Paintless Mentor Podcast | Paintless Dent Repair Training | Automotive Repair Marketing | Mobile Marketing
101 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsLearning Paintless Dent Repair and getting business was hard. It doesn’t need to be, especially when you discover interesting things from other fields. Things which at first do not appear related at all. This Podcast will make these connections to marketing and selling your service, and yes, to pushing dents.
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Episodes
PM102 - We Got a 1-Star Review and Its Your Fault!
April 25, 2022 21:17 - 25 minutes - 17.4 MBPaintless repair always gets good reviews. Touch up does not. Is there something we are doing to cause problems for our customers? What can you do to protect your business? SHOWNOTES
PM101- Sullivan PDR Estimator owner Jim Sullivan
January 06, 2018 15:20 - 1 hour - 61.9 MBBy the time the storm was over and they fixed all the cars, Jim and his partner lost $25,000. Each. The worst part? It didn't have to happen. Jim even saw it coming. At one point, he suggested the body shop should sign the invoices on all the cars. “Oh no, Dusty always pays.” Only this time, Dusty didn’t pay. Why did Jim Sullivan tell us this story? Because he provides PDR estimating software. The program which could have stopped this huge hail storm loss. ...
PM100: Hire a Robot to Run Your PDR Office?
December 24, 2017 15:01 - 24 minutes - 19.5 MBCustomers are the lifeblood of your paintless business. Would you trust your interactions with them to artificial intelligence? Only if you were certain it would result in a better experience for them. Have we reached the point in tech advancements to allow for this? Yes, we think so. Listen to see how we are implementing a better start to the pdr estimating process using bots and believe it or not, facebook. SHOWNOTES
PM99-Make Your PDR Business Timeless
December 12, 2017 20:11 - 39 minutes - 32.1 MBYour dad liked them. You liked them. Now your kids like them and they are telling all their friends. Something which appeals to three generations or more, this is what we call timeless. Baseball? Yeah, but its really a pastime. We’re talking about things which seem temporary, like popular music. Music is popular for a small window of time, then it falls off a cliff into the realm of yesterday. But not all. Led Zeppelin to wit. Each new group of teenagers “discovers” this group...
PM98 Your Google Listing Might (Really) Be In Danger
December 04, 2017 20:41 - 34 minutes - 27.6 MBRobo calls. Always an interruption when you’re in the middle of a dent repair. Every call starts with a lie, too. “You’re listing is not correct…” or some such nonsense. But there really is a way for a well meaning person, or worse an evil competitor to alter your listing. If you’re not careful, you may not even know about it for a time. Also, year end, we talk tax planning again. Finally, the best way to negotiate with an insurance adjuster, and exactly when and where you...
PM97-What Your PDR Customer Really Wants
November 27, 2017 22:48 - 27 minutes - 22.1 MBYou sell dent repair services. This customer has a dent. Naturally, you start selling your dent repair service. Oops you missed it. Fixing the dent is only one of the things they want (and its the last they want to talk about). Listen to uncover the six things your customer really wants. Then check out the shownotes for the list which will help you sell more, and write unbeatable ads.
PM96- Apps and Office Tech for PDR Companies
November 21, 2017 19:59 - 38 minutes - 31.3 MBIf you’re like every PDR tech who ever pushed a dent, you love new tools. We love seeing the new stuff too, even when its just for using around the office. Over the years, we’ve found some apps or software which makes life easier. Listen to the tools we use in the dent repair office. SHOWNOTES You're going to want to click above, lots of links to these great tools!
PM95- The History of PDR
November 14, 2017 22:40 - 33 minutes - 26.9 MBThey say every idea worth spreading starts on the West Coast of the USA. Not this time. PDR started two different places at the same time. Neither of them have a zip code starting with 9. Listen to how paintless began according to all the mostly true stories we’ve heard through the years. Also, why the changes coming in PDR will totally catch you off guard. SHOWNOTES Links Mentioned: Ep. 21 Should You Design Your Own PDR Tools
PM94-Do You Hate the PDR Industry?
November 06, 2017 12:39 - 24 minutes - 20.2 MBNinety days from starting. All the time needed for you to realize running a PDR business is not as great as you thought it might be. You get more deductions, but also find you pay higher personal taxes. The competition are fools and are ruining the business with unsustainable pricing. The state government is threatening to pass a law which will take away a good part of your business. Somebody's gotta do something about this industry! What is the single most important thing to reme...
PM93-Hail Fraud - How and Why to Educate PDR Customers
October 31, 2017 11:40 - 15 minutes - 12.4 MBImagine coughing up money for a new car only to find it has hail damage on it. The underhanded way the dealer treated this customer would make Bernie Madoff blush. Herein lies the reason for becoming more than just a metal pusher. Consumer education builds trust.Trust builds sales. The stories you hear and experience can become public service announcements. You’ll see how to forearm your clients against dealer fraud and other shenanigans. SHOWNOTES
PM92-Proof: Cheap Prices Scare Customers
October 24, 2017 23:26 - 15 minutes - 12.8 MBWant to make more money in your PDR business? Raise your prices. Easy for you to say, friend. We are first to admit, charging more is scary. At first. When you hear what happened to us in this episode, you’ll see why it gets easier. Listen for a real example of a low price scaring a customer right into our shop. How to get to the most important thing in your customer’s mind Where the money is coming from is important Do your customer’s brag about your pricing? Amazon is al...
PM91-How to Get Local Links to Your PDR Website
October 13, 2017 20:40 - 35 minutes - 28.6 MBThe best thing you can do for your PDR business website is make it google, or search engine friendly. Once your site is fixed up, the next best thing is to build links coming in to it. Google counts these as votes for your content and give you authority in the form of better placement in the listing. Local businesses can be easy to build links to if you know where to start. We found an article from Moz with some great suggestions. Listen as we tailor it to your PDR site. SHOWNOTES Al...
PM90-Influencing PDR Customers - Part II
October 09, 2017 17:05 - 30 minutes - 25 MBYour customers are smart, that’s how they wound up in your shop or on the phone with you. From you they need guidance, but what’s the best way to give it? Come right out and tell them what to do? Might work sometimes. Better if you help them in a way which makes them feel as if it was their own discovery. What follows will be their own decision. For this, you need influence. The ethical means to build the bridge to your business. This is part 2 of our Persuasion episodes. Based o...
PM89- The Case Against PDR Patents
October 02, 2017 15:44 - 31 minutes - 25.1 MBHave an idea for a PDR Light? Great! Please share it with the world. Better yet, build it, sell it and make lots of money. No really you should. But tread carefully, for it appears paintless dent repair tool innovation has sunk to the level of litigation. Could you be sued for your innovative idea? Maybe. At the least, you can expect a cease and desist letter. On one side of the court is James Lee and Elimadent, who holds a patent on mobile pdr lighting. The other corner is fi...
PM88-Train Your Brain Like a Guided Missile
September 22, 2017 16:40 - 25 minutes - 20.8 MB“You charge too much!” Those words ring in your mind for a long time. Even days later, you realize what bothers you most is your reaction. What you replied in the heat of the moment. If you ever wished you could go back and change something, then you know the power of negative prep. The time to work these things out is before they happen. Once the missile is launched, its too late to aim it. Listen as we uncover a technique for mental and emotional targeting as taught by Dr. Ma...
PM87- The Unified Theory of PDR
September 17, 2017 14:06 - 26 minutes - 21.7 MBWhat ya gonna do on this dent? Push it, pull it, knock it down. Look again. How about now? Explore with us a simple approach for paintless dent repair. See why and how the best use it daily and some don’t even know they’re using it. This is how all the methods of dent removal come together for you to make faster, easier repairs. Once you see it, you’ll know why we call it the Unified Theory of PDR. Because I don’t love the word “theory” for its dual meaning, a definition is neede...
PM86- Focus on the Right Problems
September 08, 2017 21:08 - 38 minutes - 31.4 MBFixing a dent without painting is solving lots of tiny problems. Running a paintless shop means solving bigger problems. An unauthorized, unskilled broker comes to town. A competitor stealing “your” account. Someone makes a false statement about PDR on the internet. Must you tackle these head on? Someone needs to do something. The temptation is there, and they do get a lot of our attention, but is this where you want to put your focus? This episode is a reminder to us...
PM85- There's No Business Like PDR?
September 04, 2017 17:48 - 38 minutes - 31.3 MBYour side gig. Your hobbies. Bet you have one or both. When you study these and compare to the paintless dent business, do you notice the similarities in their behaviors? The things which make a group turn on itself are not really unique to PDR. Other niches make this painfully clear: the same attitudes and strange views exist everywhere you look. People are people, right? Flame wars and cyber bullies on a PDR forum, do they only exist in your business? What makes the trolls come out an...
PM84-Fix This Car and Get the Whole Lot
August 28, 2017 02:19 - 44 minutes - 35.8 MBEver price a hail damage car too low or take on one too severe to fix properly? Travis Daniels faced this very thing in his paintless business. “I’ll give you all my dent work if you fix this one car”. Listen to his story and what he learned from it. Also, we talk about some ways to change his website to optimize for his local market. make your customer see you as a hero getting the best domain name for your business SHOWNOTES
PM83- Old PDR shop destroyed after we moved - just clean living?
August 21, 2017 13:23 - 28 minutes - 23.2 MBOn August 6 a tornado damaged many buildings near our paintless dent shop. The shop we left a few weeks before is a quarter mile away. It still stands, but is not safe to be in, much less to do business out of. Some have said, “You must be living right,” or “just good clean living!” Is this how it really works? Did our old neighbors lose their location for some hidden transgression? Maybe we were just lucky, or maybe its something else. Follow us as we examine the beliefs which can cost ...
PM82- 5 Ways Dealer Work Kills Profits - How to Fix Them
August 11, 2017 18:21 - 36 minutes - 29.4 MBUsed car work is the low hanging fruit of any reconditioning business. PDR, detailing, touchup, just a snippet of what gets done to a used car. Get some dealers, build your confidence in dent repair, yes. What are the perils of doing so? Can where you start also be the end of your paintless business growth? Uncover these dangers: the tainted referral confusing selling with negotiating Ironic account holding. What it is, and how to spot it holds your retail pricing low If th...
PM81- How to Raise PDR Prices without Losing Customers
August 05, 2017 18:07 - 32 minutes - 26 MBEverything is going up in price, you know this. You also know prices need to go up for your PDR services. You might also know its the easiest way to increase profits, just charge more. But will you start to lose dent customers? What about the wholesale customers who see your prices be one level every week, then suddenly go up? What is the best strategy for going up in a way they can understand? Also in this episode: can you be sued for the way you fix a dent? How a collision aft...
PM80- How to Deal with a New Broker in Your Town
July 29, 2017 19:35 - 33 minutes - 27.3 MBLots of work, lots of techs to do it. Some enterprising fellow sees a chance to put himself between it all and make some easy money. Broker is a 4 letter word in most PDR circles and sometimes with good reason. But is there a way to stop it, or at least minimize their impact on your market? Tools we use: We picked up a Woyo induction hotbox dent puller. Hear about our misadventures with learning to use it. SHOWNOTES
PM79- Embarrassed to Be a PDR Technician?
July 21, 2017 23:51 - 27 minutes - 22.3 MB'Why didn’t you become a doctor or lawyer?' 'You should marry a doctor or lawyer.' A cliche for sure, but are we secretly embarrassed to call ourselves technicians? Some are. Once had this conversation with a young man in the hail business earning 6 figures: “Are you proud of what you’ve accomplished?” "I am, but most of my friends went to college, and though I make more, they still look down on me." Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of the band Weezer went back to college (twic...
PM78-Ron Kronon - How to Get and Keep Wholesale PDR
July 15, 2017 19:11 - 1 hour - 58.3 MB“Have you guys ever burned out pushing dents?” "No, I haven’t” This was my answer to Ron Kronon in this episode’s interview. But I was not completely honest. Burn out just might be why I stopped the paintless dealer work in 2003. What I felt then was the hopeless futility of doing dealer work. They tried to hire one of my employees to compete with me. They set the prices. They dictated my earnings. The only way to win the game was not to play. If you do dealer work and thi...
PM77- Tools and Strategies for Social Media
July 07, 2017 10:36 - 31 minutes - 25.4 MBSocial Media can make your paintless business grow. But its a lot of work. To get traction, you have to post a minimum of once a day. Not only can this be a lot of work, its a huge distraction which can take you away from making money pushing dents. Is there a way to control the timesuck? More and more sites are allowing you to schedule out your posts. Sit down once a week and set up your posting in advance and you’re done. Sort of. Once you make a post, its a flash in someone’s t...
PM76- Should You Hire Employees for Your PDR Business?
June 30, 2017 13:07 - 43 minutes - 36.9 MBAs you apply good marketing strategies to your business, you will feel growth pains. You might consider adding a tech or two to the paintless team. Be warned: hiring is fraught with danger in any business. Paintless dent repair companies have issues totally unique in managing new hires. What are the dangers and how can you protect your company? What is the best type person to hire, and how would you even know if they are a fit? How will you pay them? Fixed wage vs. commission? ...
PM75-How to Avoid Overwhelm in PDR
June 24, 2017 00:42 - 48 minutes - 40.8 MBI have this strange fear of cave diving. Those scuba tank and flipper wearing adventurers have my admiration. Still, just thinking about them doing it can send me into a sitting panic. Irrational? Yes, I know its true. But the feeling is overwhelming. Therein lies the topic of today's podcast. Avoiding overwhelm is an inside job, meaning our conscious thought. Can you train your way out of overwhelm? We think so and I’ll bet the scuba cave diving school could teach me a thing or two...
PM74-Are You Leaving Hail Money on the Table?
June 16, 2017 11:40 - 43 minutes - 36.4 MBWhat really happens when you bid a hail job for a body shop and say, “I’ll do it for X”? Is it possible to sell your future on just one job? A hail season’s worth? I once felt that, hey, I’m just one guy. How I price doesn’t matter, right? Except it does. You and I and every PDR tech good enough to work for body shops are now part of a big machine. Like it or not we drive the paintless division of the collision industry. Think about it. For years it was body, frame, paint and mechani...
PM73- The Value of One Customer
June 09, 2017 13:40 - 34 minutes - 27.9 MBPlease a customer and they will tell 10 others. Its a tired old axiom, but it only scratches the surface of what’s really going on in your paintless business. Is it possible that one client could become a “super” customer? This is the person who loves you and your PDR service so much, they tell everyone about you. They repeat the story over and over to any who will listen. They will not forget you. How do you recognize this kind of client? What should you do when you find one? W...
PM72- Moving Day
June 02, 2017 21:13 - 16 minutes - 13.2 MBAll the excitement of getting a new shop or house is too often snuffed out by the labor of packing and moving. We've been throwing stuff in corners and cubbies, never to touch it again for years. Now its all in our face. Take the nostalgia walk with us and discover why some of our current setup won’t be going with us. Also in this episode: Elimadent Glue gun review Shocking, but even your best customer is going to other shops, here’s what you need to do now Is it really possible to have...
PM71-Be and Act Like the PDR Expert You Are
May 26, 2017 17:35 - 26 minutes - 21.6 MBHail Season puts a paintless tech and business owner in a unique position. You are viewed as the authority on price, fixability, repair options, etc. But some PDR business owners are shy and reserved about stepping into the expert role. We cover 2 key areas where your expertise is needed: Insurance supplements Getting paid You’ll also hear how we finally solved a problem with our bank and accepting two party checks. How the changes in banking are affecting service How to be...
PM70-Should You Sell Your PDR Business?
May 19, 2017 11:25 - 35 minutes - 28.4 MBEver wonder what your PDR business might be worth? Would you sell it? Never kill the goose that lays golden eggs, they say. What are some factors to consider? Who will buy it? Will they run it well? Do they have more resources than you? Time? How long will you stay on during transiition? SHOWNOTES Also in this episode: Tool review - Druztools pimp stick Prior hail damage - update Facebook slander - how we handled it
PM69- Is It Time for a Bigger Shop?
May 13, 2017 10:46 - 43 minutes - 34.6 MBOverhead. The largest expense you have. Some techs say, I don’t want to be tied to a shop. Some would never be without one. Others think its too expensive and opt for a $700 truck payment instead. Here is our take on expansion and what’s coming up in our PDR business. Should I even have a shop at all? How you know when its time to expand Your customers perception - we discovered ours in the strangest way The shops we’ve had through the years and why SHOWNOTES
PM68-Make Your PDR Website Even Better
May 05, 2017 19:10 - 40 minutes - 32.9 MBI really like the picture on our paintless repair website. But what does it say to customers? Does it convey the message which will get them to call and give us money? How would you even know? This episode tells you exactly how to know which picture, headline or element is the best for maximizing your web results. We’ll show you some ways to do it free and tell you the things we are testing very soon. Where to split test for free How to set it up Why its important Tips on ima...
PM67-How Your PDR Customers Think About Price
April 28, 2017 16:31 - 29 minutes - 23.8 MB“How much for a small dent?” You hear this many times a day if you do retail. Of course, you have to get to the bottom of the real deal. We show you how in this episode. But should you give a price or range by phone? I know we don’t want to and we discuss why, and how a recent observation is causing us to change our ways. What to put in a texted or emailed price for protection Why your customer wants a price in the first place Your customer thinks one way, but here’s why you ...
PM66 - Rules Over Customers?
April 21, 2017 22:52 - 42 minutes - 34.2 MBCould the rules you impose in your business be anti customer? You might be surprised to learn that company rules led to the death of over 100 people in Japan. We share our own nightmare customer story, and tell you how to avoid your own. Why we turned our Paintless business website upside down How a confused lady turned into a raving fan customer Your website needs to do one thing, here’s how many miss it Security certificate on your site: what to watch out for How to use ...
PM65 - Easy Scripting Your Paintless Videos
April 13, 2017 19:08 - 31 minutes - 24.9 MBMaking videos is exciting. Its fun, its new, woo hoo! Until it comes time to edit. Voiceover? Narration? You need to tell a story, get your message across, get them to call you. What should you say? The same things you say when a customer is in front of you might be good. Maybe you should record what you say, and make a script from that. Wistia, a video hosting company has put together a useful tickler file you can use to narrow down your thoughts about what you do. It has all the stu...
PM64 - Keep Customers Inside the Park at All Times
April 06, 2017 19:52 - 1 hour - 50.3 MBIn a theme park like Disneyworld, you get an immersive experience. Every where you look, fantasy. Oh, and something to buy too. Fun. Disney and Las Vegas are the two places where all your money gets taken, yet you typically leave with a smile. Your website is, or should be like a theme park. Once a visitor comes in, you want to keep them there. At least up till the time they pick up the phone and call you. We talk with Justin Huffman of Three Rivers Dent in Pittsburgh, PA, USA about...
PM63 - 1% Better is All You Need to Win
March 31, 2017 03:35 - 36 minutes - 29.2 MBEver feel like a small fish in a big pond? How can you get ahead of your competition? Good news, you only have to be a tiny bit better to win. Do better at these 5 key areas of your business by just 1% and you come out on top. These tiny, incremental improvements will give you an accumulated advantage over all your competitors. In a short time, you could easily wind up with 80% of all the retail paintless dent repair [link] in your area. By the time your market figures it out, your busi...
PM62 - Why You Hate Your PDR Business (sometimes)
March 23, 2017 18:23 - 30 minutes - 24.8 MBThe grass looks greener, yes, but sometimes your side looks pretty good too. What is behind this bipolar, love and hate thing we have going with our own business? If you look close enough, there are some really amazing things going for you. Raving fans, a great location, props from people you might not even know about. Yet, even when forced to acknowledge these fortunes, we turn around and forget as soon as the next struggle happens. Listen to discover why it happens, and even how to ove...
PM61 - Using Video for Your PDR Business
March 17, 2017 00:31 - 1 hour - 51.9 MBAdding video to your paintless marketing plan is no longer optional. It is the best way to optimize the results from your website and social media. But what kind of videos are needed? Is their a best method for posting videos to get the best ranking results? Steven Dumala from the facebook group "PDR Video Marketing" joins us and explains: The "Push, Pull, Pop" method for video creation ideas 3 areas of a video which you want to pay special attention to. The proper way to post and e...
PM60- Is Your Dent Business in Danger of Being Disrupted?
March 10, 2017 19:47 - 25 minutes - 20.4 MBTechnology is changing businesses all over the world. Think about taxi services. Uber and Lyft come along and grab a whole bunch of their business. How? Better service through technology. Biggest gripe of a taxi customer? Never know if they are going to show up when they said they would. Could your dent business by affected by technology like this? Listen as we talk about some potential disruptors and what to do about them. How you can be the disruptive factor in your market with pricing ...
PM59- Why You (Might) Want to Get PDR Certified
March 02, 2017 17:11 - 39 minutes - 31.9 MBDo you need to get certified or is it all propaganda? No matter which camp you are in, you are being influenced. You might even turn around and influence others to join your camp. Why would you do this? The only way to make a good decision about certification is to understand the motivations behind it. Tech frustration. Its the big reason. Are you ruled by it? Certified or not, what's the most important thing you must say to the mirror and the world? What's our position on certifica...
PM58-The Flow of Paintless Dent Repair
February 24, 2017 20:15 - 20 minutes - 16.5 MBIs there really a state of mind where you become 5x more efficient, focused and productive? Its called the "Flow State" and you've seen it in sports many times. But it is not just a tool for athletes. It works in anything you do. How to get yourself in the flow state on purpose The surprising way to get yourself in flow on purpose Just how much risk is needed to get yourself into "flow" Callout to thought leaders in PDR: Be honest about drilling, please SHOWNOTES Links mentioned i...
PM57 - Tension? Auto panels have it. Use it to fix dents easier.
February 17, 2017 13:39 - 35 minutes - 29 MBSheets of paper, sheets of metal. Two very different things. Or so you would think. Make a few folds in paper and you've got a paper airplane. Folds in metal? Turns it into a door, a hood, ultimately, a car. Every fold, crease and curve in sheet metal allows a car to hold its shape. Understand this and your dent repair will get better by leaps and bounds. You'll even have more fun pushing as you learn to make things work in your favor. Why does one dent behave different from another? ...
PM56- It's Not About You - Put This First in All Your PDR Marketing
February 10, 2017 02:15 - 28 minutes - 23.3 MB25 years in business, best in your town, certified, bonafide, yada yada. Who cares? Not your customer! One word will make your customers pay attention to you, bring their car in and yes, give you money. This one word could get you 66% more views on Youtube. Ready? You need to hear this. Tom's Shoes gives a pair away with every purchase. This social business model is helping drive very large sales. Can it be adopted for a service business like paintless dent repair? SHOWNOTES
PM55 - Balance Your Brain with Dent Repair
February 02, 2017 09:50 - 34 minutes - 27.9 MBFixing dents without painting is addictive. Good, clean, fun. At least we think so. But, what if you're just starting out and pushing dents is the last thing you want to do? How can you know where you are in the road to the ultimate brain balance? Learn the 4 levels of competence, and some exercises you can do to start the process off right. SHOWNOTES Links mentioned in this episode: Brain Gyms Stroke of insight Ted Talk
PM54 - PDR Website Ranking part 2 - Why Is My Site Not Showing?
January 27, 2017 01:25 - 44 minutes - 35.8 MBFollow up to last weeks question. PDR business owner Justin Huffman asked us to dig deeper into his site rankings. What we found surprised us. His site shows to rank for his town's keyword, but the site does not actually appear in the listing. Was it changing the content management system from wordpress to Wix? Perhaps some sketchy links purchased on Fiverr? Also in this episode: What reasons does Google have for leaving a site off the index? Sharing links within the industry, what's ...
PM53-Put Your PDR Website at the Top of Google
January 19, 2017 20:47 - 47 minutes - 38.7 MBYour name in lights. 15 minutes of fame. First page of google. Three things you might want. First two? Not likely. The third we can help you with. SEO, or search engine optimization. Big words simply saying your Paintless dent business on page 1 for your search term. e.g. (your town)+dent repair. Interesting subject? Not unless you understand the power of getting, having and yes keeping a front page listing. We're talking about natural listings, the kind which give you credibility and a ...