#57 PDR Shop Talk
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[00:00:00] 1, 2, 3, 4.
What's up everybody? Gene Ty back at you with another episode of the All Access Podcast from Dent Repair. Now this is episode, oh man, I didn't look, I think 57. Yeah, there. Yeah. Chase was 56, 57. Welcome back to the show. Uh, back at the fort recording in the basement, uh, because this is actually a pretty good place to record, kind of dig it.
Probably need to bring like a boom arm home, uh, and set up a mic here and, and maybe a little studio light so I don't get quite the shadow. But other than that, it's a great place to be. What is going on? So. This episode, I want to do a [00:01:00] little bit of like real shop talk. And I'm also going to put my phone on Do not disturb because I forgot to.
Um, so we just had the, and I guess maybe this inspired me, right? We had the shop owners round table at MTE, uh, Liv is currently working on the editing of that. We had four cameras, three cameras, four cam, no, we had four cameras, so four different camera angles and five speakers. So five separate mics into four cameras.
Each camera that had a mic had two of 'em had two, and one of 'em had one, like, thank God for Liv, because I don't think I could wrap my head around all of that, but I know she's actively working on it. Uh, hopefully in the next week or so, uh, it will be up. Actually, I think all of the classes. From MT. Will be up [00:02:00] and [email protected] slash institute, uh, as part of the free archive.
Um, and all of the other previous MTE recordings we had and several other free classes are all available [email protected] slash institute. Um, go look, the all courses page and uh, sign up there, it's free. And if you were ever logged in and ever had a class, you are part of the free archive. You have access to all of those, so go check 'em out.
There's a treasure trove of valuable information absolutely free, no strings attached. So again, I think maybe that, and then I was listening to, I guess it would be like two episodes ago. No, maybe it's the most recent PDR college podcast episode, but I was also listening to Keith on [00:03:00] the dense layer show.
Uh, and between the two of those, like there was lots of, lots of good, uh, business advice. As always, if you're listening to Keith, uh, and then dense layer always goes deep. Uh, I highly recommend the dense layer episode. That's Keith Cosentino episode two. Um, I don't remember what episode dense layer's on, but check it out.
Uh, it's another great show, uh, full of great information and they dove deep, uh, on some, um, topics that I found really interesting. So I thought, why not go a little deep on here. And actually, I think we're gonna bring these levels down just a little bit 'cause I think we're clipping and that drives me crazy.
So shop ownership. Also had a gentleman reach out, might have been just pre MTE, you know, talking employees and, and business and [00:04:00] shops and what all that looks like. Um, and I will definitely tip my hat to Keith on this one. Uh, and I think he picked it up from some guru somewhere. Uh, but if you're thinking about like jumping chip and having to run a business or thinking about opening up a shop, the, the advice that I heard Keith talk about was you have to want to do it right, not just, uh, kind of feel like doing it.
Um, if you're not driven, man, don't do it. Like even as good as the shop is, right. And as you know, it's. It doesn't feel like a success when you're in it, right? But even as successful a businesses as we have built here at Dent Repair now, it's not easy. None of it is easy. Um, the gentleman who called for advice, [00:05:00] whatever, pre MTE, was sort of shocked to hear that, that even being where I'm at, like it's not an easy run.
Or if you listen to Matt Moore, you know, talk about it, you know, he talked about it at the round table. Like it's not necessarily the easiest thing in the world. What does shop life look like? I'm gonna give you like the evolution of the shop at Dent Repair now, and you can get a little insight into what that looks like for us.
Um, some of the pitfalls, some of the wins, right? It's certainly not all bad. I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't continue to do it if it were all bad. Um. So I'm in Pittsburgh, Northeast. The weather can suck. Um, I think, I think we end up with on average one more rainy day per year than Seattle, which is why I pick on Doug Hill is so much about how sunny it is in Seattle, uh, every time [00:06:00] he posts pictures.
Um, but our weather sucks here and we get winter, right? We are, we're nearing the end of winter. I think, uh, tonight after dinner. I think Melissa said there's like 32 days until spring. Uh, and I'm super stoked for that, but Right. It gets cold. So in, in my evolution of business, you know, I went from wholesale to mobile retail, um, and then I was looking air quotes loosely looking for a shop.
But finding a shop isn't necessarily easy. Finding the right shop definitely isn't easy. Um, but like, I'd sort of put it out into the universe like, ah, man, I need a shop. I remember the day that I went from like just gently putting it out there to man, I need a freaking shop. So it was wintertime probably January, right?
'cause I think we signed lease in February, but it was probably January. Uh, had it [00:07:00] snowed as it does in Pittsburgh. And uh, we're like, I won't call off just because of the snow. It's just snow and cold. So reach out to this customer that we had scheduled and I'm like, Hey, are you home? Uh, is the car available and can I get into a garage?
Right? I'm not gonna work outside in the snow. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Pittsburgh, if you've ever been here, is a big hilly place, right? Everywhere is a hill. There's nothing flat. Um, so I show up at this student's house and he's got a steep driveway. Maybe not a 45 degree angle, but damn it was steep.
And my tool cart, my mobile tool cart back then was one of the husky rolling bags. Uh, and I would, you know, kept my big stuff in the middle and then had it slid up and a bunch of rods all around the side, you know, I could do 90% of what I needed to do out of this roller bag. So roll up. I'm in the garage and I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I can still see the bag as I [00:08:00] was coming back down the um, driveway, I dunno if you stop and asked me a question or something, but my bag is sitting there across the driveway, right?
Wheels down. 'cause I was rolling it down and it starts to slide and I can't catch it and it's sliding and it hits something and tips over and all of my shit flies out into this dude's snow covered driveway. So I'm like digging through the snow. Picking up my wet, cold, snow covered tools to put 'em back in my bag.
I gotta make sure I don't lose anything. Then I'm like, you know what? That's it. Like, I put my foot down and I would hit the table, but it'll shake the camera. But I put my foot down, my hammer down and I'm like, God, damnit dammit, I'm done with working on the road. I need a shop. It's ridiculous that I'm out here and dealing with this damn weather.
And I, I'm done. It was inside of a [00:09:00] week That, right. I had stopped, I remember I had stopped at a Panera, um, to, that was, that was like my mobile office back in the day, uh, was a Panera. If I would, if I needed to do some computer work. Um. I would, and you know, during the day or in between jobs, I would stop at a Panera, get a coffee, hop on wifi and do whatever I needed to do.
Well, I got out and I'm coming back down the road and I turned right at this, at this corner to get back on the parkway to head home. And I'm on the phone talking to Jennifer, our old office manager, and I turn, and I'm looking and it like took a second to click and I'm like, that, that sign just said Shop for rent.
And it's this cool little garage, like, turns out it's three bays, uh, on a great corner right off the parkway, right in between the airport and downtown Pittsburgh. I mean, like, perfect. I literally spin back around, I go down and I call the number and uh, it said short term lease [00:10:00] available, you know, called Dawn whatever, 4 1 2, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So I call it, and I'm like, Hey, is Dawn there? And you know, they pass me over to him and uh, I'm like, what's the short term lease and what are we looking at? He's like, well, it's available. Um, short-term lease. You know, there's a thing going on with the county. I can guarantee you a year. Uh, do you wanna come look at it?
I'm like, I'll look at it right now. I'm in the parking lot. And he is like, well, I can't do now. He's like, but how, how early do you wanna come tomorrow? And whatever. I think, you know, I think we set a time like call 9:00 AM or something. So me and Melissa roll in at nine and we walk into this place and great place.
It needs cleaned up. It's dirty, but amazing First shot, perfect little first shot. He tells us how much he wants and it is like a steal. Like if it went south, I could hit the hail trail for like a [00:11:00] week or two. Pay the entire year, you know, that I'm signing my life away to, I'm like, that's almost zero risk.
Like, I could just pay for this thing and not even use it. Like I can make this happen. And uh, Melissa stepped up. He was, he was sort of hemming and hawing and she, I remember she pulled the checkbook out of her purse and she's like, who do I make the check out to? We'll take it. What do you need? And, and old dawn, rest in peace.
Donnie, uh, was like a little taken back and he's like, well, it'll be, you know, this much if we pay the taxes and then a security deposit of one month. And she's like, sounds good to me. Here you go. We'll take it. Right. And, and I think we signed that lease on, I think it was February 7th of 18. We signed the lease and I'm like.
Dent repair now has a home, right? Like we started renovating immediately. I just bootstrapping it. Like we knew we were only gonna be there for a year. [00:12:00] Uh, it was the end of the winter, right? So we had, it's slower, we burned through a little bit of reserves, but we're like, we're gonna bootstrap this thing.
We're gonna make it nice. We get it all cleaned up and painted and build a new front office and clean the windows. It had this horrible gold reflective tent, like it looked closed when it was open. Um, we'll get the building painted, we'll put a new bathroom in, literally scraped the grease off the floor from the, the old dirty mechanics that were in there.
Um, I, I remember going for a ride with my buddy Charlie, uh, the dentist, uh, who brought PDR to Pittsburgh and. Who got me into the business. What's up Charlie? Uh, we were driving, I don't remember why we drove something. Maybe we had to stop along the way. Anyways, we rented a car, uh, to drive to St. Louis to go to Ryan Hampton's Hail expo, uh, that I was speaking in at the time.
Uh, and we were flying back. So I don't remember why we drove or maybe there weren't any flights when we had [00:13:00] to leave, but St. Louis is like eight hours. So we blues, brothered it up and hit the car and went. But I remember talking to Charlie, right? Who'd always been, always was a, uh, you know, mobile guy, wholesale guy would just do retail when he could.
He had a couple garages for hot rods, but never, like, he never set up a shop. He never went full shop guy, right? Even today he's got a beautiful little shop. Uh, while I say little, it's as big as mine repair wise. Um, but he's got a bunch of hot rods in it. Uh, but he still focuses on his wholesale, which is cool.
But I remember driving out and I'm like, man, I got such a great deal on this. Um, you know, it's just, just outside the city, you know, a little bit of, little bit west of the city. And I'm like, you know what I'm gonna find, I'm gonna find, like, 'cause Pittsburgh's funny, like nobody wants to go too far. Um, I'm like, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get four or five shops [00:14:00] like this, these small ones, and then I'm gonna hire somebody to sit in each one.
And then we're gonna do like a north day, a south day, and East Day, a West Day, and then a, wherever I get a B day, and uh, like I'm already mapping out how I'm gonna take over the city with shops and then. Right. Come March, uh, it'll show up on my feed, but March, whatever, uh, our first official opening day, right?
We pop in and I sit there
and it felt kind of like that awkward pause, and I'm like, okay, what do we do? Still remember the first car we got? It was a beautiful little dime sized dent, like maybe an actual dime, uh, on a trunk lid of a Ford Taurus, SHO. Uh, thanks George. Uh, we're now friends and I'll see him at dinner on Wednesday. Um, but it's the end of winter, [00:15:00] like, well, yeah, end of winter.
We're not into the busy time yet. And fun fact for you, uh, when you go from being a, uh, so on your Google listing, uh, you have a service area. If you don't have, you know, like I think the setting is. I don't provide services at my address. We're mobile and we service these zip codes, right? And I put 'em, you know, 20 zip codes around Pittsburgh or whatever it is.
And then Google will serve me up locally in those 30 areas. Well, when we open the shop, I was unable to migrate. Google would not let me, or I couldn't figure out. But I, I really feel like Google wouldn't let me, 'cause I'm pretty savvy. Uh, they wouldn't let me change my Google listing from a service area business to a fixed location.
I [00:16:00] had to essentially start from scratch. So I went from 40 some reviews, which was a fair number back in the day, um, to zero, and then to, uh, pour a little salt on the wound. I didn't know this at the time, came to find it later, instead of me showing up locally around the whole metro area of Pittsburgh, right.
Everywhere I wanted to service. Right. We showed up because I had all those zip codes chosen. When you go brick and mortar and you pop down and now you wear a physical pin in the ground, Google for the most part, stops showing your listing or moves you down the list, uh, because you're no longer close, right?
They serve you more like a body shop, which would be, you know, call it a five to, if you're lucky, 10 mile radius around your shop. Um, well, the five to 10 mile radius around my shop, uh, [00:17:00] was not great. Uh, you know, that took me well into downtown Pittsburgh and like nobody lives in downtown Pittsburgh. And then when I go like.
A little further west, like as soon as we break past the little town we're in, there's nothing like empty West Virginia, empty Ohio, like I guess we probably have to hit like Columbus, Ohio before you really get to another big city center. Um, so that first like, call it year at the shop was brutal. I mean, brutal.
I even fell for, uh, here's another little fun tech tip for you. Do not accept Google's help on Google AdWords. Uh, I even fell for, I guess they came at me hard because it was a new business listing [00:18:00] with my AdWords that I had been running for, you know, five years. I think I started AdWords and. 2013, maybe 2012, something like that.
I had been running AdWords for multiple years. They came at me and they're like, oh, we'll help you, we'll get set up. And I think we doubled my ad budget back in the day and I followed all of Google's advice and everything they told me to do, and it basically produced nothing. So I went from a really, really solid, maybe not thriving, but really, really solid retail business to like twiddling my thumbs and what are we gonna do?
And I'm questioning my life choices. And I said, right, like, we're committed. I, I know this shop will work, but damn, it ain't easy. Right? It isn't just like, open the doors and they will come. Um, [00:19:00] also side note, the building was in. It was the parkway restricted ad zone, or restricted. It was something about the parkway, which is the main east west thorough thoroughfare in and out of the city.
Um, on the west side of the city. Uh, you weren't allowed to have signs. Basically it boiled down to, like, you weren't allowed to have signs that were visible from the parkway, so I couldn't put anything on the roof or anything like that. And then on my, uh, windows, like the, 'cause it was a corner building or corner windows on the building had two big faces.
And I was allowed to have like x number of square feet of signage on the windows. So we cut vinyl, we had cut vinyl done, and it basically said like at the top said, dent repair. Not even dent repair. Now it just [00:20:00] said dent repair. At the bottom, it had the phone number and the website, nothing in the middle, no graphics, and that ate up all of my square footage of advertising space.
Um, there were such ball busters that I never even tried to do a street sign. Um, in hindsight,
that area, albeit crazy with traffic, like if you weren't ready to roll out the door outta the parking lot at like 4 59, uh, you might not get out into traffic, is how much traffic there was out there.
The location is super easy to get to from like all over the place, and you could always get Ubers to anywhere from there, but what we found is because of that area and like it's so congested and so [00:21:00] crazy. People drive around with blinders on, right? Like when you're in there, you've got your blinders on and all you want to do is get outta dodge.
Whatever you gotta do to get the hell out of dodge, you go. Um, and you're not looking for anything. Like, it's not a destination, it's a thoroughfare. Like it's a through fair, if that's a word. But anyways, it's not something where you wanna be, it's somewhere you drive through to get to where you want or have to be, if that makes sense.
So we're into the shop, man. This is, this might end up being a long episode. This might end up being two episodes, actually. We'll see. Um, so we're in it's March of 18. Business comes to a screeching halt because of the Google listing. I really believe the biggest hangup there was the Google listing. Not, I mean, it served so great and then the new one and being a fixed business, like it didn't serve well at all.
And then I got really bad Google ads advice from [00:22:00] Google. Their goal is to take your money. And if you do what they tell you to do, they will just take more of your money and not guarantee you results. So be careful, be cautious of that. Um, it's the real deal. So if you remember a little bit ago I said that Don, the landlord had said it was a short term lease and he could guarantee us a year.
So when we were doing renovations and everything, we were like, okay, we might be kicked outta here in a year. So we're not gonna go like balls out and make it as nice as we can. We're gonna make it nice, but like on a budget that if we have to walk away in a year, it doesn't hurt so bad. Well, the, the catch was the county was taking the building for a road project.
They're like widening the road and then the road next to the building. They were moving to come through the building, right? Like literally demolishing the [00:23:00] building to put a road through it. And he's like, listen, we've been here. Uh, this was his old shop, him and his brother. And then they moved, bought land and built a big shop, you know, like two addresses down, uh, with a gas station and everything.
He's like, we've been here since 76. And uh, you know, they always talk about stuff like this and it doesn't come through. He goes, honestly, you could be here for a few years. He's like, but because of what they told me and, and everything, he's like, I can only give you the one year lease. Um, and then we'll just go, it'll just auto month to month.
I'm like, all right, so then q the county, right? So we signed in February. So according to Don, we should be good till the following February in May. Uh, the county calls me and they're like, Hey, we need to have a meeting. You know, we heard you're the tenant out at 46 99. Um, I'm like, all right, so this dude comes in, Mason, who was great, by the way.[00:24:00]
We worked with him for it turns out, spoiler alert, years. Uh, but he comes in and he is like, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm Mason. I handle the relocations for the county. This is what my business does, or this is what my company does. Uh, we'll help walk you through this. He is like, I'll sort of be your guide. Uh, we'll help you find a new space, blah, blah, blah.
But we're gonna need you out by the end of the year, dude, we do. We just got in here like, okay. Like it is what it is. And I guess we have, uh, you know, eight or nine months now, um, to see if we wanna do another shop or what that looks like.
Grind through the summer. Come into fall, like screening traction, um, starting to probably the, the biggest add-on or the biggest advantage [00:25:00] that I start to notice with having a shop is I can get more involved with repairs. I can take on repairs, uh, that are larger and, um, there was a little hailstorm, 30 minutes north, real small.
Uh, but we can start to capture, capture hail cars and hold them and wait for the insurance company. And I don't have to give up my 25% to body shops, right? Because my workaround back in the day before I had the shop was simply to a great relationships with body shops. And it'd be like, Hey, uh, hey Bob, hey Chuck.
Hey, whatever. I'm bringing a hail car in. Um, normal deal, right? Take your 25% and handle the paperwork I brought the customer in. We'll make it all good. And everybody was cool with that. I mean, why wouldn't they be, I'm bringing 'em a fricking car. Um,
I can keep all of that, right? So [00:26:00] we tend to get some sort of storm just about every year, and I'm like, all right, so if I can capture some cars and keep that 25% for myself and manage everything, like all right, the shop's starting to make sense, and then it can start to get into some bigger smash work, right?
Which I've always enjoyed. Um, but it's hard to go to somebody's house for like two or three days or whatever if you're waiting for a, um, adjuster to show up, or if I wanna take a door off and put it on a stand, like that's pretty awkward at your house. Um, I can do all of this at the shop, right? I've got my scanner, I've got my wifi.
Like, we can, we can make this in, I'm, I don't have to worry about the elements. Like I can just work.
Quickly, right? Quickly, you know, within the first three months of being open, I really start to have those revelations of like, man, we can make this work. But Right. It's a slow grow as we come into [00:27:00] fall, right? That first year one at the shop, um, things start to slow down again. Uh, not because the economy's bad, I really think that, right?
I lost so much traction, um, which is a warning I always give guys that are talking about going from mobile to a shop. Like it's a fricking wake up call. Um,
come November, end of October, beginning of November, I'm like, man, they, the county's telling me they wanted me out by the end of the year. I'm running outta end of the year. I don't need these dudes showing up like December 15th and locking the door. I reach out to Mason and I'm like, Hey, what's going on?
He is like, ah, hey, you know what? We ran into some hiccups, um, some legal stuff with some other, like taking a bunch of properties. Um, you're probably good for like another nine or 10 months, maybe a year. So we went from, we're getting a full year to, we're [00:28:00] getting, you know, we gotta be outta here in eight months to now.
I just talked to him again and like, we're, we're walking on eggshells for eight months and now we're good for another 10 to 12 months maybe, but probably, but maybe, right. So then we come into 19 and, uh, business is getting better, right? I see steady increases in walk-in traffic. I see big increases in large difficult smash repair.
I see good increases in, um. Insurance work, right? Like we're getting traction, we're growing, coming towards the end of 19. Yeah. Coming towards the end of 19, right? Reached back out to my buddy Mason, and I'm like, Mason, where are we at on this rollercoaster of my shop? Right? 'cause we can't, we're we're, we're trying to operate and [00:29:00] make things work and we're looking for a new space, but we're not getting kicked outta this space yet.
That's a great deal. In a great location. Like, so it's like this yo-yo of like, well we're good. Oh, we're not good. Oh, we're good. Oh, we're not good. He's like, yep, you're good for another year. We ran into some hiccups. We're rolling into 2020. COVID happens. First for Q1, end of end of Q1. COVID happens, I think.
And uh, we go from like doing pretty okay to like, there's not a car on the road, like I lay guys off. Um, it's terrible, it's scary for like three days. And then we had a huge, uh, at the time, biggest storm of my career, huge hailstorm, uh, at one of our dealers. So we shift back to everything. Thank God the shop's slow because the, the big [00:30:00] dealers 45 minutes west, um, from the shop.
Um, and we've got like, we end up doing like 700 cars, 400 ish wholesale, and another 300 retail through the body shop. Like it was a fantastic storm. We bring in. Cars to the shop locally, right? And just hurry up and wait. I even remember creating like the, the touch free hail estimating process to deal with COVID.
'cause nobody knew what was going on. Where it was like you just pull up and hold your registration card up and we'll get your info and then you pull into the shop and we'll do everything and then you pull out and we never have to contact each other. Um,
I'll keep my opinions to myself on that whole process. But anyways, uh, so we roll through. So 2020 is like best year I ever had in business by long shots. Sets, set some real new [00:31:00] records. Um, we hired, uh, Dave, uh, to come on at the shop. Uh, Dave subbed for us, uh, and then hired, we know, hired him and he came on.
Uh, at this point I had started my Kiko career. I'm training, so supplementing the shop a little bit with flying out and training, and then we get Dave, and then I can really focus on that. And it was good. It was really good. We're all into 21 and right, we're coming off a high, like a serious high, uh, from 20, but there was a big, big backlash, uh, into 21.
Um, we start with a horrible winter, right? And, and, and we're sort of in a, we're not really having a horrible winter, but the last like month has been pretty ugly winter here, and the cars are filthy. And I still have not have found a way to [00:32:00] combat dirty, filthy cars in the northeast. Like when they're nasty, dirty.
Nobody's looking at the car, dude. Just not gonna happen. Pause there, right? Like, so end of 20, uh, reach out to Mason. He's like, wow, we're on hold. Uh, I don't know when we're gonna do this. Uh, it's coming. He's like, let's figure this year thing again. He is like, but you may be more than a year. Like, not shocking that COVID screwed that up.
I was really hoping that COVID would've screwed up the funding and they would've shut the project down, but they didn't. So, right. We trudged through. Um, so we bring Dave on at the end of 20, uh, acquire his company, bring him in, hire him full time, and then 21 starts and like January sucks. February sucks, like snow all the time.
Uh, my joke was I could have just brought a 55 gallon barrel [00:33:00] into the shop on February 1st and filled it full of money and like caught it on fire and roasted some hot dogs. And ate them and then closed the shop down and went home. And it would've cost me less money than being open for, for February. It was just one of those months.
Uh, just, I've only had a couple of those months in my career. Um, but it's all weather related. And when it snows every single day, you're just not, we're just not gonna fix cars here. That's, that's what it boils down to. Coming to March. Uh, right now I'm starting to not sweat like, but we're not booming.
We're not where we want to be. The dealers are off, right? 'cause they're all sort of coming out of that COVID hangover where they were killing it and selling cars and doing like, you know, brand new prices on used cars with 50,000 miles. And like, that's, again, I will keep my [00:34:00] opinions to myself on that, but we're slow.
Right. And this younger salesman comes in and I can't remember, I don't want to, I don't wanna dog the company, so I'm not even gonna make a name up or pretend, but like it was an online marketing company that manages AdWords and manages your Google listing. Um, not one of the ones in the PDR space that I also don't recommend.
I'll leave it at that. Um, but anyways, this dude comes in sharp. Uh, we connected. Uh, I, I and I, I genuinely don't think he was like blowing smoke up my ass or anything. Like I think he genuinely cared. I think he genuinely thought they could do what they could do. Uh, even met with his manager, right? And, and we signed up for, they, they in not actually guaranteed, but in essence guaranteed.[00:35:00]
Right. Like, because I was struggling with my Google listing and struggling with the ads with this smaller, um, area that's being served, the ads are being served too, and they're like, ah, we can do this. You know, we'll, we'll increase your ad spend. And it wasn't, it wasn't an expensive, um, management, like three to 500 bucks a month for management fee, which is not expensive.
Right? Like I would, if somebody could actually manage my Google listing and my Google ads for three to $500 a month and produce results, like, dude, sign me up. In fact, my current Google ads management company, uh, is like 200 bucks a month. Uh, and they do a, a pretty fantastic job for, for, for what they've got.
Uh, maybe I'd like to see it dialed in and, and. Worked on and tweaked a little bit more, but as a whole, for a couple hundred bucks a month, these guys are [00:36:00] killing it for me. Uh, and I don't have to sweat it. If there's a problem, they sweat it for me. But anyways, this company comes in, these guy, this guy and and his manager, uh, and legitimate company.
Not like local fly by night, but a national organization of some sort. Um, sign up, sign the contract. So, but I'm locked into a 12 month contract with them on this and they set it up. So this would be like spring, late spring of 21. Uh, and it is a shit show like. They take over the ads, they shut down my ads account and they do it inside of their ads account, which is how they protect themselves, which I strongly do not recommend that you ever do.
Like don't give up control of your account. You can have a manager, but let them manage your account. Don't be inside of theirs lessen, you know, multiple tech tip [00:37:00] number, whatever. Um, and dude, they're like blowing through the budget. I'm getting all these reports. I think I got weekly reports and they're like, we sent you 500 clicks this week.
And I'm like, Hmm, yeah, maybe. Um, but I watch all the leads and like, I've got a pretty good read on the pulse of my business and I promise you like nothing good is happening. Go through, it's like the end of month one. And they're getting results for like PDR and this and that. Like they're, they're campaign.
Sucks because our customers, our retail customers are not searching PDR like, but they're blowing through my money. Um, my cost per click went from like, and I still hold like low dollar, generally, like under two bucks a click still in this market, um, [00:38:00] they're like four, five, $6 a click. Uh, getting a bunch of click, like they're just burning through my cash.
So end of month one I call up, I'm like, these results sucks. We gotta work on something. So they put me in contact with their ad team and we go through and I'm like, like, I don't want people looking for training. I don't want people looking for cheap. I don't want people looking for this. And I'm like, and this PDR thing doesn't make any sense.
Like there aren't that many searches in Pittsburgh. I still don't know what they're doing wrong, but it was bad. We go through month two, but now I'm coming into like my busy season or what should be the busy season. And Google ads are my big driver because my Google listing, right, it's still scratching and trying to get traction burnt through another month.
It comes down to, and I don't remember if we were with him for three or four months, but I'm like, you gotta let me outta this contract. You guys are killing me. Like, uh, you're not producing any results. [00:39:00] So I get his manager to agree that head to head month to month I'm gonna advertise against myself. So I have to pay them their management fee, pay their ads spend and set my ads back up and turn them back on and get 'em rolling to prove that I can beat them on clicks and cost per click 'cause they, they could do it better than me.
So I fire up my old campaigns. I go every through, go through everything. I tweak it out and inside of a month I'm like kicking their ass. And I run my reports against their report and they were like, yep, you're right. Like you're doing, whatever you're doing is working and whatever we're doing is not working, we're out.
But I thank God I got out of the contract. But the worst part of that is I lost, Lord knows how much business over three or four months of my busy season. Where in essence, we weren't even showing up, right? As far as it really went, like [00:40:00] we weren't showing up. What did that cost me? An extra 20 or 30 grand.
Um, that sucked. Thank God. It was the year after an amazing hailstorm. And like we can, we can weather a $30,000 hit, but damn, that's a lot of money. Like again, I would've been just as well to. Bring that big old burn barrel back out and have another hot dog roast and forget about the stress and at least eat a couple hot dogs.
We scratch back, um, take back over the ads instantly see the increase in traffic. Um, an increase in in business. Uh, we survive 2221 and it is like, that was a difficult year of business. Uh, and really the first year, right? So I started in oh two. Uh, that was [00:41:00] really the first year that, that I took a step back.
Now we didn't have a hailstorm. I knew sales would be down, but like non hail sails. Year over year. Lost my ass. That year. That was an expensive year. None of us in the company made any, I mean, we made money, but we didn't make good money. We, that was that year hurt a lot. Um, then, uh, we came into 22, right?
That still the same like bouncing uh yo-yo with the county. Oh, you're good. Oh, you're not good. Oh, you're good. Oh, you're not good. We're on this perpetual. Um, oh, you're good for 12 more months. But what kind of decisions, like 12 months, I promise you goes really fast. Like what can we do? We go through 22.
Um, we run into the next issue with having the shop. Right. We we're, so we're like a tri-state [00:42:00] business. Serve a pretty big geographical area with, um. Wholesale and the retail locally here, excuse me,
we get a huge hailstorm in Morgantown, West Virginia, which is our, like, it's a great town. We, we own the town. If it's really, if it's a shop or dealership worth town like that is our town. Um, we've been there for years. Takes a direct hit, gnarly storm. I mean like the one body shop we thought, we ended up doing a bunch of cars there, but they had like 200 and some cars on the lot.
We thought the lot took a direct hit, like on the map. It should have taken a direct hit. I'm not sure how the, the damage missed it. Um, but [00:43:00] like locked up and these cars go from like. Really nice to, Hey, this needs a hood, roof, trunk, and rail. If it's not totaled, like nasty stuff and everything in between.
Thank goodness for hail. Right? We love hail. We always wanna capture what we can, but then north and our north of us also gets blasted with some hail. So my shop, our shop sits kind of in the middle of these two storms and Right. We had Dave, but Dave lives Hour north and some of the body shops that we acquired when we acquired Dave's company brought Dave in, right?
We're hit and down here is hit.
I had to close the shop up, right? Which broke my heart because I've been scratching for the last whatever, 18 to 24 years to build traffic into this um, shop. [00:44:00] And then suddenly.
I can't staff the shop because scrambling day of North, I'm scrambling south. Uh, and we are, you know, that South Storm wasn't enough to bring a bunch of guys in. Uh, we were able to bring one guy in and then it was just like, the whole time, just on the cusp of like, we could bring one more guy in, but then that would start eating into other guy's work, if that makes sense.
So we go into full scramble mode. Um, that was the year I actually picked up my trailer so I could leave all of my stuff built and like roll into a body shop, roll out work, put out whatever fires I had to put out, roll back into the cart or back into the trailer and bounce around again. Amazing year, a new record setting year for us.
And uh, but I had like a month. Probably a little better than a month in the middle of busy season [00:45:00] where I couldn't staff the shop all the time. I couldn't always get Melissa there. Right? The kids were still in school. Um, it was a struggle, uh, to keep it going. Um, I'm certainly lost some traction. I'm certainly lost some business there.
But how are you gonna chase those $400 cars instead of the four, five, $8,000 cars? Right? It doesn't, that just doesn't make sense. Um, but we survive, right? It is, it is what it is. Um, come back and, right. We're really starting to get some traction now. We're into 23, I think. 2223. Yeah, that sounds right. I said, yeah, 23 started to double down and now I'm like, all right man, we've got, you know, we're getting traction here, we're getting billed.
We survived that hailstorm, that was great. Like, let's reinvest in the company again. And we start, you know, that's around the time, [00:46:00] uh, that we start to, uh, hire Dylan. Oh, that was when we did our first level up. Speaking of which level up, we sold out the first class so fast that we are trying to do a second class March 5th, sixth and seventh.
Uh, we're opening up or attempting to open up a second level up, me and John and you for three days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday in my shop at Dent Repair. Now, diving into difficult technical repairs to help you level up, we need five people. We've got two people that said yes. If we've got a third one, then I'm putting the screws too.
We still need a couple more. If you're thinking about it, if you've ever thought about it, how can you not lock yourself in a room or shop with me and John to go deep for three days? For only 3000 bucks, right? And really, I only need a hundred bucks to hold your spot. So head [00:47:00] on over to Dent Repair now.com/level up.
Make that deposit. Lock it in, and let's see if we can't get this class full. And don't worry, you're not throwing your a hundred bucks away. If we don't do it, I will refund you 100% of your $100. I'll eat all the fees. You don't have to sweat anything. Go check that out. But anyways, we did our Level Up.
That's also the year that I hired, uh, or we hired Dylan on Right, to start making a hard push on media and everything like that. Uh, it's the year I stepped away from Kiko, uh, to start the institute, um, to stay home more, to train how I want to train and, and do everything like that. Doubling down, going hard in 23, right?
We hired Dana to do some outreach and outside sales, um, rocking and rolling through, um, good year. That year, late 23, we had another a, a freak. [00:48:00] Thanksgiving ish. Nasty hailstorm. Thank God this wasn't a direct hit. 'cause these cars were a mess. Um, but it was about an hour east, southeast of us. Uh, they got just fricking smoked.
Uh, and we ended up pulling a bunch of straggler cars, uh, off of that, uh, you know, former customers, people that couldn't get into the body shops 'cause these cars were getting roofs and everything. And we sort of cherry picked, uh, what we wanted and had a great start, um, into end of 23, beginning of 24. I think that was the year.
It's all a blur. Anyways. It's good. Plug along. Uh, I did make some poor choices, or not poor choices because we made growth. I, I let myself overinvest in people and I let my payroll get a little too big, um, without seeing the return on the other side. [00:49:00] That is definitely something that you gotta watch. Um, you know, I like to invest in people.
I like what, I like to work with people. I like how people can help you do more things, but be cautious of overspending on your people and not getting the return that you need outta them, right? You gotta stay profitable, you gotta make that happen. Uh, lesson learned, duly noted. Don't over hire. Um, anyways, into 24, which was just sort of an okay year, I think.
Two, five.
No, no, no. Uh, um, I think I'm crossing wires here. Anyways, in early 24, late 23, early 24, uh, we find finally our new shop. We had to move. Uh, and now the county was coming back. The [00:50:00] county did, uh, force my landlord out. They acquired his, they acquired the property and they became my landlord. And then they put the screws to me and they're like, you gotta get out.
You gotta get out. So we know divine intervention. I truly believe everything works out the way it's supposed to work out. Um, our current shop shows up on my search that I've done a billion times at this point. Like, I think my fingers were just like, loopnet.com, Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, realtor, like anywhere that you could find commercial real estate, like my fingers would just go, I looked, you know, four or five days a week every week for years looking for the right place.
And for some reason this building had never shown up. Like in talking to the commercial realtor, it was like, um. They put it on, they took it off. They put it on, they took it off. They put it on. They took it off. And I had just happened to catch it on one of the days that, [00:51:00] you know, they had put it on, um, reach out.
We go look at the space and it's 10 minutes from my house. It's dirty. And I was like, real dirty. Mechanics, shop dirty. Like you walk into the waiting area and you could smell the grease like you left there and wanted to wash your clothes. Um, but we're looking at the space and I'm like, man, there's good studio in the back.
Great customer waiting area. The shop's bigger. Um, the, just the garage space here is bigger than the entire building at, at the first shop. Like it's a big nice move up for us. But, but Right. We start talking some numbers and it comes at a cost like. Pretty significant cost. Like if we went back 10 years and you were like, Hey man, you're gonna find this shop and this is how much it's gonna cost you to open your door.
I [00:52:00] would be like, well bro, you're crazy. We ain't doing that. Uh, but here we are, right?
It's just water. But, you know, cheers nonetheless, like here we are,
sign the lease. And that is like a whole debacle in itself. So I will tell you that everything on a commercial lease is negotiable. I will also tell you that, uh, your real estate attorneys will nitpick everything and charge you $400 an hour while they do it, right? Like, and, and they were great. I'm glad we had had good real estate attorneys on our side to work with us and help us walk through and answer all of our questions and make sure there's no pitfalls.
We sign up, we get in and, uh, June 10th, I believe, [00:53:00] June 10th of 24, we get to open the new shop. Now we went from a one year short term lease, short term lease that turned into like an eight or nine month lease that turned into a 12 month lease that turned into a watch or whatever that we were at for six years.
And we were on this rollercoaster of like, you're good, you're not good, you're good, you're not good. Two, we are locked in for five years with a guaranteed, uh, re-up for an additional five years if we want. So that means like we can come into this place and we can do great signage and we can make the shop beautiful and we can invest in it because we know for sure we're here for five years.
And if we love it and it's amazing, we can be here for at least 10. It's non-negotiable. It's just we say yes, they have to say yes. And as long as we're paying our rent, we go to town. So we open up.[00:54:00]
I missed most of the build out because a good friend of mine needed help with a hailstorm. And, uh, due to the, uh, over hiring practice that I went through, right, needed to stack up some extra cash, some extra working money. Uh, so I go on the road, uh, to do some hail and I, it was a good gig, great gig with great people.
Like we've vacationed with them. Thank you Nan. Um, super blessed to have the opportunity. Um, Melissa steps up and takes the reins and runs and, uh, the whole crew gets on board and the shop looks amazing, like scrubbed it head to toe, put the new floor in like primo. Primo first day, uh, I was there for the move and then I think I was back on the road for opening day.
I don't even know that I was there for opening day. Uh, or if I was, you know, it was like a couple days. And then back to the hailstorm[00:55:00]
for years prior to having the shop, the first shop, and then even having the first shop, I thought Prime location didn't matter that much because I thought the first space was a prime location. Uh, and accessibility wise, it absolutely was prime location, but it wasn't the right traffic. And I thought, well, we can just, and we did.
We grew it like, and foot traffic eventually got good at the first shop and business was good at the first shop and like it was all good and we outgrew the first shop. Like it was great, but it was a tough grow.
Shop two, the current shop. We are on the major north, south thoroughfare, uh, non interstate for Washington, which was the little [00:56:00] city straight to Pittsburgh in the suburbs on the edge of, or deeply in, but towards the edge of very affluent suburbs of Pittsburgh. We have a, I think it's a 40 acre BMW store across the street.
A brand new $40 million Lexus store just opened up. It's not a half a mile to the Volvo Land Rover Jaguar store, and we're no longer in an area where people are putting their blinders on and want to go away. We are in an area where people are going to places.
The old adage of location, location, location is absolutely true. I should have listened to old Johnny o back in the day. Uh, one of my first bosses at a real job where he preached at [00:57:00] location, location, location. Uh, so it took us probably four years to build decent walk-in foot traffic at the old store, at the old shop.
And like we were there for six years and it was like pretty good foot traffic from month one at the new shop. The new premium location walk-in traffic is as good or was as good or better than six years at the previous store. And the clientele just wanna fix their cars, right? We and, and we, it wasn't like we were in a low income area, but we went from like, call it normal median income to a high income area.
And now, right, I see jobs that [00:58:00] before people would've hemmed and haw on or like, Hey, you know what, maybe I'm making an insurance claim for that. To now they're like, alright, when don't we get in? I'm not making a claim for this. Let's just get it done. Like, it's pretty fantastic. So like, location, location, location matters.
The new shop has been fantastic. The space is great. Having the studio to produce content is great. Um, as we get the studio built out for what I want it to be, it's going to be even greater. Uh, we're putting in a little store, um, for some PDR and GPR supplies, right? So we'll have another little revenue stream there, uh, which will be cool.
It has been a pretty fantastic ride, but it has absolutely been a roller coaster to go from the freedom of mobile repair, [00:59:00] right? Where if I want a day off, I just take a day off, just don't schedule any cars. If I get done early, I just go home. If I want to go hit a bucket of balls at the driving range in the middle of the day, I just swing into the driving range in between appointments and hit a, hit a bucket of balls two, right?
As, as Keith calls it, his drywall prison, right where you're locked into. Shop and you have to be there. I would not not do the shop again. Uh, I would probably go bigger out of the gate and go for the better location. Find the money to make the opportunity work, right? Don't go off the beaten path. That, that being in the thick of it, I really think is, is something that makes a big, [01:00:00] big difference.
Um, we've gotten into really big repairs. Uh, I've been able to get into more education, right? With the bigger shop, with the old shop, if I wanted to create content or teach, I would have to shut the shop down in order to teach or to create content. Now with this space, right, I've got my whole studio space, which I can train in.
I've got multiple bays. So I'm not, I can work and train a student in a working bay and not take up the whole shop because the old shop was so small. I guess I give you all this one to share my story, love to tell stories. Two, to maybe give you a peek into what it looks like to build a shop business. Uh, man, we've done tent.
We've done PPF, uh, we've contemplated ceramic coatings. At the end of the day, I go back to PDR and [01:01:00] education, uh, and a combination of wholesale smash and retail work, right? That's what works for us. Um, it's been a good ride. It is a good ride. It's amazing ride. I keep seeing this meme, meme quote, whatever.
Uh, and, and it's something along the lines of like, how fortunate are you to be tired? Exhausted of the work you once dreamed of. And although it's been hard and it's been up and down, and I can't tell you for sure that I would do it again or do it again exactly the same way, but I truly am blessed to be tired and stressed out about, uh, the work that we once dreamed of.
Like, it is pretty cool. I could sit here and talk for another hour or two. I think when we pick this back up, [01:02:00] it's gonna be less about the shop and more about business and people and growing your team and the struggles that come there. Uh, it won't be next episode, I don't think. Um, but it will be, uh, another episode that we do.
Don't forget if you were on the fence, if you're thinking about it, if you thought about it, I'll tell you what, if. Half of the people that told me, man, I really wanted to do the Level Up last time, but I couldn't do it. Next time I want to do it. If half of you all said yes, we'd be teaching for the next month.
However, class one sold out in like four days. I opened it up Monday morning and Friday morning like before the day even got started, it was sold out. Thank you so much. Super grateful. We're opening up that second class. If we get at least five people to sign up, dent repair now.com/level up, we'll take you to the page, drop your a hundred dollars deposit.
We've got [01:03:00] two yeses, we've got a third one, and I'm putting screws to, we need a couple more people to make this class happen. Get on there and make it happen. If we don't get the reach out this week to make it happen, we're gonna pull the plug so Jean can schedule his flights back home and we'll send it back to Slovenia with just one more class under his belt.
Um. How about some feelers? Uh, Anson's Open House is going to be, let me find Miss Christina.
Uh, open house is going to be on May the second, which is a Saturday, also their 30th anniversary. It's gonna be a big event. Um, Christina opened up a training day for me on May 1st, I'm thinking, what do [01:04:00] you think about an advanced glue pool day at Anson? The day before the open house? Hit me up. Send me some dms.
Lemme know your thoughts. I really think that's what I'm gonna pull the trigger on. I've done a few, like glue pull one oh ones. Um. We're definitely gonna do something different, and I'm thinking it's gonna be an advanced glue pull at the open house. And that'll kind of get me geared up for the cam auto, uh, GPR competition, the 16th and 17th, I think 15, 16, 16, 17, something like that in Montreal.
I am signed up for the glue pull only competition this year. 100% glue pull on a quarter panel, I get a glue pull, light hammer knocked down, slappers, that's it. No access to the back of the panel. I'm [01:05:00] stoked to see what I can do. And they're again doing the um, G-P-R-P-D-R competition that I competed in last year for Team USA.
Um. Check that [email protected]. I don't know if it's full yet, uh, but you could also just attend. Uh, I am super stoked, uh, to be heading up to there. And also it looks like I will be making the trip to Italy for the DB Expo and the training beforehand. Just trying to put some more details in before that, not doing the training, attending the training, being at the training, but working on some details, looking like that is going to happen.
As always, follow us on social media at Dent Repair now. Uh, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed my journey into shop ownership, uh, the ups, the downs, the goods, the bads, and all of that good stuff. Until next week, [01:06:00] see ya.
