Paintless repair always gets good reviews. Touch up does not. Is there something we are doing to cause problems for our customers? What can you do to protect your business? SHOWNOTES

By the time the storm was over and they fixed all the cars, Jim and his partner lost $25,000. Each. The worst part? It didn't have to happen. Jim even saw it coming. At one point, he suggested the body shop should sign the invoices on all the cars. “Oh no, Dusty always pays.” Only this time, Dusty didn’t pay. Why did Jim Sullivan tell us this story…

Customers are the lifeblood of your paintless business. Would you trust your interactions with them to artificial intelligence? Only if you were certain it would result in a better experience for them. Have we reached the point in tech advancements to allow for this? Yes, we think so. Listen to see how we are implementing a better start to the pdr …

Your dad liked them. You liked them. Now your kids like them and they are telling all their friends. Something which appeals to three generations or more, this is what we call timeless. Baseball? Yeah, but its really a pastime. We’re talking about things which seem temporary, like popular music. Music is popular for a small window of time, then it …

Robo calls. Always an interruption when you’re in the middle of a dent repair. Every call starts with a lie, too. “You’re listing is not correct…” or some such nonsense. But there really is a way for a well meaning person, or worse an evil competitor to alter your listing. If you’re not careful, you may not even know about it for a time. Also, year…

You sell dent repair services. This customer has a dent. Naturally, you start selling your dent repair service. Oops you missed it. Fixing the dent is only one of the things they want (and its the last they want to talk about). Listen to uncover the six things your customer really wants. Then check out the shownotes for the list which will help you…

If you’re like every PDR tech who ever pushed a dent, you love new tools. We love seeing the new stuff too, even when its just for using around the office. Over the years, we’ve found some apps or software which makes life easier. Listen to the tools we use in the dent repair office. SHOWNOTES You're going to want to click above, lots of links to t…

They say every idea worth spreading starts on the West Coast of the USA. Not this time. PDR started two different places at the same time. Neither of them have a zip code starting with 9. Listen to how paintless began according to all the mostly true stories we’ve heard through the years. Also, why the changes coming in PDR will totally catch you o…

Ninety days from starting. All the time needed for you to realize running a PDR business is not as great as you thought it might be. You get more deductions, but also find you pay higher personal taxes. The competition are fools and are ruining the business with unsustainable pricing. The state government is threatening to pass a law which will tak…

Imagine coughing up money for a new car only to find it has hail damage on it. The underhanded way the dealer treated this customer would make Bernie Madoff blush. Herein lies the reason for becoming more than just a metal pusher. Consumer education builds trust.Trust builds sales. The stories you hear and experience can become public service annou…

Want to make more money in your PDR business? Raise your prices. Easy for you to say, friend. We are first to admit, charging more is scary. At first. When you hear what happened to us in this episode, you’ll see why it gets easier. Listen for a real example of a low price scaring a customer right into our shop. How to get to the most important thi…

The best thing you can do for your PDR business website is make it google, or search engine friendly. Once your site is fixed up, the next best thing is to build links coming in to it. Google counts these as votes for your content and give you authority in the form of better placement in the listing. Local businesses can be easy to build links to i…

Your customers are smart, that’s how they wound up in your shop or on the phone with you. From you they need guidance, but what’s the best way to give it? Come right out and tell them what to do? Might work sometimes. Better if you help them in a way which makes them feel as if it was their own discovery. What follows will be their own decision. Fo…

Have an idea for a PDR Light? Great! Please share it with the world. Better yet, build it, sell it and make lots of money. No really you should. But tread carefully, for it appears paintless dent repair tool innovation has sunk to the level of litigation. Could you be sued for your innovative idea? Maybe. At the least, you can expect a cease and de…

“You charge too much!” Those words ring in your mind for a long time. Even days later, you realize what bothers you most is your reaction. What you replied in the heat of the moment. If you ever wished you could go back and change something, then you know the power of negative prep. The time to work these things out is before they happen. Once the …

What ya gonna do on this dent? Push it, pull it, knock it down. Look again. How about now? Explore with us a simple approach for paintless dent repair. See why and how the best use it daily and some don’t even know they’re using it. This is how all the methods of dent removal come together for you to make faster, easier repairs. Once you see it, yo…

Fixing a dent without painting is solving lots of tiny problems. Running a paintless shop means solving bigger problems. An unauthorized, unskilled broker comes to town. A competitor stealing “your” account. Someone makes a false statement about PDR on the internet. Must you tackle these head on? Someone needs to do something. The temptation is the…

Your side gig. Your hobbies. Bet you have one or both. When you study these and compare to the paintless dent business, do you notice the similarities in their behaviors? The things which make a group turn on itself are not really unique to PDR. Other niches make this painfully clear: the same attitudes and strange views exist everywhere you look. …

Ever price a hail damage car too low or take on one too severe to fix properly? Travis Daniels faced this very thing in his paintless business. “I’ll give you all my dent work if you fix this one car”. Listen to his story and what he learned from it. Also, we talk about some ways to change his website to optimize for his local market. make your cus…

On August 6 a tornado damaged many buildings near our paintless dent shop. The shop we left a few weeks before is a quarter mile away. It still stands, but is not safe to be in, much less to do business out of. Some have said, “You must be living right,” or “just good clean living!” Is this how it really works? Did our old neighbors lose their loca…

Used car work is the low hanging fruit of any reconditioning business. PDR, detailing, touchup, just a snippet of what gets done to a used car. Get some dealers, build your confidence in dent repair, yes. What are the perils of doing so? Can where you start also be the end of your paintless business growth? Uncover these dangers: the tainted referr…

Everything is going up in price, you know this. You also know prices need to go up for your PDR services. You might also know its the easiest way to increase profits, just charge more. But will you start to lose dent customers? What about the wholesale customers who see your prices be one level every week, then suddenly go up? What is the best stra…

Lots of work, lots of techs to do it. Some enterprising fellow sees a chance to put himself between it all and make some easy money. Broker is a 4 letter word in most PDR circles and sometimes with good reason. But is there a way to stop it, or at least minimize their impact on your market? Tools we use: We picked up a Woyo induction hotbox dent pu…

'Why didn’t you become a doctor or lawyer?' 'You should marry a doctor or lawyer.' A cliche for sure, but are we secretly embarrassed to call ourselves technicians? Some are. Once had this conversation with a young man in the hail business earning 6 figures: “Are you proud of what you’ve accomplished?” "I am, but most of my friends went to college,…

“Have you guys ever burned out pushing dents?” "No, I haven’t” This was my answer to Ron Kronon in this episode’s interview. But I was not completely honest. Burn out just might be why I stopped the paintless dealer work in 2003. What I felt then was the hopeless futility of doing dealer work. They tried to hire one of my employees to compete with …

Social Media can make your paintless business grow. But its a lot of work. To get traction, you have to post a minimum of once a day. Not only can this be a lot of work, its a huge distraction which can take you away from making money pushing dents. Is there a way to control the timesuck? More and more sites are allowing you to schedule out your po…

As you apply good marketing strategies to your business, you will feel growth pains. You might consider adding a tech or two to the paintless team. Be warned: hiring is fraught with danger in any business. Paintless dent repair companies have issues totally unique in managing new hires. What are the dangers and how can you protect your company? Wha…

I have this strange fear of cave diving. Those scuba tank and flipper wearing adventurers have my admiration. Still, just thinking about them doing it can send me into a sitting panic. Irrational? Yes, I know its true. But the feeling is overwhelming. Therein lies the topic of today's podcast. Avoiding overwhelm is an inside job, meaning our consci…

What really happens when you bid a hail job for a body shop and say, “I’ll do it for X”? Is it possible to sell your future on just one job? A hail season’s worth? I once felt that, hey, I’m just one guy. How I price doesn’t matter, right? Except it does. You and I and every PDR tech good enough to work for body shops are now part of a big machine.…

Please a customer and they will tell 10 others. Its a tired old axiom, but it only scratches the surface of what’s really going on in your paintless business. Is it possible that one client could become a “super” customer? This is the person who loves you and your PDR service so much, they tell everyone about you. They repeat the story over and ove…

All the excitement of getting a new shop or house is too often snuffed out by the labor of packing and moving. We've been throwing stuff in corners and cubbies, never to touch it again for years. Now its all in our face. Take the nostalgia walk with us and discover why some of our current setup won’t be going with us. Also in this episode: Elimaden…

Hail Season puts a paintless tech and business owner in a unique position. You are viewed as the authority on price, fixability, repair options, etc. But some PDR business owners are shy and reserved about stepping into the expert role. We cover 2 key areas where your expertise is needed: Insurance supplements Getting paid You’ll also hear how we f…

Ever wonder what your PDR business might be worth? Would you sell it? Never kill the goose that lays golden eggs, they say. What are some factors to consider? Who will buy it? Will they run it well? Do they have more resources than you? Time? How long will you stay on during transiition? SHOWNOTES Also in this episode: Tool review - Druztools pimp …

Overhead. The largest expense you have. Some techs say, I don’t want to be tied to a shop. Some would never be without one. Others think its too expensive and opt for a $700 truck payment instead. Here is our take on expansion and what’s coming up in our PDR business. Should I even have a shop at all? How you know when its time to expand Your custo…

I really like the picture on our paintless repair website. But what does it say to customers? Does it convey the message which will get them to call and give us money? How would you even know? This episode tells you exactly how to know which picture, headline or element is the best for maximizing your web results. We’ll show you some ways to do it …

“How much for a small dent?” You hear this many times a day if you do retail. Of course, you have to get to the bottom of the real deal. We show you how in this episode. But should you give a price or range by phone? I know we don’t want to and we discuss why, and how a recent observation is causing us to change our ways. What to put in a texted or…

Could the rules you impose in your business be anti customer? You might be surprised to learn that company rules led to the death of over 100 people in Japan. We share our own nightmare customer story, and tell you how to avoid your own. Why we turned our Paintless business website upside down How a confused lady turned into a raving fan customer Y…

Making videos is exciting. Its fun, its new, woo hoo! Until it comes time to edit. Voiceover? Narration? You need to tell a story, get your message across, get them to call you. What should you say? The same things you say when a customer is in front of you might be good. Maybe you should record what you say, and make a script from that. Wistia, a …

In a theme park like Disneyworld, you get an immersive experience. Every where you look, fantasy. Oh, and something to buy too. Fun. Disney and Las Vegas are the two places where all your money gets taken, yet you typically leave with a smile. Your website is, or should be like a theme park. Once a visitor comes in, you want to keep them there. At …

Ever feel like a small fish in a big pond? How can you get ahead of your competition? Good news, you only have to be a tiny bit better to win. Do better at these 5 key areas of your business by just 1% and you come out on top. These tiny, incremental improvements will give you an accumulated advantage over all your competitors. In a short time, you…

The grass looks greener, yes, but sometimes your side looks pretty good too. What is behind this bipolar, love and hate thing we have going with our own business? If you look close enough, there are some really amazing things going for you. Raving fans, a great location, props from people you might not even know about. Yet, even when forced to ackn…

Adding video to your paintless marketing plan is no longer optional. It is the best way to optimize the results from your website and social media. But what kind of videos are needed? Is their a best method for posting videos to get the best ranking results? Steven Dumala from the facebook group "PDR Video Marketing" joins us and explains: The "Pus…

Technology is changing businesses all over the world. Think about taxi services. Uber and Lyft come along and grab a whole bunch of their business. How? Better service through technology. Biggest gripe of a taxi customer? Never know if they are going to show up when they said they would. Could your dent business by affected by technology like this?…

Do you need to get certified or is it all propaganda? No matter which camp you are in, you are being influenced. You might even turn around and influence others to join your camp. Why would you do this? The only way to make a good decision about certification is to understand the motivations behind it. Tech frustration. Its the big reason. Are you …

Is there really a state of mind where you become 5x more efficient, focused and productive? Its called the "Flow State" and you've seen it in sports many times. But it is not just a tool for athletes. It works in anything you do. How to get yourself in the flow state on purpose The surprising way to get yourself in flow on purpose Just how much ris…

Sheets of paper, sheets of metal. Two very different things. Or so you would think. Make a few folds in paper and you've got a paper airplane. Folds in metal? Turns it into a door, a hood, ultimately, a car. Every fold, crease and curve in sheet metal allows a car to hold its shape. Understand this and your dent repair will get better by leaps and …

25 years in business, best in your town, certified, bonafide, yada yada. Who cares? Not your customer! One word will make your customers pay attention to you, bring their car in and yes, give you money. This one word could get you 66% more views on Youtube. Ready? You need to hear this. Tom's Shoes gives a pair away with every purchase. This social…

Fixing dents without painting is addictive. Good, clean, fun. At least we think so. But, what if you're just starting out and pushing dents is the last thing you want to do? How can you know where you are in the road to the ultimate brain balance? Learn the 4 levels of competence, and some exercises you can do to start the process off right. SHOWNO…

Follow up to last weeks question. PDR business owner Justin Huffman asked us to dig deeper into his site rankings. What we found surprised us. His site shows to rank for his town's keyword, but the site does not actually appear in the listing. Was it changing the content management system from wordpress to Wix? Perhaps some sketchy links purchased …

Your name in lights. 15 minutes of fame. First page of google. Three things you might want. First two? Not likely. The third we can help you with. SEO, or search engine optimization. Big words simply saying your Paintless dent business on page 1 for your search term. e.g. (your town)+dent repair. Interesting subject? Not unless you understand the p…