, than Shane and I. They reach out to us on a personal level, and get to talking, and we find that there are some serious A-players in this business. And, Shane and I got to talking, personally, and thought, you know what? We need to be spending time with these guys. These are the guys that we’re helping, and these are the guys that are helping us, quite honestly. I mean, we are not the experts on everything, and everybody has a different set of circumstances.
I mean, they learn a little more in some area than you do, just by the nature of business and life, it’s all different. So, what we are setting out to create is a place and a way where these top-level guys, not like the guys that are okay and want to get better. But, the guys that are at the top of the game already, and wanna get even better than that. A place where we can get together and share ideas and grow together, as elite members of this community.
So, we’re starting something where we can do that. We’re gonna call it The Inner Circle. And, this is gonna be a network of guys who wanna function at the highest level possible. So, we’re just in the baby stages of putting it together now. If you’re interested in something like this, we’ll have a link on pdrcollege.com, called Join the Inner Circle, and you click that, and right now, all you can do is submit your name and email, and soon, we’ll be in touch with you, and let you know what you can do.
Now, you can’t just join it, there’s going to be an application process, because not everybody is going to qualify, by definition. And, it’s not going to be free, and it’s not going to be cheap. Because we don’t want regular riffraff to join. We only want people who see the value in the intellectual power of networking with your peers, and hopefully, people who are just a little bit better than you, and using that stuff to get better. So, if you think it’s expensive, perfect. It’s designed perfectly, and you’re not gonna be a part of it. But, if you see the value in it, then you’re gonna be a part of it.
And, we’re not trying to have a group with 1,000 people, or probably even 100. This is gonna be a tiny group by definition. So, if you’re interested in it, and that sounds good, get on that list, and we’ll let you know when more details come out what we’re gonna do. But, we are going to have, of course, a forum element, where we can communicate there. We are going to be on calls and/or webinars, and we are going to meet in person at some point, at least once, maybe twice, during the calendar year, location to be determined.
But, we are serious about growing with each other and learning with each other, and really taking it to the next level. So, if that sounds like something you’re interested in, make sure you’re on that list, and you’ll know as we roll out more details to that. The Inner Circle on pdrcollege.com.
Shane: Heck, yeah, man. I hope I make it. The accounting office of Goldstein, Ernst and Young will be doing the review process, so.
Keith: Yeah. I’m really excited about that.
Shane: Oh, yeah.
Keith: Because I’ve learned quite a few little tidbits here and there, from guys, and we’re all kinda sharing on a casual basis. I know Shane and I are full steam ahead, we’re sharing all the best stuff we know here on the podcast, and we’re gonna continue to do so, even after this membership group is formed. But, the kind of brainstorming that happens when you are face-to-face, person-to-person, going back and forth, is a much higher level than what we’re giving you on a one-way conversation, where you just listen. So, it’s gonna kinda be the podcast on steroids. That is where real innovation is going to happen. So, I’m really excited about that.
All right, I think we got it covered today on the PDR College Podcast. I wanna thank Mr. Tony Fraser for coming on and spending some time with us here, educating us. I think it’s a fantastic move, that, you know, these guys put a lot of time and work into the PDR Nation, before it was a functioning organization. They built it from scratch, and there’s a lot of backbone to it, that you don’t necessarily see from the inside looking out. There’s a lot of structure, there’s a lot of procedures. We didn’t even get to the fact that there’s testing, and there’s going to be a – they’re working on some type of physical test for a dent removal, and to make sure you can perform it properly. I know that’s been a tough problem for them to solve, and they’re still working on it.
But, these guys are working really hard behind the scenes. And these are guys that are successful dent repair guys already, 40 or 50 hours, and they’re doing this stuff in the evenings, and on the weekends. So, I think it’s awesome of them to put all of that stuff forward, without the idea that they’re gonna make money on this deal through PDR Nation. They’re all gonna make money when their local businesses succeed. So, that’s where the emphasis has been, is to make it so that, as a technician, you are more powerful, more profitable. So, take another look at it guys, if you haven’t, look closer. I think it’s gonna be a great thing to add.
Tony: For sure. Thanks a lot for having me. We definitely appreciate the opportunity to come on here and give a little bit of information.
Shane: Yeah, thanks Tony. We do appreciate it. And, there, again, like he said, there has been a ton of time that they put into this thing. And, it has all been their own time, and they’re getting nothing out of it, so thank you guys for putting that time in.
Keith: Yeah, just guys trying to get better.
Shane: Yep.
Tony: Yep. We’ve definitely – it gives us a lot of opportunity to argue with guys, though. So, I appreciate that.
Shane: Tony Fraser’s favorite pastime.
Keith: Man, between the two of you.
Shane: That’s why we get –
Tony: It’s even better when we’re together.
Shane: That’s what – I swear; you took the words right out of my mouth. I said, uh, that’s – I was gonna say, I lost it now. But, I was gonna say, we love to argue against each other, with each other, and then we can just drop it when it’s over. That’s the great thing about he and I, so.
Keith: You know what, Shane, I wanna ask you something. I’ve had a few people post some comments on Facebook about your hammer, and everybody’s always talking great things. But, the couple things that I’ve heard are that they wish it was a little bit longer at times. Have you thought about making a longer version of that hammer?
Shane: Yes. It is in the works.
Keith: It is, really?
Shane: Yes. Yes, we, yes, it is in the works. I can’t promise a release date, or anything, but it is definitely in the works. Because that is the number one thing that is said, is that they wish they had a longer hammer. So, we are currently in the development stage, so. I’ve gotta get the balance right, it’s not just something – it’s not just add length to the current iteration of the hammer. We’ve got to lighten it along the length, and at the head a little bit, because the thing’s gonna be longer, and we’re gonna lose balance there. So, we’ve got to change things a little bit, and that’s what we’re doing right now, so.
Keith: So, that’s not just slap an extra five inches in the handle, this is a total redesign, to keep the same characteristics at a longer length.
Shane: Correct, and that’s – we didn’t just throw this thing together. We didn’t just say hey, make this length, this diameter, blah, blah, blah. We, it took a few different trials of the current hammer that I have out, before I got the balance where I really wanted it, so doing the same thing with this longer one.
Keith: That’s really exciting. Give me an idea. Two weeks, two months, two years.
Shane: Not two weeks, I can tell you that.
Keith: Better not tell me two years, either.
Shane: It’s not gonna be two years. Honestly, I hope to have it out by MTE.
Keith: Okay.
Shane: I hope to have a bunch of them at MTE, so.
Keith: Any options for different colors this time?
Shane: Plead the Fifth, how about that?
Keith: All right. Keep us waiting.
Shane: Yeah.
Keith: All right. It’s been a great show, until next time.
Shane: Get better.
[End of Audio]Duration: 55 minutes.
