Recently reflected on the path towards bigger, better dent work. All the breakthroughs came from questioning what I know.
What causes one to question? Seeing others who are better, faster, higher skilled.
What is he doing I’m not?
Big shake up came for me when violently stopped from doing dents in Tulsa. Maybe it is cliché but it was a blessing in disguise.
Put me in front of someone better and more skilled than I. Learned a great deal in six weeks. Came home wondering what was next breakthrough.
Taught me to watch for it constantly. Reinvention is uncomfortable but growth always follows. New slogan for improvement: comfort in discomfort.
More pain, then growth came at the hands of an arrogant car dealer. I tried a dent, failed, then took it back and labeled it impossible.
Next day a phone call from dealer rubbing it in my face. “Donnie dent guy did it. Come look.”
Went more out of curiosity than a desire to get more business from them. Wow. Looked good. Rats.
Saw Donnie dent guy a few days later. Walked up, introduced myself, congratulated him on job well done. I meant it. I thought he might understand my compliment better than the real reason I was glad to see it. Actually, I was grateful to him for showing me what is possible and questioning my perceptions of what is. Of what can be fixed.
Here’s a warning: Be careful with big dents, dear friend. Yes, I will show you how to do them. Yes, you will want to try. This is good.
The danger is this. When you look at it your expectations will be so low, you will not ask for enough up front. Then when you slick it out, you will be surprised and elated. Then it will hit you in the side of the head as it has done me many times. This was worth more. This looks so good, I could (should) have gotten a lot more out of it.
OK here’s the BIG lesson from the car dealer. He used my ego to get me to bigger dents. Truth is, they got lucky when Donnie dent guy came and fixed it at all. What I didn’t know was I offered something Donnie didn’t. Dependability.
But I was vulnerable. Full of muster, ready to prove I was a capable big dent fixer too.
Next phone call from dealer, “Tim I got one that I was going to send to Donnie, do you want to have a go?”
Oh yeah. Lemme at it.
“OK, but Donnie always fixes these for a hundred bucks or less.”
By now I was a like a clueless puppy who keeps coming back for more no matter how many times his cruel master kicks him.
“Hundred bucks? Oh, thank you so much!”
Months later, “why am I fixing bigger dents and not making any more money?”
I’d been had.
This business attracts large numbers of perfectionists. A perfectionist hates to see someone do what he can’t. Makes him feel less than perfect.
Dealer guy knew this, used it on me. Maybe used it on Donnie as well.
Point is, if you are going to fix the big ole dents no one else wants, get your price. Charge what you’re worth.
Let the risk go to the car owner, not on you. How?
Try this: “I can make that dent a lot better. I could even make it invisible.
But I really don’t want to fix that big ole dent cause it’s hard on my body and a lot of work. So if I try it at all you will pay for my effort. Either way it’s $300. (or whatever it’s worth.)
Remember a typical repair on one panel is $500 or more to paint. Painting bad. Paintless good. Less time, kept value, all this and convenient too.
Lessons learned from a recent hailstorm here in Tulsa.
Don’t be surprised by body shops not embracing PDR. I have two strong, high dollar, decent volume body shops. They refuse to paint a car that can be fixed paintless. My crew fixes very bad stuff and makes it look invisible. We fix a lot of their hail cars.
These shops are based in reality. “Our paint jobs don’t look that great, we’d rather have you do it paintless and take a percentage.” Thank You.
Trouble is, not all think this way. At the risk of offending the large numbers of shop owners on my list here goes.
Two months ago I got a call from a high end, luxury import car body shop to do their dents. I said sure. Another hail storm resource I figured. They loved my work and gave me two a week or more (door dings). One of their body men knows how to use a glue puller. Sort of. Still have to be painted though. Last storm he glue pulled and they painted every hail car that came their way.
Terrific.
Super high dollar cars with their super high value now in the toilet.
I don’t care if you are the biggest, baddest painter that ever walked the face of this earth. I can tell when a car has been painted every time.
“Yeah, but you were a painter, Tim.”
True enough, but it ain’t rocket science.
First thing every car buyer at a dealership learns is how to spot a repaint.
Yeah, but John Q Public can’t see it. Really? The segment of the public that can afford a high end car certainly knows how to get one appraised. By guess who? Trained eye car guy, that’s who.
Painted hood? “Well, I really can’t say. May have been a hail storm, may have been a collision.” Either way it’s a question mark. Either way it’s a drop in value.
If you are in the dent business, pat yourself on the back for the millions of dollars you will save in your career as a value keeper.
Second kind of body shop painting cars that could be fixed using PDR. This is the one that can’t see past the $5000 average conventional hail repair estimate. Would rather have that than a percentage of my $3000 ticket.
You’ll get all the cars written PDR. Every thing else gets painted. Why?
Gotta keep my guys busy.
If you really believe it is your obligation as a shop owner to keep your techs busy, please change the sign out front to “Day Care”.
The real obligation of every shop owner is this: Fix the car in the least amount of time possible, in the safest manner possible, without compromising the value of that vehicle in any way.
Might have known they would take this stance. In 2000 they had a very light hail job on a black Mitsubishi 3000gt. I cringed as they scuffed, skimmed and sprayed this gravy car.
Somehow a fist dent appeared (no it wasn’t me) on the roof after painting and buffing. Now the customer was coming to pick it up.
Guess who they brought it to for repair? Yep. I could fix the three inch dent in the roof but I wasn’t good enough to fix the dime sized hail.
“Well, we think that PDR is going to go bad later.”
OK, I’ll just fix your mess ups then. Thanks for that.
Oh well, it just takes a while to turn a Titanic sized industry.
For now I’ll help put them in the PDR business. They will allow me access to their customers and we will all make a little money.
There is the way we want things to be, but then there’s reality. Your challenge is to go make money with what is. Everything else is just distraction.