“Armed with an eagle eye for dents, a few tools and offers of low-price repairs, freelance roadside dent repairers are plaguing cities across the country.”
This is an excerpt from an article in Automotive Body Repair News in 2005. It tells of people going around and getting people to give them money to fix their dents. It’s not paintless and you wouldn’t even call it a good repair.
“Most of the repairs that the roadside repairers do are incompetent and usually consist of ‘globs of filler’ slathered all over the dent and the paint matches are in name only—a blue car gets generic blue spraypaint. Another method used is to drill holes in the dent to provide attachment points for a dent puller.”
Why would a customer let someone do this to their car?
One customer said they were displeased with the repair, “but she also points out that they weren’t planning on having either dent fixed at all.”
Get it?
These fraudsters get the money/work because they ask for it.
This won’t work very often, right?
The article goes on to say, “In spite of the efforts of police and a report on local television, the Seattle scam artists do get a lot of work. ‘Everyday you’ll see one of these cars driving around. You’ll see it with the gray primer and the speckled finish. It’s unbelievable how many people do it.’”
Think about this. If these guys are getting work and doing a bad job, think how much easier it will be for you to go get real, cash in your pocket today, fixable dents from people just by asking for it.
How can this work for you? If you have no work, go get some! Never let your vehicle stay in the driveway while you wait for the phone to ring. There is work out there.
When you’re starting in business, likely you have more time than you have money. It is the times when you are slow that you can go out and build your business. You could even do dents for free and still benefit. You weren’t doing anything anyway right? Might as well build your business. Why not call on Insurance agents in your area and offer to fix their cars as a demo. Agents have tremendous referral power. Most of their clients do what they’re told.
Don’t be surprised if people are skeptical. You still have to sell free. Give them a reason why. “We’re doing this to raise consumer awareness of the Paintless process.”
You’ll be astonished at how many people will pay you anyway. You just made their day.
Be clear up front about what it would cost. Let them see they are getting a good value.
Better yet, don’t do it free at all. Tell them your price and give them a strong guarantee.
You don’t like it you don’t pay and we’ll still be friends, OK?
Marketing guru Dan Kennedy tells a story about a female client of his new to the
Chirorpractic business. She too had more time than money. His suggestion was to get a booth at the swap meet on Sundays and do free checks on people. Every weekend yielded her a few small fee patients. But she also got a few high paying car accidents as well.
Key here is to never look at client as just one repair. They will tell their friends about you.
Even the rip off spray paint nomads got a referral.
Sometimes we feel shy about sharing our services with strangers. The nomads are brazen no doubt. And they have no scruples either. But they have gumption. How can you fabricate gumption?
What holds you back right now is “They don’t want what I got to sell”. Real truth is they don’t yet know about what you got to sell.
Even if you’re still a little green in your repair, you’re still better than a can of spray primer right? So in a way you’re obligated to offer your services to all you can. If you don’t get to them first the Spray Bomb Nomads will.
Next time you’re on the road, look at the cars around you. How many of these car owners have dents but weren’t planning on fixing them? Tell them about your Paintless services and help these folks out.
How Hard do I push? Which end of the tool do I use?
When I get one or both of the questions above, I can tell right away that student has not given themselves a fighting chance.
The answer to both questions is revealed by doing. If I could come to your house and force you to get a hood and some tools you would see for yourself the answers are in you.
And the car. And the light. And the feel.
Believe me, you have in your hands way more information than I had starting out 14 years ago. We plodded along and figured out a lot of it for ourselves.
I didn’t know about first in last out. When to use tape and when not to. Didn’t know
about the shadow area of the light. Never knew for sure whether we were top quality or not.
It was only when we got around other dent guys that we could compare notes and finished repairs that we knew for sure we were on the right track. So many questions unanswered and that franchise system cost $30,000.00 not 500.
You should know there is power in unanswered questions. Teach a man to fish…
Your self discovery will mean way more to you than someone telling you. Think about it this way. If I tell you something you listen. If you listened close, it’s now tucked away in the auditory file of your brain. If I show you something, it’s also now in the visual part of your brain.
If you figure it out for yourself, it is an experience, an event. You lived it. You smelled it, touched it, breathed it, felt it, saw it, heard it. Clearly, more of your senses were touched by this.
Now, which do you think will give you more faith and confidence in yourself?
You want to talk about a tough sell, try selling self confidence.
When people see my dents and see me doing it, they believe I can do it.
When I parade my successful students in front of them by means of their testimonials, they believe those persons can do it.
To convince someone they can do it? Whole ‘nother ball game.
In coaching phone calls I can tell right away who’s gonna make it. It’s the ones that give themselves a fighting chance and go get a hood and start pushing.
If you’re waiting for someone to tell you that you are deserving, here it is. You deserve this.
Don’t expect this from anyone else. Your success is a threat to their mediocrity. I call it the Crabs in a Bucket theory.
If you put one crab in a bucket, he’ll crawl right out. Put three in there and none will get out. Why?
Because when one gets too close to the top, the others will reach up and pull him back down.
Trouble with trying something new or making some change is it makes people uncomfortable.
Weight Watchers did a study years ago on this. Number one reason women don’t lose weight? They are secretly afraid they will lose their friends or even family.
You will never get away from all peer pressure. And some of it is good. But you can stay away from the crabs.
The positive power of negative preparation
Dan Kennedy, one of the authors I study, is a sales trainer and marketing guru. He shows how preparing for the worst often works out for the best. This is so not just in sales but all things.
The sale of our home is a case in point. We put the house up on Forsalebyowner.com and a guy in Vegas bought it.
In the negotiations, he said he wanted to use cash from the sale of his Nevada property. A developer was buying his house in Vegas. After hearing the details, I knew this guy could and likely would string him along for a while. A wise person once told me builders are cash flow junkies.
This must be true because he told my buyer, “I will close really quick, but I need a year to do it.”
The buyer kept trying to convince me the developer was going to close as promised. I can’t put promises in the bank. In the end, I convinced him if he wanted our house, he better be ready to get financed, never mind what happened between him and his buyer.
Today, 44 days later, we closed the deal. Guess what? His sweetheart developer left him at the altar. He had to get financed to buy my house in only 9 days. He may even have to lease his Vegas property while he waits for the developer to close.
I’m not glad he had to get fast cash, but I am glad that I didn’t get caught up in his emotions about his developer friend.
How did negative preparation help this deal? It put me in the frame of mind to ask, “What if his other deal falls through?”
How can it help you? In your sales presentation for your services, what are the objections which might exist in the mind of your client?
Best thing you can do is make a list of these and think about what your response will be.
How will you overcome each objection? How can you bring them up before they do?
One common objection is about the paint cracking later. This myth was propagated by body shops afraid of our taking business away. You can set this aside by telling them the process has been around for many years and it’s even likely there is a spot or two on their car that was fixed at the factory. Also, tell them about your guarantee. I give lifetime and have never had one come back. If you are uncertain about it cracking, tell them so, but if it doesn’t crack now it won’t crack later. It just doesn’t happen.
If you’re afraid of giving a guarantee, think about this. What if in ten years someone comes back to you with cracked paint? What would you do? Scary?
I’d paint their car. Even if it cost 2000 dollars, so what? How many clients gave you business because you took away their risk? In that ten years, you will have made at least 500,000 and probably closer to a million in sales. If you give back a little of that to paint someone’s car no big deal.
Now turn the lemon into lemonade. Get a testimonial from the guy saying you gave a guarantee and you made good on it. Makes you that much more believable.
Tim Olson