When hail hits your town, there is this stunned feeling which overcomes you.
The phone starts ringing immediately. Many calls are techs from other areas, some from customers who want to get on the list right away. Some want to arm themselves with an estimate, “before I let the insurance company look at it”.
You know its going to be busy, but you also realize the next few weeks are going to suck the life right out of you if you let it.
This year has been unique in that the number of storms in the U.S. and Australia have been very high.
Technicians are in short supply and they know it. One tech said, “This is the year to jump to a new location every few weeks.”
There is something to be said for grabbing the low hanging fruit.
Trouble is, it leaves the body shops with a bad taste in their mouth. Imagine hiring a company or a tech and scheduling weeks’ of cars, only to find the technician abandoned ship over the weekend to work a better deal. Watch for this to happen in your town and capitalize on it by being the stick around guy.
For hail work, 2007 was awful. Very few storms put many technicians in the same room fighting over a few cars like a pack of hyenas.
One tool company representative told me he sold as much in PDR tools this year in 2.5 weeks as he did in two months last year.
Funny how disasters move money. Hail techs may single handedly jump start the economy with their purchases.
You know I try to be pragmatic and accept what is. (Have you noticed the annoying new buzz phrase, “It is what it is…”?) I also try to be positive and look for the cool reward which comes from enduring a negative circumstance.
You can see how insurance companies are exerting their influence and attempting to enforce a price sheet industry wide.
While there are things about this which do not bode well for PDR, it is mostly a good thing. Price charts are just a place to start and sometimes you have to go “off the chart” to make a job work. This amounts to pulling a price out of the air, but its up to you what to charge for your time.
No Whiners
I have implemented a policy with technicians which exists in some of the larger corporations – no complaining without offering at least one solution at the same time.
There is a real connection between complaining about the unchangeable and unhappiness. When you work around a person who engages in it, the secondhand poison is dangerous for you to breathe. It will crud you out.
I listened to a diatribe by a technician this year which I was ill prepared for. On and on he went about the state of the industry.
I have a few questions for the complainers which usually quiets them down. – What did you do in the off season? What are you doing now to improve yourself and your business? What changes can you make to better absorb the realities of business and life?
Most of what makes us unhappy is a sense of the unfair. Or more accurately, a fear of the unfair.
For example, Jeremy whom I’ve worked with for years has recently made great strides in speed. His mentor, an amazingly fast hail guy is a 2000 dollar a day guy.
He told Jeremy, “You guys are doing higher quality than everyone else. You should be making more, not less”
For an offhanded compliment, this felt pretty good to hear.
If you are the guy who won’t let yourself compromise and need constant perfection however, you could scream, “That’s not fair”.
Is it not? If you won’t lower your standards of a finished dent, you can sleep well. You can look at you in the mirror and smile back. But if you’re tossing and turning because that guy makes more money, you might have a problem.
Its OK to be good and do good work. The decision to trade off is yours and yours alone.
Fast or good, its up to you.
I will tell you that what I would call junk is often acceptable and sometimes even invisible to John Q. Public.
This is news good and bad.
Jeremy knows how to do excellent, invisible work. He is a king among techs in any situation. At one large storm, the lead tech told him, “I can tell you are good without looking at your work. I see you checking your own car over.”
So, when in Rome…
Like Jeremy, you have a crack at being the best guys in the worst storms. All you have to be is diligent about your repairs. Do they look good from every angle?
When you have the chops to be good, you can lower your quality bar just a teeny and make lots more money. Best of all, you’ll still outdo the rest who just don’t care.
Positioning
I’ve often taught you to position your business in a positive way. Don’t hide your flaws, just make them into a positive.
If you do dealer cars, make it a plus. If you don’t, say why this makes you better.
Hail techs make me giggle with the head games they play to get the best position in a storm. I’ve been sold too many times by tech X on just how terrible a guy tech Z is. I’ve got shields up now. Fine line between manipulation and kind assistance during a storm. You can’t blame them, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve done it.
Lots of these petty actions are embarrassing under the light of playing manager.
Again, if you choose to opt out of the games techs play, you might get picked last for the batting order. Quiet acceptance is the only gracious stance to take here.
Underbid or underestimated?
There is a new video: “Hail Estimating Guide“. It is a far more in depth study on how to make the new pricing sheets make money.
I admit when I first saw these sheets, I was angry. Low starting prices taking too long to climb the money stairs.
I strolled into Louisiana last year to face some severely underbid vehicles. (SUV’s, get it?)
When I checked them against the price charts, it seemed right and I called the manager whining about the new chart.
Turns out it was the size of the dent which was missed. If you have a nickel size dent, it must easily be covered by a nickel. No dent can show around it. Move up the chart till its covered and you’ll make money.
The cars I was working last year were written as nickels and many were actually half dollar and larger. The money lies in the oversized dents. They can be fixed, but they have to be charged for, especially with insurance claims.
So, I have included at the end of this newsletter a graphic which you can cut out for coin substitutes. You really can’t use the hole, it must be a coin shaped disc or a real coin, or you won’t know its true size.
Painting a paintless repair?
Push to paint roofs came up again in this storm. I hoped they had gone away in 2003, alas.
You can make money with them if you know what the painter expects at the shop you are working at.
Some painters would much rather have your fine metal finishing skills applied than the body man’s buckets ‘o mud or plastic filler.
Its a real mental trip to go from have-to-be-perfect finish work to raise it up and push marks be damned.
The money is in the speed. I mention discounting the PDR price in the video but I’m out on this topic now. Either pay it or replace it.
They do seem to be a bit of a bottleneck anyway.
As time goes by, we may be forced into it. There have been some similar pendulum swings in the body business here. At one time it was “save that panel, and we’ll pay you for it.” Now its replace it or fix it cheap. Once again, the craftsman with super hero abilities gets the short stick. The R and R guy, the one who’s fast at replacement is the current champion of the body shop.
Diminished value is the new lawsuit fodder for hungry attorneys. Now in some states, you can receive money to fix your car, plus a little for having your cars value dropped from the repair.
You know how to spot a repair, so you are a used car guys worst nightmare. Now the average Joe is reading a blog post and can tell just like you and I.
If you change a hood, it loses the original stickers, and the V.I.N. stamping on the underside. A savvy buyer spots this or the rough paint at the back edge and now has a question mark about the car.
So the argument for diminished value may well be valid as consumers are more and more aware of a repaint.
Use this to your advantage. When a customer is on the fence about using you or a body shop, let them know about the hood changing thing I just told you about.
You might just get a job and a friend out of the deal.
Either get heartburn or give it
Marty Eddleston of Boardroom reports may be one of the most viewed non expert talking heads of all time. He’s been on Television’s CNBC and CNN and several other stations as an opinion giver many times. Every time he goes on, his company gets a plug, or free publicity.
His secret?
“Don’t give heartburn”, he says.
“You might set aside your whole afternoon to be on the show. You’ve gone through makeup, got your thoughts together and there you sit in the green room waiting to go on. Suddenly a page comes up and tells you breaking news just happened and the story got bumped.”
Yes, it would stink, but Marty’s advice is “don’t complain”.
“If you want to be invited back, you graciously accept it, thank them and go on. If they ask you to go on in New York and you’re somewhere else, you do what it takes to get there.”
How about that? The secret to being a sought after expert is to give outstanding service.
Until you’ve been on the receiving end of heartburn, you might not understand. My friend who is a tech for me this year was a manager last year at his own storm. He gets it now. He appreciates and yes, looks to hire the techs who don’t give trouble.
Sometimes it cannot be avoided. In these cases, can you find ways to give rather than receive? Its always better.
Till next time,
Tim Olson