My son Derek and I get our hair cut every three weeks. Every third Wednesday, we schlep down to the salon where we have a recurring appointment.
Yes, we go to a hairdresser, and not a barber. I’m very particular about my hair.
Its Mom’s fault, really. She went to cosmetology school in the 1960’s but never really worked much in the field. She would do some of her friends’ hair, and of course all three of her sons. I even let her give me a chemical perm around age 11, at a time when it wasn’t cool for boys to do so.
Later, I got a haircut by a stylist, and noticed a big difference in the outcome. Seems much had changed in twenty plus years of cutting men’s hair.
Today, I go to the same stylist for her consistency of quality work, meaning I know I will look the same every time. But I also go to her because of the rapport we have. She also happens to fix the hair of everyone in our family.
She’s fast, consistent and she knows what she’s doing. And, most important, she can talk while she works.
I want to know what makes people tick. She has over 200 different people in her chair every month. Sure, its for only a few minutes at a time, but most are repeat customers like me. She gets to know them.
The other day, she surprised me.
“I never talk about what I do when I’m out in public.”
Even though she owns a Salon, when people ask her what she does, she just says, “I work at Allure Salon.”
Why?
“Any time I tell another woman I’m a hair dresser, they start asking for free advice. Like, ‘I’ve been wanting to do something different with my hair. What do you think I should do?’”
“I spend thirty minutes doling out free advice, but they never come in. So I just keep it quiet.”
Now, she is very talented, and her chair is never empty. Her specialty is coloring women’s hair and there is a very high demand for her services. In fact, her color supplier told her she uses 4 times more color than any other whole salon in our area.
So if she doesn’t sell her services in off hours, she’s OK.
For you and me, we need new business. We’ll have repeat customers, but they don’t come back every month. Might not see them again for some time.
How to avoid free advice takers
It is the nature of humans to ask for advice. Especially when its free.
The value they place on your wisdom is up to you. Let me ask you this, when you give people a moment of your time and offer sage suggestions backed up by your years of experience, do you expect something in return? Should you?
I do. Every time. I at least hope for a ‘thank you’. But you can’t spend hope, right?
Here’s what you need to do. Answer the questions. Share your knowledge, give of yourself.
At the end of your brief display of knowledge, pull out a business card and say, “Why don’t you bring your car in and I’ll tell you exactly what I can or can’t do for you. Here’s my address.”
In the sales field its called a close. Usually at this point the person will stop asking questions. A few will continue, but they almost always answer their own questions with, “Yeah, I just need to bring it in and let you take a look.”
You just helped them out far more than you could have by just giving advice. If they truly want the car fixed, you just helped them take action. You told them the next step. If they are just making conversation, now they can freely change the subject.
Imagine how quickly my Hair Stylist could answer the question, “What should I do with my hair?”
What if she faced the person, touched the inquisitor’s chin, and simply said, “Hmmm… Your skin tone…. The shape of your face… (pause) I definitely have some ideas. Here’s my card. Why don’t you come in and I’ll share some of those ideas with you.”
Why we don’t talk about our profession
We don’t want to be “salesy”. We don’t want to offend. We think salespeople are invasive and rude.
If you have an aversion to salespeople it is quite likely you have a loathing to selling yourself and your business as well. What a great place this would be if all of us were recognized for our merits without ever blowing our own horn. Truth is, no one notices. Its up to you if you want to help someone with your paintless skills. They won’t know unless you tell them.
How to sell you and your service without offending
Stop selling and start playing catch. The ball is your subject. If someone wants to continue playing catch with you, how do you know? You can tell by the way they return the ball.
Try this. Next time waiting in line at a checkout stand, smile to a person and say, “Do you drive a car?” Or, “Boy, gas has sure gone crazy, what kind of car do you drive?”
You just tossed them the ball to see if they will play catch with you. How they answer decides your next move. If they are short with you or gruff, its Game Over.
If they are friendly and answer in a kind tone with their point of view, they are tossing the ball back to you and the game can continue.
Now, you toss the ball back, softly.
“These parking lots are always packed and people will bang your car and just don’t seem to care.”
Hopefully, this continues till you reach the point of flipping them a card and gaining a client.
If not, no harm done. You promoted yourself and offered to help in a non-invasive way. In fact, you just dignified the person by letting them control the path of the conversation. At any point, they can end the game and you will not bother them any more.
This puts a whole different slant on “selling” doesn’t it? If we don’t like sales or the people who sell, likely its because we or someone we love, felt coerced or “sold” something they later regretted or didn’t really want. A sales person threw a hard ball.
Is it Just Dumb Luck or What?
I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “Outliers”. He’s the author who brought us “Tipping Point” and “Blink”.
Outliers seeks to explain why some persons seem to far outpace and stand out from others in the same field.
Why is Bill Gates of Microsoft the richest man in America? Is it pure dumb luck or is he truly self made? What role did timing or heritage play in his success? Was he simply born at the right time, in the right place, and into the right family?
Gladwell makes a compelling argument about all these factors, and proves his point by connecting some little known facts.
This book is a great read if you are practicing and perfecting your Paintless Dent Repair skills. Which I hope you do every day, no matter how long you’ve been around.
How long does it take to truly master a skill? To be a great composer? To be a Bill Gates?
According to Gladwell and his research, 10,000 hours. By my math, I figure this to be five years working full time at a thing. The author puts it at ten years. I suppose it depends on just how many hours in a day you spend doing the “thing” you are mastering.
But wait, you say Mozart composed his first musical piece at the age of six, wasn’t he born to be a master.?
Yes, this is true. Yet his father was also a composer, and much of what Mozart was doing was rewriting some of his father’s pieces, and other works of his day. He did not write his first “masterpiece” until the age of 21. Plenty of time to put in his 10,000 hours.
What about the Beatles, didn’t they storm the U.S. In 1964 as overnight successes?
Turns out they had a ton of experience under their belt before they ever made the Atlantic crossing.
The Fab Four played several stints in Hamburg, Germany, sometimes playing seven nights a week, often being on stage for as much as eight hours. In just a year and half they played 270 nights of shows.
In fact, by the time they debuted on the Ed Sullivan Show here in the US, they had been on stage an astonishing 1200 times! This is more than most performers will do in a lifetime.
What looks like an overnight success is often the hidden result of much grit and dedicated practice.
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. Its the thing that makes you good.” This is one of my favorite lines from the book.
10,000 Hour Rule
Malcolm’s 10,000 hour rule is a good one. When I see someone really good at dents, I always find a period in their background where they fixed car after car and dent after dent. This focused practice and time spent really propelled them to a higher level.
This is the really good news about Paintless repair. You can hone your chops pretty quickly with just a few cars. You can be good enough to be at a money earning level in a short time. From there, you get better and better, all the time improving.
What if you don’t have car after car? How can you create an environment of practice?
Bill Gates admits he was addicted to the computer terminal as a young software designer. No doubt this contributed to his gaining mastery over his craft. So much so, that when the opportunity arose to make a deal with IBM, he knew just exactly what he had in his pocket.
You can easily get addicted to dents, if you drink the cup of practice.
An addiction sets in when the reward center of the brain is tweaked, or excited. Give it a good feeling and it starts to like it. In dents, it begins with looking at dents on cars as you go down the road. Then, as you practice, your brain likes to see the success you’re having and will guide you to more of it.
Here’s how my friend Carlos Jacobs from London, England explains it:
“When I’m driving or riding with someone, I look for dents. When I see one, I start analyzing how I would access it, how I would fix it, where I would start to push.”
Yes, Carlos is addicted. The downside?
“My wife thinks I love dents more than I love her.”
When Carlos has no dents to fix, he looks for new ways to practice.
“I’ll take an aluminum pie tin and put creases and different shaped dents in it. Then I see what I can do to reshape it, to put it back.”
If you went into the future five years, what kind of tech do you think Carlos would be? You can bet he’ll be good. You know it without ever seeing his work.
Sitzfleisch
In America, we have slang words. Sometimes they are good enough or sticky enough to be made part of our lanquage.
Germans, on the other hand are masters at compound words.
Since we’re talking about practice, their word “sitzfleisch” is a good one.
Its taken from “sitzen” to sit, and “fleisch” which means flesh or meat. The word gives the idea of a tough backside or gluteus muscle which can tolerate your sitting for a long enough time to endure something. In our case sitting at a practice panel till we get it right.
Can you see the sitzfleisch in the Beatles on stage for eight hours at a clip? The many hours Gates’ spent at a computer terminal? Carlos working on pie tins?
I find tremendous comfort and confidence in knowing the value of practice. A man should see ‘good for all his hard work’.
Do you also see why we need to choose wisely what we work on?
I enjoy video games and my sons can play them for hours on end. After reading this book and discussing it with them, a fatherly warning was needed.
“Be careful not to waste time mastering the wrong things.”
See, Gladwell also uncovers what makes a person happy in their work. Three things are needed: autonomy, complexity, and a connection between risk and reward.
Paintless dent repair offers all this. You are autonomous as you decide what you will and won’t work on, where you work, whom you work for and also whom you work around. You get to choose.
“You can observe a lot just by watchin’“- Yogi Berra
PDR is certainly complex, as each dent presents a challenge on the level of access and how to repair.
The connection between risk and reward we talked about already. You spend the time practicing and you get better. Get faster and you make more. The rewards expand.
The dark side of this is how video games are designed to give you exactly the same thing. They are created to make you feel autonomous, they are complex and there is a definite connection between risk and reward. In fact, they are designed to be addictive.
So the key is to choose wisely. Recreation has a place and can refocus the mind. In examining the success stories in “Outliers” you begin to notice how the practice of the thing was recreation to those whom we now call “masters”. No one spends eight hours on stage unless they love it. Bill Gates found a window of opportunity to get on a computer terminal between 3 am and 5 am. Would he wake himself up for this if he wasn’t addicted? Does Carlos have to force himself to reshape pie tins?
Video game designers know they must create a slippery slope of rewards as you progress through the game. Whether its the good feeling of mastering a new level or gathering digital bucks to buy a new weapon or shield.
This same thread exists in all things truly worth seeking. Sometimes its harder to see. Often it takes a bit of commitment to the exercise before you can start to notice the reward.
When you start PDR, you see me fix dents. Then you try some on your own and quickly see you are not yet where I am. There is a gap. Set your mind to closing the gap and you’re 80 percent of the way there.
What can be measured can always be improved. If you see a chasm between my work and your own, take heart. You now have two points of measurement for improvement.
Best part is, you’ll pass me up. Come back in a year and watch the DVD’s again. You’ll call me like Richard Parizeault from Canada and tell me your dents are looking better than mine. I love these calls.
Till next time,
Tim Olson