Alright, welcome back to another episode of the All Access Podcast from DentRepairNow. We're back. It's Monday.
It's not 7am, but it's Monday and I will get this uploaded to you today, so you can listen to it today or tomorrow. But it's already 4 o'clock, so actually it's just going to drop Tuesday morning. So happy Tuesday to my regular listeners.
What do we got going on back here? We've got, man I do it wrong every time, we've got the Panelbeaters Club shirt. And that is the club, or the group that Thad has put on Discord. And that's a little bit of the merch.
We started stickers and stuff after the haul at MTE, or PDR Expo. But anyways, we've got the Panelbeaters shirt up there, and check this out. Now it is not lit up yet, because it is a little too bright.
I've got to get a dimmer for it. But my good friend Keith Cosentino surprised me with an LED DentRepairNow logo for the podcast background. I freaking love it dude.
Thank you so much. And we've got new lights coming. We're going to jazz this thing all up.
Jazz the background up even more. So hopefully for the next episode, we'll have all of this wired in and ready to go and it'll be awesome. But dude, I love the sign.
It's so cool. I was actually kicking around getting one very similar to that earlier this year and just didn't pull the trigger. But Keith made it happen.
So thank you very, very much, dude. What's going on in the PDR world? I've got a new tool of the week that I haven't even used yet. What would be the new, new tool of the week? Not just tool of the week, but it's new, new to me.
So stay tuned for that. Big, massive hailstorm in Phoenix. And from what I understand, the entire surrounding area, pretty, pretty smoked stuff.
Scottsdale. I've seen some pictures of some Scottsdale damage and you guys can keep that. BDD.
It's all yours, brother. We had a storm similar to that in 2016 here and it was just not a, it was not a good time. Of course, there's always pockets of good repairable stuff and I've seen pictures of that.
So some conversations, multiple conversations actually are what's going to drive this show, this episode. And I didn't really prepare my notes. I'm just going to sort of work through it and talk through it and think about, think about it, right? So we here, I, we, me and Melissa, Mac, Louie, the team, when there's a storm, we always like jump to it and we want to capture as much as possible, right? Like that's the, that's the goal.
But I've talked to a couple of friends on that Phoenix area and they don't know if they want to capture everything. Like, it doesn't make sense. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Right? And even if we go back, I think you'd have to go back into the archives, PDR college, Keith and Shane, Keith had a storm, I think it was a couple hours north of him.
Actually, I think it was in Redding near where the thads are, Dent Pro of Redding and Dent Proof. I guess it would be in Redding if it's Dent Pro of Redding. Should have thought that one through, but anyways, it hit up in Redding, which isn't too awful far from where Keith is at and him and Shane went up and they, they pulled back the curtains on all of the numbers of the storm, how they did, what the damage was like, what the workflow was like and everything like that.
And in having conversations with my friends who were like, man, I just, I don't know if I want to subject myself to that stress. It's a lot of stress. And I haven't had this conversation with myself on, on big storms, but I have definitely had this conversation with myself on medium-ish storms where we've brought some techs in and at the end of the storm, like we've done some good dollars, gross, I mean not gross numbers, not like ew, I mean like gross top line revenue.
However, when you look at what cuts to the body shop and paying the subs and everything like that and all the management that it takes to put that through, was it worth it? Right? In fact, on the one conversation I said, you know, I don't remember what year the storm was, but it was something like when I really sat down and crunched what we made off of that storm and all of the management and all of the headaches, I would have been better off to do 10 cars myself or 20 cars myself and just no headaches, just schedule the jobs in, do the jobs and call it a day. And this, this isn't a, an all hail episode. This is, this is like a, what drives you or what drives us to always push for more.
Right? And, and I know, I know that people say, if you're not growing, you're dying. I don't know if that makes sense, right? I've been on this, I've been on this chase for 24 years, 24 and a half years. Is the attempt at large growth actually worth it? Right? Or is there somewhere, is there something to being content? Now I say that and I know, I know for sure that I suffer from like, and that's not enough.
Like Melissa, she's up in the office working up there, um, is like, Hey, more is always better for you. Right? Like that's your, you always want more, more, more, more, more as I get a little bit older, hopefully a little bit wiser, you know, it really takes me back and makes me think about at what level is enough enough or right. And maybe the, maybe the universe is just trying to try to tell me something.
Um, I had a loyal listener of the, maybe not the show, but of the clips that we've put out. And, uh, some words of wisdom that came from him the other day that I've heard, try to live by. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep, right? Live, live within your means.
Don't, don't live to the point where there's a hailstorm in October in Phoenix and you to pack all your stuff up and run to Phoenix and scrounge for work because you're living beyond your means because you didn't make it happen. You didn't keep enough of what you made to make decisions that are good for you, your life and your family and not just your pocketbook. Right? So, so I guess the, the thought that like, or the thought of the, what I want to talk about or what I want to think about is like, what is the nut? When is enough enough, right? Like I've also got some friends that are just, it goes back to the mindsets from last week's episode of that.
Like I need to have it all. It's all mine. It's mine, mine, mine.
And there's a finite amount. I appreciate working hard. I appreciate making a good living.
I love doing cool shit. Clearly you all know that I love to travel, but at what point are we growing just to grow? Right? In fact, we were talking to a couple of technicians about coming on and it just didn't work out. But now in hindsight, I wonder if that's just not the better answer, right? Instead of like if we, if you math out the bringing new people on and the potential or not potential, the realized cost of bringing them on in a long game and in the longer game, is it worth it? Right? Is that risk worth it? Or do I take my own advice that I gave at the round table at PDR expo, right? Talking about what you would do differently.
And I said, well, I don't think I would scale the way I scaled. I wouldn't change my life. I wouldn't trade my life like where I'm at now.
However, if none of this existed, none of this happened, and I got to go back and start over in this trade with what I know now versus what I knew then, I said, I don't know that I would have invested in the business. I think I would have just worked hard and maximized my dollars and taken that and invested into real estate or stocks or mutual funds or something instead of trying to grow this company, which is difficult, but I love this company, right? So I'm not, it's not like I'm burning the ships and we're not, I'm not tearing this down and throwing it away. However, if I could go back and start at zero, I don't know that I would take the same path.
So am I reaching, reaching a point, this is just a therapy with Jean. You guys are good. You guys get to listen to Jean's therapy session.
Y'all are my therapists. Is the, what's the answer, right? Like, and I'm not trying to get philosophical, like what's, what's the meaning of life? I don't understand. Just trying to figure it out and do the best we can do.
But, but really talking to some people that are, I respect that run good businesses that are profitable, that do what they do. I've never, I don't think I've ever looked at a hailstorm and been like, nah, we're good. Like let's just run here.
Now last year when we had our storm and there were some more opportunity, we were just at capacity, right? I had lost Jake, Dave was in a diminished level of repairability. Mack was a year old or a year newer into the business than he is now. Actually more than a year, year and 14 months, 16 months newer than what he is now.
I just didn't have the capacity to do it. Like we were just in survival mode, but these guys made the decision or are making the decision to not pursue the big storm based on lifestyle and stress. I think maybe they have something figured out that I'm still trying to learn, but that's why I wanted to bring this to you guys.
It's like maybe hearing that perspective makes sense, right? I'm working on the training side of our business. I don't know that I would, I probably would, I probably can't say no to a hailstorm. It's just too good.
And we're pretty good at running them too. Like not my first rodeo, not my 10th rodeo, like been rodeoing for a while, but it's perspective. It's something to think about on like when is enough enough? What are you content with? Or is like enough enough, right? Like if I can be, if I can be left to it, right, this goes back to like the, you know, sometimes, and I wouldn't do it, but sometimes I look at like the overhead of the shop and the employees, you know, payroll, insurances, tools, everything.
There's something to be said for the simplicity of being a truck in a truck, right? Like that was part of the appeal of this business 20 some odd years ago was like, I thought, man, I could buy like $3,000 worth of tools. Side note, now I have like $3,000 worth of hammers, just hammers, maybe more. I bet if I added them up, I bet it's more than 3,000.
It's a sickness. But anyways, I was under the delusion of, I would buy the set of tools and had a gun case and it fit in the back of my Chevy S 10 and I had my fog board and I had my old K boom light and man, that was all I needed. Like I didn't even, I mean, smartphones weren't even a thing, right? I had my Nokia, you could play snake on you guys play snake, man.
I wasted a lot of time playing that game. But I had my little Nokia, I had my aluminum clipboard with my three part NCR invoices. Like it was simple and profitable, the good old days, but wasn't the good old days because I couldn't go on vacations or do what I wanted to do and still have my company produce money.
Is this my midlife crisis? Is this episode the midlife crisis? I don't know. If it is, it'd be a pretty good run because I'm 50 and if this is mid, that would get me to a hundred, hundreds, a pretty good run. I'll take that.
Anyways, it's just, it's, it's something to think about. It's, it's like, do you slow down and capture everything and try to conquer the world or do you just bear down and maximize your time and what you can do and what you want to do? Right. And I guess that philosophy can even come back to writing cars, right? The estimates do don't do this, but do you just pop in and take the cars for what their field written for and do as many as you can and not wait for supplements and you just rock and roll through.
I strongly recommend not doing that. Or do you write a really solid sheet, right? And make great money on each car or do you write each car to the moon, right? Look for every little nickel and dime you can get and squeeze the car and make each car as profitable as possible, but in the process, slow down and fix fewer cars, but fix fewer cars for more money. Or do you do more cars for a little less money, but you do a lot more cars and make the same money or more money because you do more cars.
Where do you guys fall on this man? Like this is a, this is probably a better discussion in a group, uh, than me to you and you and your car or truck or SUV or van or school bus. I don't know anybody working out of an airplane yet, but it could happen. So those are my thoughts, right? Like deep thoughts with Jean Fetty.
Cue the Jack Handy thing from Saturday Night Live in the nineties. I don't know where it's at. I don't know what the answer is.
But it's, it's what was on my mind. So the reason I didn't do a show yesterday is the night before I slept. Absolutely horrible.
The stuff he knows I couldn't breathe. And I just, I walked around exhausted and in a fog yesterday. Um, I even tried to take a nap.
Then if you really know me, you will know that I am an amazing napper and the nap was still not enough to like take the brain fog away. Like it was just a horrible, horrible night's sleep. And, uh, yeah, I was like, man, I can't even focus enough to, uh, sit down and put cohesive thoughts together.
I'm not going to put in a horrible, horrible show. Um, however, that being said, I don't know that this is my best show ever. I really loved the last episode.
Um, but this was just, this has sort of been weighing on me. Like it's just a, it's a different mindset. A different thought process of attacking business.
And, uh, yeah, man, I don't know. All right, let's go check out episode 12 of the PDR marketing minute and see if I can give us a little bit of insight from the past. I didn't even sneak peek this one.
So if it sucks, I'll just cut it and we'll do it. But let's, let's see what I had to say. And now it's time for the PDR marketing minute, your weekly quick tip to help you build your PDR business.
Hey, welcome back. Episode 12 of the PDR marketing minute. I'm Gene Fetty, your host.
Today's going to be a little bit of a quicker episode, but I really need to stress this point. All of these different tactics, whether you learn it from me or somebody else, these are all, all tactics to drive leads into you. Uh, last night we just did a, uh, a webinar for the paid members of the PDR college podcast community, um, mainly surrounding, uh, AdWords in researching that I continue to see and really across so much of the industry that you guys, that the guys in general are not out there owning their market.
If you go back to the first couple episodes of the PDR marketing minute, we really talk about all of the different branches you need to have out there. Uh, your website, Google listing, Yelp listing, Facebook page on and on. All of these things come together to make a cohesive, um, image and strategy for your company.
Get on it. Uh, get all of these things going, guys, we're, we're running a marathon here. This isn't a sprint.
This isn't a quick, you know, what can we do today to get more business we need to think about what's going to be driving business for the entire time we have our company. So get out there, get your things done. Feel free to reach out to me.
Uh, you can catch me on Facebook, catch me in the community. I'm more than happy to help point you in the right direction. Uh, and certainly that there's going to be more and more content coming.
Uh, reviews are a big one. Speaking of reviews, head over to pdrmarketingminute.com. Sign up for my email list. Uh, I will have my review system coming out here very soon.
And, uh, just today I had one guy leave me three reviews in three different places and another customer leave, uh, a regular review and had one that showed up instead of square. So in one day using my techniques at five reviews come in. So get over there.
I can't wait to show you how to do that. Thanks for listening and, uh, get your presence going guys. It's time to time to start this race and plant your flag on your market.
All right. Until next week. Thanks.
All right. Sound advice sounded like I knows what he's talking about. Um, on your market.
So when I did that, that's probably, I don't know if I can see, that's probably like 2017, something like that. Um, that, that I talked about that. And back then, hold on.
I'm going to tell you exactly when that was because I have the old files. Oh, wow, guys, we're going way back. So that was originally broadcast November 1st, or at least created November 1st of 2016.
So 10 years ago, almost exactly 10 years. That's pretty cool that we were like within a week of 10 years. So 10 years ago, 10 years ago, you really could own your market, right? Like at one point, I think back in the day, Google had 10, excuse me, 10 spots on the first page, right? That was sort of the, like where you were at.
We owned, I believe eight of those 10 spots on the first page of Google. Oh, that was the good old days. Uh, and it was all a hundred percent organic.
In fact, I turned my ads off. Um, and so I ran into a customer that was like, man, it's such a hard time finding you. I'm like, bro, how can you not find me? I own Google, like I'm everywhere.
And he starts showing me how he searched and these other paid ads that weren't even necessarily relevant to me, to PDR exactly, but like body shops were popping up and everything. And he's like, look, you're not at the top. You're not at the top.
And I'm like, oh, those are paid ads, dude. Like I'm everywhere else. And he's like, huh? And then I got back into my ads and we have consistently since 2016 been a hundred percent advertising.
And really we started advertising before then, but 2016 and on. Once, once that customer was like, okay, I can't find you. I'm like, I'll turn your ads on.
So I still think you have to have those pages. Uh, maybe not Yelp, but it's still ranks for Google. So like it's free just when they call you, tell them to put you on the do not call list.
Obviously the new frontier is AI, right? AI search. In fact, I see that, um, chat GPT is now offering paid ad results in its search queries. Um, I haven't seen any ads in my chat GPT, but I don't use the free version either.
So maybe they're out there if you use the free version. Um, but like now you need to be dominating, not just your local area, not just your Google business and all your social pages. You need to be creating content that helps to feed into the results that the AI's are picking up.
Right. So research that, uh, there should be a map. There should be a masterclass on that.
Uh, and I haven't seen it yet and I don't know enough about to create it. Um, but I've had some good friends who are pretty smart about it. Keith did a little presentation, uh, for the 20 group on it.
Interesting stuff. Anyways, thanks for listening. So the PBR marketing from 10 years ago, almost exactly to that.
That's kind of wild. That's super wild. Anyways, let's, without further ado, talk about this new tool of the week.
All right. So I was scrolling on the gram last week. It was early last week.
These nights have been awesome. Like we, mine, one of my mine and Melissa's favorite things to do is to just go sit outside by our fire pit. We've got a little, one of those propane fire tables, walk out, turn it on and, uh, just chill out.
All right. Escape the world. It's our little oasis.
So when we're not vacationing, we're vacationing on the back, uh, deck. Uh, and now, right. It's fall transition to the front deck yesterday, the front porch yesterday.
Anyways, totally irrelevant to tool of the week. So anyways, I saw my friend John Kallenbach from A1 Tool talking, standing in front of his desk. That is very similar to the desk that we are podcasting from.
And he was talking about this bad boy, the M12, this way, the M12 palm nailer from Milwaukee. Right. So if you're not sure what a palm nailer is, it has, you can put it in the palm of your hand like so.
And then you can actually put a nail in here. It's got a little magnet and then you just hit the button and push and it goes and puts the nail in. Well, circa maybe 2004, 2005, when the little auto hammer came out, I think craftsmen made that.
I think it was craftsmen, right? It was like a, it wasn't a palm nailer, but it was a little hammer, but same thing, same attachment as this. And there was a dude and I apologize because I can't remember who it was. It wasn't very connected in the industry back then.
I was a noob. Um, students started making some tips for it to get behind panels and, and work it out. I think I bought a knockoff rigid auto hammer version back in the day.
Um, and made some of my own tips cause I had a lathe back in the day. Um, and used it a little bit, but only had hard tips and enough soft tips. It was, it was a little ugly.
Well, like so many things in life, what's old. It's new again. And thanks to the interwebs and the Tik Toks and the grams, uh, people are using auto hammers again.
Well, a one came out with a three piece set of tips for the M12 palm nailer. Right. And they just drop right in, got a magnet.
So it sits there. So we've got this like mushroom head sort of deal, right? Like almost call it like a planishing head. We've got a rubber cap head.
I did not check the threads. So this does thread in. I'm not sure that might be five 16th, 18.
Uh, you know, standard, but anyways, it comes with a soft tip and it also comes with just a tip tip that is five 16th, 18, your standard tip diameter, right? That drops in there. Now this is super loud. So if you're using headphones, um, you got it turned up, turn it down for a second, cause I want to demonstrate this just a hair.
I'm even going to move the mic away a little bit. We'll go with the soft one. So right.
Insert this. Now, when you hit the button, you can hear it. It's running.
I'm going to do this again. And when I start to push the more pressure you apply, the harder it hits. So we're going to fire this up and then you'll see that like I can go light and then the harder you push, the harder it hits or the faster it hits.
All right. That's enough loudness for you. You can turn the volume back up and I can bring my mic back to where it needs to be.
So I think the, I picked up the tool tool only cause I already had a bunch of empty old batteries tool only on home depot, uh, was one 59 with free shipping to my house. I think it was free shipping took like two or three days to get there. And the three piece set of tips, uh, from PDR tool.com right from a one, I believe was 99.
So for 260 bucks, um, right. I think it's pretty good. Uh, I'm excited to use it, excited to try it out, excited to see what kind of feel we can get for it.
Uh, but there's a ton of videos online of people fixing dents, uh, with it. I don't think it's a fixer. However, we can do some pretty big gnarly stuff, even especially some wholesale stuff.
If I can get in and rush some stuff out real quick, I'm stoked for it. Um, Oh yeah. And, and I like tools.
Uh, also have we referenced my $3,000 worth of tools that I was going to carry around? I just, uh, what I said, this was two 60 to 58, almost 10% of my original tool budget is now sitting here in Palmdale or with a couple of tips. So anyways, uh, check those out, uh, again, uh, from a one in home Depot or wherever you buy your Milwaukee tools. Um, but anyways, the tips are definitely from a one and, uh, yeah, go check those out, especially if you're rough and stuff.
And, um, I'm excited to see what we can do on some crown work as well. Maybe holding tension across and out, and then come in and work that with some big soft tips. I'm going to play around with it and see.
Um, I will report back on how well that works, uh, in the future. So that is your new tool of the week, tool of the week section session. All right.
So MTE November, December, January is just about four months away. Uh, I am doing a global talk, uh, even though we had a little scare that it wasn't on the schedule, we get that fixed. And also, uh, myself, Matt Moore, Don Cavanaugh of dent craft and Greg van Winkle of dent masters, uh, of Arkansas are doing the round table.
The round table will be back. I think this is our fourth year doing the round table. Um, very, very exciting.
Um, I love the round table. Uh, I'll get you the details later, but it's at MTE in Orlando. In February, 2027, be there or be square, right? Get after it.
All right, guys. Um, hopefully I gave you something to ponder some stuff to ponder. Give me your thoughts.
Like, is it enough enough or do we want more and more and more? I don't know. You guys are my therapists. So therapy me up those of you with the hail storm.
Thanks for enlightening me. Thanks for making me think a little differently about things. I dig it.
And best of luck to you on however much of your storm you try to capture. Wish you the best and the most profitable storm you can get. And without further ado, and hopefully by the next show, we can get some new lights and jazz this thing up a little bit.
Uh, again, Keith, thanks so much for the sign. Dude, I freaking love it. Um, it's just, it kind of blows out on the camera, so I need to dim it down.
But anyways, next episode. Thank you so much for watching the outro broke again. So let's see if I get it fixed or if you're going to see the tool of the week.
I think here we go. Bye.
