#88 Mentorship
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Speaker: [00:00:00] One, two
Welcome back to another episode of the All Access podcast from Dent Repair Now. This is episode 88. It's like the Back to the Future episode, right? Once this thing hits 88 miles an hour you're gonna see some magic happen. We are at episode 88. Guys, we leave in a couple of days for the PDR Expo. Super excited to go out there.
I love... I really love that show. It feels like old school MTE, right? It doesn't have the-- It's not the size and scope that, that MTE has turned into, which is fantastic. Like, I'm not dissing MTE, but man, it is cool to be [00:01:00] able to, like, take your time and sit down and have conversations and hang out with friends and not be completely overwhelmed with, like, you gotta get everywhere, you gotta do everything, and you missed everybody.
So, that is coming up this week. If you haven't bought tickets yet, what are you waiting for? Your flight's gonna be expensive, but you should really get out there. I, I know a couple of people, uh, that I've been talking to just decided to pull the trigger and they're going. So, you know who you are, and I'm excited to see you out there.
Uh, again, we've got that round table Friday morning. A whole bunch of knowledge sitting on stage, uh, to share knowledge with you. So come check that out. And then Saturday, I'm super stoked for the, um, cold glue class. Uh, it's two parts. First part's gonna be, like, classroom or normal talk. Second part is gonna be live demos pulling you out of the, uh, audience a- and bringing you up and, uh, hopefully teaching you some new stuff with [00:02:00] cold glue.
So I'm super excited for that. Uh, background. My buddy Eric, the bearded dent guy. Got some gear from him this week. Eric, there's the hat. Dude, I dig it. And other side, uh, a little nod of the hat to the Ginger Bros, specifically our brother Brandon. Um, if you've not been following on social media, you should.
You should go check out what, uh, Brandon and his wife Mandy have going on. Um, Mandy's facing some, uh, health issues. Uh, and as always, this industry is stepping up to help them out. So wanted to give them a shout-out. Go check out Brandon Schmitz. Uh, if you haven't seen or heard what's going on, please go check it out.
And if you have it in your heart, give them a helping hand. Brandon, thinking about you guys, praying for you and, and hoping that, that, uh, Mandy gets this all taken care of and put behind her. All right. This week's topic, [00:03:00] uh, mentorship, right? It's, uh... I had a student in, uh, this week, 10-year technician, good technician, um, but like so many of us, right?
Went through training, and then you spend the rest of your career just trying to figure it out. We were talking, right? And he was like, "Man, I feel like what you're showing me is it sounds like it's just dent guy problems, right? Dent- things that dent people need to figure out." Yes, that's absolutely correct, right?
We've all gotta figure out the exact same stuff. Um, and when we were talking, he's sort of like, "Man, you've got it figured out. You've got this." And I'm like, "Well, dude, I spent 14 years, right? '02 to '16, I spent 14 years not having it figured out, not knowing what to do." Just... And I'm not even saying I have it figured out now, but [00:04:00] I spent 14 years beating my head against the wall trying to figure it out.
And then found my buddy Keith Cosentino, right? We had been... We had connected on doring.com. We had been friends. We'd seen each other at MTE. Uh, big fan of the PDR College podcast. Like, I listen to all their stuff, and Keith put it out there that he was gonna do some business coaching. And, uh, I was like, "Maybe that's what I need.
Maybe I need some help." And, uh, you know, signed up. I think it was twel- 12-week program
Perhaps in my professional career, the most formative 12 weeks of my whole career, uh, were, were right there with Keith. What I learned was... Well, I learned a bunch of things, but the big, the big [00:05:00] overarching thing that I learned is, I mean, you can, like, beat your head against the wall and try to figure it out on your own, which works, which you can make happen, or you can find a mentor and you can buy your way into knowledge, right?
Instead of trying to decipher it and figure it out, uh, you can pay to figure it out and accelerate, uh, where you need to get to. Uh, and that's what I did with Keith. Um, man, he changed perspectives of how I looked at business. Um, not so much on the physical repair side of things, um, but on the business side of things, on the life side of things.
Like, really, really helped change a lot of my processes, uh, of how I operate, right? Of what we do. I, I wouldn't have made it into the shop and have employees and everything if it weren't for Keith, right? I, the, I, the hiring Jennifer [00:06:00] back in the day, uh, to answer the phones, to take the phone work away from me, priceless.
Absolutely priceless with, uh, with making that happen I don't understand. Well, I guess I do understand because it's sort of just how most people go through life. But man, if you look at all of the most, um, high-performing everybody, right? Tiger Woods at golf. Um, you know, even Michael Jordan when he was playing ball.
They all have coaches If the most elite of the elite in the world still rely on coaches to help them improve and get better and stay sharp and get sharper, why aren't more of us investing in ourselves and, and getting better, right? I can, I [00:07:00] can remember having a conversation with, uh, with a friend, Dave, and talking about how, like in PDR, you go to school, you get trained.
Maybe if you're with a good company, you have a mentor for a little while, and then boop, kick you right out of the nest, and guess what you're gonna do? You're gonna take your time and figure it out, and beat your head against the wall and figure it out I think there needs to be more... I think more of us need to be more willing to invest in ourselves in getting better, right?
So my student that I had in, in this week, uh, this was in, this was basically an all physical skills, um Class training
Had never seen or used a shrinky box before, right guys? So those have been out for, [00:08:00] what, eight year- I think I bought mine in '18, and I think I got it shortly after they came out, so '17, '18. So these things have been out for almost 10 years, and people aren't using them. People don't know how to use them, right?
Hell, most of them don't even come with instructions, except for the shrinky box from Black Plague. I know the guy that created the instructions. Um, anyways, Keith, thanks for, uh, thanks for putting one out there that has instructions, uh, that works so well. Uh, but learning that, um, right, even some, some basic glue pull skills, right?
We watched, uh, you know, similar damage, uh, almost identical damage actually. Uh, being unaware of how to attack a dent and how exactly to work, uh, it was literally like 12 pulls to one pull, right? And [00:09:00] showing, and showing my techniques to how to pull more efficiently and accurately, right? Instantly, right, the nets- next dent he fixed did it in just a couple of pulls instead of, like, a dozen.
There's so much we can go out there and learn to do so much faster than, than doing it on our own. And I'm not saying you need to go pay for advanced training. You don't, you don't necessarily need to go spend a week with Bryce, or come and do a day or a couple of days with me, or Matt Boyett, or anything like that.
But you really need to be aware that you can be doing things better and faster and more efficiently, right? You can look at Jean's, um, Hail Pro. I think he calls it his Hail Pro. He put together a program showing you all of his tips and tricks that he uses to be [00:10:00] the most efficient hail tech he can be.
And if you've never seen that guy work, he shuts shops down because everybody's like, "How's he moving so fast? How's he getting through these cars?" Uh, I've had him out and, and working for some friends and, and they said, like, he works so efficiently, it's like having three really good hail techs in one. He has put all that knowledge out there to share with you, right?
To give you all of his tips and tricks, uh, to get better at doing hail.
Even Mike Toledo right over at Dent Trainer. Tons and tons of tutorials out there. Advanced Skills Seminar, right? I don't know that, that Keith and Chad are gonna bring it back, uh, but the one we had last year at Anson was amazing. Maybe I've ... I think I've been to all but two. I, I missed the very first one, and I missed [00:11:00] one, uh, when they did it in Sacramento out at Corey Kleinfeld's shop, but I think I've been to every other Advanced Skills.
The last one was maybe the best one yet. I learned so much, uh, getting to watch how, um, Bryce worked, and they did more hands-on, uh, I mean, really You've gotta be willing to invest in yourself even business coaching, right? And, and I need to find a new business coach, uh, because my coach Becky, uh, that was here in Pittsburgh for years sorta hung it up and, uh, is splitting her time between Florida and here and, and isn't doing coaching anymore.
Being able to invest in yourself, invest in myself, and learn new tricks and techniques to be able to get better faster, man, that's just where it's at. Here's our discussion for the week. All right, shoot me texts. You guys are great about shooting me texts. I l- I [00:12:00] can't tell you how much I love when some of y'all shoot me texts about the topic of the week, right?
Or what's going on. I love the messages. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I love hearing that it's working for me, right? Like, oh, that's why we do it. That's why I do this. People are like, "Why do you do these podcasts?" Because I'm helping the world be a better place. That's why. So topic for the week, are you investing in yourself and learning?
And if not, why not? What's holding you back from investing yourself and trying to be a better technician? Is it... A- and I think-
I think part of the problem is, as amazing as this little crazy trade of PDR is, it is so easy [00:13:00] to think that we are better at business than we actually are, right? It's, it's, it's, it pays amazing, right? The, the skill set that we have, this crazy little niche pays so well that I think a lot of us get lulled into sleep and thinking like, "Okay, you know, we're making a pretty good living here.
Why, why do I need to do more? Why do I need to do better?" Because you can do better. Because you can do it more efficiently. Because you can make more in a day. You can make more in a day and work less hours by building those skill sets up, right? And it can be... Man, I mean, we have physical skills to work on.
We have business skills to work on. Sales, marketing, advertising, uh, bookkeeping, right? Financial skills. There's so much that we can learn. And with this crazy little trade that we [00:14:00] have that works so well, right? That, like, talking about, like, an old Dave Ramsey thing, it gives us a really big shovel to make really big moves when you can be smart about it, right?
So, uh, I guess a little bit of a ranty kind of episode, um, but only because, like, I care about you guys, and I see my students and mentees, I guess it'd be mentees, right? Clients, whatever you wanna call it. I see the changes that are able to be made in people, and I just want more people to do it. I'm not even saying that you need to come to me to do it.
I just want you guys to be better, right? It's- Hearing from somebody that some conversations with little old me have completely changed their outlook on business, [00:15:00] changed their outlook on life, um, changes how they're operating their business, seeing more money come through the door, getting rid of their head trash.
Like, uh, guys, I gotta spread the word. Like, figure it out. Find a mentor in business and in life, and use them, right? Let them help you be a better human, right? That's, that's the, that's the moral of this story is let them be... Let them help you be a better human. Like, that really, really, really is what it's all about.
All right, I'm gonna let my brain process this a little bit. While we're doing that, let's do a little tool of the week.
All right, tool of the week is... Oh, that's upside down. Is the pocket light. This is dusty. These are a- this gets [00:16:00] used well, right? The pocket light, uh, from IllumiDent. Uh, so we got cool or warm, cool, warm and cool or both. Totally blowing out my camera. This pocket light I, I still think is a very misunderstood tool Yes, you can use it as an inspection light, right?
Can run out if you're looking at a car and, and, and take a peek. You can use it as a light for doing R&I, right? Set it on the dash and light up so you can see what you're doing, especially if you're getting old eyes like me. But where this really shines, what this really is for, is to see down inside a deep dense.
You can't fix what you can't see, and this will let you see more damage than you can ever imagine. Liter- I think, I think these are 219 on, on [00:17:00] Anson's, uh, webpage. Uh, in fact, I was sharing it with a student the other day. Pretty sure they're $219 or somewhere thereabouts The way this lets you see in a dent, it literally will pay for itself on the first job.
So you can take your regular... I don't have a regular light. You can take your regular light and put it over the dent and shine down in, and I don't care which one you have tried, Stucky, a Limit Dent, you just can't get down and see in the bottom of the dent. Proper way to use this, get it on your panel, uh, and it even has a magnetic ring.
It comes- you can get a suction cup if you're gonna work on aluminum. Um, turn it on and let this thing fold down, and if this is your dent, right? Like come in and completely flood the dent with light. You'll be able to see down in the bottom of that dent and watch your pushes[00:18:00]
Try it out. See what you think, right? I know Anson, Anson sells a ton of these things. If you're going to PDR Expo and you don't have one or two or 10 of these things, it's time to get you one. Um, it's not just for inspections, right? It's really, really for seeing down in sharp dents. Now, my tech tip for that is use it to see.
Do not rely on this for too much pushing. You just wanna get in and start to bring the bottom of the dent up, move it back a little bit, bring it up a little bit more, and then get rid of this thing and get back to your regular light. You don't wanna overwork the dent with this 'cause it's taking a little bit of your detail away, but it's letting you see down inside that crazy deep dent.
So tool of the week is the Flip Light, Pocket Light, Flip Light. I think it's Flip Light. The Flip Light from Elimidant, available at ansonpdr.com. This is an absolute [00:19:00] must-have. If you don't have it and you're not using it, you are missing out. Go get one. Back to one camera. All right. Short episode this week.
20 minutes in. Man, I gotta tell you I think it's a combination of the two-week vacation, the getting sick on vacation and coming back. It has been a bear to find my motivation to get going and, and, uh, grind through this week. We made it. It's Sunday. Mm-hmm. Right back on regular schedule for this. But, uh, yeah, that was...
I think it was the bug. Whatever the bug was that got us, like really, really kicked my ass. Uh, feel pretty great today. I've got more sleep this week than, than I normally ever get, so maybe that's a good thing. Um, but, you know, it is what it is. All right. Coming up this week, keep an eye on socials. I [00:20:00] have... I didn't even get to unbox it yet because it came in at the very end of the day Friday, and I didn't work yesterday, and I'm not working today.
But I got the brand-new light stand that Anson is carrying. Uh, I'm gonna try to do a little build video, uh, put it together, and give you a good first look. Uh, so keep an eye on the Dent Repair Now socials. That is for sure coming out. Uh, and Christina said I'm gonna have one of those to use, uh, in my class at the expo also.
So come check it out. And I'm sure they're gonna have them in the booth, uh, and ready to go there. Uh, but I'm super excited to, to check that out. So keep an eye out this week. I will be dropping a video on that new light stand. Uh, and then we're doing a Limit Dent, uh, X factor setup with the battery. It's...
I'm, I'm excited. It's gonna be cool. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening or watching or whatever you do. Don't forget to reach out. I wanna know, are you [00:21:00] getting better? Are you using a mentor? Do you have a mentor? What does that look like? And if not, why not? Why are you not investing in yourself?
What's holding you back? Right? I promise a coach will make you better. A good coach will make you better. Right? So, all right, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Oh, oh, I almost forgot. PDR Marketing Minute time. And I did cheat. I listened to this 'cause I was having audio problems. So we've got to get into this before we let you go.
And here is the PDR Marketing Minute.
Speaker 2: And now it's time for the PDR Marketing Minute, your weekly quick tip to help you build your PDR business.
Speaker: Hey, welcome back. Episode seven of the PDR Marketing Minute. I'm your host, Gene Fetty. Let's get started. Over the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about reviews. Now I'm gonna start showing and explaining some of the strategies you need to be taking to [00:22:00] get reviews These are going to be shorter episodes.
If you take action, they will work and they will start bringing reviews in. The first and, and really the simplest strategy is to ask. Uh, all the time I hear people complain that their customers won't leave them reviews. Well, are you asking them? Hmm. We all should leave reviews for everything, but we don't.
Um, we all use reviews to shop, and we don't reciprocate those reviews. Make sure you ask your customers. Uh, as part of asking, uh, while I'm engaging with the customer and building a rapport through the, uh, the sales and, and even the repair process, I will ask little clues. I-I'll, I'll talk about Yelp and their reviews and find out if the customer is a Yelper.
I will ask about, um, uh, or when I ask for their email, I will notice if it's a Gmail account. If so, I might ask for a review on Google. [00:23:00] Uh, everybody's on Facebook. Um, for my older clientele that maybe aren't as tech-savvy, more than likely they still have an email address. I'll point them to PDR Nation. So that's the strategy for this week.
Make sure you ask your customers for a review. All right. Next week we'll have a new strategy for you, and I'm also in the next couple of weeks going to be releasing my whole review system. Uh, there's gonna be artwork, there's gonna be some files you can
Speaker 2: take and implement right into your company. Hope to see you next week.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker: All right. So obviously I'm not releasing my review system. I don't remember what all we did there. I think we had some postcards, some text, um, strategies. Anyways, it worked, right? The review system worked. I think it was last week's episode, uh, we talked about reviews. [00:24:00] Uh, I'm all, I'm all in on Google.
That's, that's still where I'm getting all my reviews at. I will share with you my old text. I had an old text shortcut in here, right? PDRV was my text replacement. So here's what I used to send to the customers. "Thank you for letting me repair your car. I love making people happy. If you have a minute, reviews are how we get to help make new people happy.
Here's a link to our website, and from there you can get to our review pages." And then Dent Repair Now, blah, blah, blah. "Thank you so much, and if we can help you in the future, please don't hesitate to call. Gene Fetty, Dent Repair Now." I sent that text out to everybody, right? When we would finish a job, well, I guess as long as the customer was happy, we would send it out.
And that I, I... We sent that to our, a page on our website where I had Google and Facebook and Yelp and back in the day PDR Nation 'cause it was an easy place to [00:25:00] leave reviews. Um-
Still a good tactic. And if you're not using a CRM, build yourself a little text, uh Text replacement on your phone, right? Go to keyboard, uh, do text replacement, pick a c- a handful of letters that come up, and then you can, like, type a whole article or a whole paragraph with, like, with a couple letters. The best way, hands down currently, to be getting reviews is absolutely using a CRM.
If you're not using a CRM to run your business, just like the mentorship at this point, why? Right? There are solutions out there for $100 a month that can get you rolling with a CRM, right? There are companies out there like, um, ShopLunch. A little bit more expensive, but they are super dialed in, right? [00:26:00] The best way to drive more reviews is to ask, and inside of the CRM you can automate it so you don't even need to think about it, and it can even send multiple reminders because we all get busy and we all forget to go leave that review that we were supposed to leave.
So get after it. You gotta be asking for 'em. And, and, and I really will verbally ask very similar to, to that text replacement I just sent you, right? Like, so typically here the customer comes in to pick up their car. There's-- Shannon's talking to them and, uh, you know, she'll be like, "Oh, hey, the, you know, the CR-V customer's here."
I'll come out and it sort of makes sure they're happy. "Hey, Bob. How-- that look good? That look came out great. That scratch polished all the way out." "Oh, man, that's amazing." "Hey, Bob, Shannon's gonna send you a link to a review. If you just have a minute to leave something quick for us, that really means the world to me."
Right? So I just made them super happy with their [00:27:00] car, and now I'm asking for them to reciprocate, um, a little favor back, right? To leave me a review, please, if you can find it in your heart. Um-
Reviews are, are where it's at. Like, it- my old dad joke is it's the word of mouse, not the word of mouth. Uh, and it just holds so, so true today that, that that's, that's where it's at. So anyways, be working on those reviews, get 'em stacked up and, you know, like, hundreds of reviews is sort of, like, run-of-the-mill now.
Uh, the people who are really killing it are in the thousands, and I'm not there yet. Trying to kill it, but we're not killing it yet. We're giving it hell. If I would've listened to myself years ago, and if I would've not lost my Google listing when we moved in, right, I would be ahead of where we're at.
But nonetheless, ask for reviews. If you don't [00:28:00] ask, you're not gonna get. So go get after it. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Uh, again, appreciate all of you. Appreciate, appreciate all of your messages, and I can't wait to see you guys at the PDR Expo. I'm gonna try to do next week's episode, um, not live from the show, but I'm gonna try to do some interviews out there, and that's gonna be next week's show.
That's the plan at least. We're flying with some cameras. We're flying with some mics, all that good stuff. So we're gonna make it happen. All right, guys. Until next week or until the expo, right when I see you. Bye.
