When I was a baby my dad built all this cool stuff. He put together electronic kits from the Heathkit company. He received extensive electronics training in the Air Force, and in his job later as a civilian computer repair technician. He spent lots of evenings putting together these electronic kits. Our family benefited because he built us first a console television, and later a beautiful AM/FM stereo with a sliding cover like a roll top desk..
Back then TVs had tubes which would go out like light bulbs every once in a while, and there was a need to change them just as easily. So my earliest memories are of my dad always tweaking our TV set or someone else’s. As I grew up, I looked around at all those projects my dad did, and I wondered when he found the time to do all of them.
It puzzled me, because by the time I was a teenager, all dad could do at the end of the day was come home and crash. He still had big dreams and wanted to build the projects, but he was just unable to do so.
You see, we didn’t know it then, but dad had Early Onset Alzheimer’s disease. We later realized he must have had it since his late 30’s.
Perhaps you may have a loved one who is much older with some form of dementia. The early onset form of this disease is particularly cruel because of the age it strikes, as well as how fast it progresses.
Now, as an adult looking back, it’s easy for me to see Dad must have reached his peak when I was very, very young. But, as a teenager who wanted to spend time with his dad when he got home from work, I just couldn’t understand how the same guy who built all this cool stuff, was so tired and uninspired now.
Despite his declining condition, when I got close to driving age, Dad instilled in me a passion for cars and working on them. He stoked a fire in me for fixer-upper’s when he found us a project car, a 1972 Opel GT. This car looks like a little mini Corvette with headlights that flip over and make it look like a bug while driving at night.
We didn’t know it then, but his disease was progressing rapidly. Each passing day meant he had less and less capacity for memory. Since the business he was in was very technical, and new computers came out every year, he needed to be sharp to keep up with his job. It took every ounce of his energy just to make it through the day.
But there I was, a teenager about to start driving, with a cool car in front of me which needed work, and I wanted so bad to fix it. I wanted my dad to come home and work with me. But he just couldn’t.
In a way, I realize how much that experience taught me to be independent. Since dad couldn’t help me in the way I wanted, I had to fix those things on my own, with just a little coaching from him. I discovered when there is something you want to know, all you really need is a desire to learn it. The information you need to do whatever it is you want is out there. Even back then, in the days before Google, there were manuals and car magazines, even technical journals, all waiting to be tapped as a resource at the local library.
When Dad died in 1998, he left behind a garage full of TVs and projects he wanted someday to fix. Most everything was sold off, except for a pair of speakers that he built when I was just a baby.
By today’s standards, these are large, standing about 2 feet tall and 18 inches wide. If you look down on them from the top, they look like a big stop sign, with six sides. Dad had a friend in the marble business cut out two great big slabs of marble one inch thick, and weighing 50 pounds each to set on top of the speakers.
The heavy marble not only made them sound good, but also turned them into nice pieces of furniture. As far back as I can remember, they were the end tables in our living room.
After Dad died, Mom was forced to sell our family home and move into a smaller one, so my wife and I wound up with these monoliths since we had the room. They came, however, with explicit instructions from my siblings to never let them leave the family. Because of their size, age, and the advent of home theater I never used them as speakers, just end tables. But this year I’ve fulfilled a longtime dream and turned one of the cabinets into a subwoofer for home theater.
I took out the 12 inch speaker meant for 25 watts of power Dad put in 40 years ago, and replaced it with a 15 inch driver and installed a 1000 watt sub amplifier in the side of it.
Working on this connected me to a man I barely knew. To the perfectionist who meticulously cut out a six sided piece of wood, and carefully clamped everything together using no nails, just glue. To a man who hit his stride when I was just a baby.
Some years ago I came across a book of projects written in the 60’s and I found the very plans my dad must’ve followed to build these speakers.
Seeing those plans also showed me much about a man who one day said, “I’m going to build these.” Whatever you want to learn, whatever you aspire to, whoever you want to be can be achieved. It showed me the value of knowledge, and how a good teacher merely unlocks in us what is already there.
I’ve often said that learning paintless dent repair is 10% of what a teacher shows you and 90% you sitting at a practice panel, going through the frustration and learning how to open doors for yourself.
I shared with you the story about my dad only as an example of what drives me. I can waste time with the best of people. I also have a clock in my head, ticking down the minutes of my life, reminding me if I want to get it done I’d better start on it now.
Its been said most people hit their stride in their 50s. This is the time they do more, and usually, earn more. Makes me wonder what Dad could have achieved had he not contracted the disease so young. Did he have the same clock ticking in his head? Did he understand time was limited? Is this why he completed so many wonderful and useful projects for his family while still in his 30s?
Each of us has a clock, each day is another day gone, can’t get it back. We are in a business which gives us a hard and fast season to work through followed by small lulls of spare time.
Each of us have different reasons for being in the paintless repair business. My wish for you, is that you’ll continue to learn, to master other disciplines, to learn new things. Use the time given you in those lulls to improve yourself.
Of course, you can use the off-season to master that new video game. But may I ask you this: set a goal to learn five new things this year, or at least begin to learn them. If you want one of the five to be a video game that’s fine. Just be sure to set aside equal time to master other things which will make you money, or bring you more business.
I see the paintless dent repair business as simply a vehicle we can use to have the resources do other things with our time. I hope you do too.
Everybody is an expert in something. In America, football season is starting. I like to watch football, and I like to talk about football, but I don’t want to be an expert in it. Why? Because I can’t see clearly and quickly how this would pay me back. I have friends who are passionate experts in the game of football. They spend many hours studying, reading, watching, and commenting on the game. Again, nothing wrong with this, as long as you realize the choice that you’re making.
But take this same passion, and apply it toward business, or getting business, or learning how to improve it. This translates into more income.
“But I don’t have a passion for business”, you might say.
How does passion begin? Dad sparked a passion for building speakers when he saw the plans in a magazine.
For this reason I recommend you read or at least thumb through all the trade journals in the body shop business each month. I do this so one, I can stay on top what’s going on, two, to keep my passion for business ignited, and three, so I can keep up and talk intelligently to my customers who own body shops.
I would recommend that you not stray too far outside of your already existing passions. Rather, Why not take your hobbies and your past experience, and learn to look at them in new ways?
Try this. Go down to the local library, or preferably, a large bookstore, like Barnes & Noble. Grab a magazine related to something your you like. Also, grab four other magazines which are outside of your comfort zone, or passion. As you thumb through them, look for articles which reveal others’ passion for the subject at hand. Then look for people who have found ways to make money in their chosen passion. How did they do it? What are they selling? You’ll probably have to look in the back of the magazine, where the classifieds are found, along with other advertisers who are making money in their niche.
I hope when you make your list of five areas to improve, one of them will be marketing. The folks in the back of those magazines certainly did. Those ads aren’t cheap, so you really want to pay attention to who shows up month after month. You know they are making it pay.
When researching a little history about Heathkit, the company who sold my Dad those kits, I wondered why they made it for forty years in business, then suddenly quit selling to the public in the mid eighties’.
Maybe it was the digital age and the introduction of the CD player. Not too many would be able to put one of these together as a kit. No doubt a waning interest in Ham Radio contributed as well. As appliances and electronics got more complicated, the technical know how to fix them was just too much for the average fix it yourself guy. So, no market for test equipment either.
Today, cell phones and computers seem to have such a short life they are seen as throwaways. The speed at which new improvements and gadgets come out is overwhelming.
Looks like the clock was ticking for the Heathkit company as well. I realize now their demise nearly matched Dad’s year for year.
Makes you think about Paintless repair and the cycle it will follow, doesn’t it?
Every business has its life, its time to hit its stride. I still think PDR has a long life ahead as it will always require a skilled person to do it. We are still in the beginning phases.
The building next to our shop is a home base for a company of Electricians. The owner’s wife told me, “Skilled laborers will someday be paid like Doctors. Everyone wants a desk job. We struggle to find people willing to get their hands dirty.”
Perhaps therein lies the opportunity.
Do it yourself electronic kits were a product of the industrial age. According to Robert Kiyosaki and others, we now live in the information age. Google’s billions for the interchange of information proves it.
But somebody still has to run the wires the information flows through. Likewise, paintless repair will always require a skilled eye to level the metal.
Physical labor is not bad or demeaning. It does have a tendency to be easily priced. Technicians in this field make X amount per hour. People move to what pays. Its why I’m pushing dents on cars instead of painting them.
Yet, the clock ticks on. So in the spirit of the fellows who came home in the 1960’s and built their own TV’s, I hope your nights are filled with activities to move you along and improve your skills.
Just remember to invest time in your most important asset, your family.
Avoiding problems before they begin
Recently, some of the local body shops have been audited by the State tax commission. Starting alphabetically the commission is enforcing a law that was changed in 2005. So, two shops whose name starts with an “a” have been hit with a big fine, rumored to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This has caught them unaware and sent a ripple through the state which has all of the 900 shops in this state scared they might be next.
The details are important to you because you might find yourself in the same boat. As a PDR technician or business you won’t likely buy a lot of parts, but you will buy some. For example, moldings, interior pieces, taillights, etc.
If you’re buying these things because you broke them in the removal process you’re probably okay. Where it gets sticky, is when you are paid for these items by the insurance company and they add tax to the bottom line of the estimate.
What got the body shops here in trouble, was the confusion of when they should pay the tax. Most shop owners felt it was okay to pay the tax when they purchase the parts. The problem is, those parts were sold to them at a discount, and so they were taxed on the discounted price. If they were the end-user, this would be no problem. Trouble is, they turned around and resell those same parts to the true end-user, the person who owned the car. When they did so, they collected sales-tax on those parts at the higher retail rate. So, the state was being stiffed for the difference in percentage of the tax.
It really gets complicated when you add to the equation paint and materials. Once again, the insurance company wrote an estimate which included a payment called paint and materials to which they added sales tax to as well.
A good body shop will try to make money on paint and materials. So then the question comes up, should they pay sales tax when they buy their paint? Or, should they charge it to the customer and then pay it to the state directly themselves? Most of the shops have been paying tax when they buy their paint, figuring since they paid the tax on initial purchase, they were legal and completely above board. The state of Oklahoma has contended the body shop is not really the end user. Since the materials are being resold for use on someone else’s car, that person should pay the tax on the total bill.
From the outside looking in, and having been a state tax collecting and reporting wholesale business before, thE solution seems simple. Register your body shop with the state, and have them issue a sales tax permit. Stop paying sales tax when you purchase the parts, and when you buy paint and materials, collected from the customer, and then pay that to the state.
The problem for many of these body shops here, is that they did indeed ask for a sales-tax permit many years ago. All of them were turned down, and told, “ you can’t have a permit. Just pay the tax when you buy the materials and parts”.
Somewhere along the line, the rules changed. More specifically, in 2005.
Will these shops have to pay these big fines and penalties for their failure to pay what they didn’t know they should be paying all along? You can bet they’re fighting it, and the paint supply houses are spearheading the fight. For they clearly have a vested interest in the outcome, since they are in effect selling paint at wholesale prices to body shops.
Again, what about guys like you and me? Are we required to pay sales tax if we do $100,000 in labor and $100 in parts? Of course, the answer is yes.
So, in light of what has happened to some of body shop partners, I will get a new sales-tax permit with my dent repair shop’s name on it. Yes, it will mean more paperwork, and the state will be fully aware of the amount of business I do, and I might have to send a check for $3.97 or some other paltry sum every few months. But I will sleep well knowing that everybody got what they had coming to them. And I’ll avoid that knock on the door from the tax man and keep my name out of the papers and my face off the TV news for tax evasion.
How can you protect yourself in business from these kinds of events?
First, you need to get good advice. You should at least have a CPA who is knowledgeable about the local tax code and licensing requirements in your city and state. On top of this, it would be a good idea to consult with an attorney on these issues. Before you ask questions find out what their hourly rate is, or what they charge for a short consultation like this.
Here in Oklahoma, there are certain businesses which require licensing. Auto repair and body shops do not fit this criteria. So I couldn’t get a license if I wanted one. Your area may be the same. But it’s a good idea to check and see if maybe you could get a general business license. At least then you are registered and no one can ever raise questions about your legitimacy as a business owner. You don’t want to leave an opening for a sneaky competitor to cause harm to you because you didn’t do your homework.
As a side benefit, you are leaving footprints in the system, or a paper trail which establishes the day you started in business. I recently found out how valuable this is when people started checking on me online. Since I formed my corporation in 1995, it gives me credibility which I never knew I would need.
Contrast this with the guy who starts doing business but never registers. He goes along for 10 years and the only record of his existence is a box full of receipts in his attic.
Check with your CPA about the tax advantages of a corporation. Even if you decide not to incorporate, at least register as a limited liability company or the equivalent in your area. Also, many of us agonize over what to call our businesses, and spend hours designing or having designed logo which will look smart on our vans and T-shirts. If your name is unique in your area or state, spend a few dollars and trademark that name. Right now, you may not think you ever even be big enough to worry about this. But if you ever are, you’ll be glad you did. Because if and when you need it, you’ll wish you could go back in time and register that trademark and use it.
While you’re thinking ahead, you also want to look at different forms of the same trademark name for use on the Internet. Even if you don’t have a website yet, it is a good idea to buy those URLs before there bought by somebody else. For about $20 a year per name, you can protect your future. It is a good idea to grab the different forms of that name as well. You need to register mydentrepair.com but you also need to register mydentrepair.biz as well as mydentrepair.info and mydentrepair.tv.
Writing Supplements
In a storm, I am awed by the power of a few pieces of paper. Here’s what happens.
A PDR technician is working in a body shop and a car rolls in for an estimate. But the insurance estimate is already sitting on the dashboard. Time after time, I have seen a tech grab the insurance sheet and screw up their heads because its written so low.
“They put 75 on this fender. There must be 50 dents on it! Are they crazy?”
I’m guilty of it myself. Sometimes I just don’t want to be lower, so I see where their bid is at. In most transactions the rule is, “He who mentions a number first, loses.” Think about it. If you say, “I’ll give you 50 bucks for this,” when they only wanted 25, you lose.
But a low bid can twist your mind in another way. Some estimates have needed double the amount, even triple.
How does this sound to you? Would it give you a funny feeling in your tummy to ask for three times as much as they put on the original bid?
Most of us would, but we need to get over it.
An insurance estimate is just a place to start. Not every one will need a supplement, but many or I should say, most will.
What we fear is not the asking for money, it is the resistance we’ll get when we do. Every insurance adjuster thinks we are greedy blood suckers. They watch us fix a panel with many dents very quick and they question our rates.
Our body shop partners don’t help much, either. Though they stand to benefit by a higher estimate, they fear the resistance as well, and deep down they think we make too much too.
You must never forget what you went through to be where you are. Your time and experience are worth a great deal.
Often, our prices are really a sign of our self worth. So we need to show a strong face when it comes to writing a supplement. How can we do it?
First we need to look professional. You have your estimate sheets I gave you, take the time to post your company name, address and phone numbers on it. This sheet is your authority, let it give you credibility as well.
Also, spend the few bucks extra each month and get a toll free number. I know cell phones have free long distance, but if an adjuster needs to call from a shop, better if its on your dime. Plus, it makes you look bigger than just a local company.
Finally, get to know an adjuster. I have a friend who I did PDR for when he managed a body shop. Now he’s an adjuster and his information is invaluable to me. Plus, it helps me remember adjuster’s are not the enemy. Their goal is quick repair and claim handling so we are partners.
Be ready to justify your up charges. Use the sheet again to point out double panels, aluminum, and SUV and truck roofs and why these cost more to repair.
For extreme damage, don’t be afraid to forget what’s on the sheet and pull a high number out of somewhere. If he wants to move the numbers around, let him. Remember, he has to answer to someone above. Someone trying to control us Cowboy PDR techs with rules of estimating. Do not be intimidated. Be reasonable, but remember you are the expert. Stay humble and let them know you appreciate their work.
The first one is the worst. But once you’ve established your credibility and they can see you know what you’re doing, you’ll have no problem getting the money you deserve.