SOP's Aren't So Standard | Greg Stefan with Refinish Performance Advocates |

For today's episode, we have another returning guest, Greg Stefan from Refinish Performance Advocates, a consulting company that is looking to improve and streamline processes in the collision industry.  Greg is also the Chief Executive Officer of Fleet Hail Restoration, which is an automotive hail repair company specializing in customized repair plans eliminating down time for the client's service vehicles.

We had him way back 2021 where we talked about PDR repair and how it can benefit the typical auto body shop greatly. Improving their efficiency, costs, and time to repair.

Today, let's hear more of his story, experiences and thoughts from industry!

Greg's first full episode link:
EPISODE 4:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1895628/9698262

Website: https://refinishperformanceadvocates.com


If you are interested in learning more about ClarityCoat, you can visit us here-

Website: claritycoat.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/claritycoatofficial
Instagram: instagram.com/claritycoat_official

Transcript

 This is the Autobody podcast presented by Clarity Coat. We'll get stories and talk to people from all over the industry, painters, body guys, manufacturers, and anybody in between. Let's do it. Welcome to the Autobody Podcast, auto Body Podcast presented by clarity. Now here's your host, Adam Huber. Hey everyone. 

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a returning guest. We have Greg from Refinished Performance Advocates on if you want to learn more about Greg and his past history, his life story, the man that, the man, the myth, the legend that he is today. Uh, go back to the previous podcast episode. I have no idea what the number is, so just scroll through till you see. 

You'll find him. But we have Greg on today because he has a pretty interesting, um, development that he's had in his, uh, in his career and we wanted to have him on talk about it as well as a pretty interesting development that we have with Clarity Coat. So, but stay tuned for that later on in the episode. 

So, Greg, how you doing today? I'm great. How are you? I'm great. Now that we did the intro three times, 

So where, where are you located at right now in the, in the nation? Um, right now we are in Georgetown, South Carolina, about, uh, 35 miles south of Myrtle Beach. It's not a bad place to stay for the winter. No, it's actually pretty nice, cool little historic town. And, uh, you know, we're right on the water campground we're at is on the water, so that's cool. 

Out in the woods a little bit, but two miles from town. So pretty nice balance. And I think you covered this in the last episode, but you.  have an RV that you kind of travel around and do, um, uh, wherever there's a bunch of hail damage, you go there, do the repairs and everything like that, right? So, yes sir. 

You're just hanging out in an RV park right now, huh? Yeah, yeah, it's the off season. So, um, my wife is a cardiac cath lab nurse, so in order to keep her license, um, current, she's gotta do at least one contract a year. So she picked this area because it's kind of a small hospital and, uh, easy, slow going, nothing too crazy. 

So she's, uh, at work during the days and I'm working. The next season's stuff. , you're working on your Netflix, uh, binge watching episodes, ? Uh, some, some, some days I do break bad. Um, lately I've really been trying to work on personal development, so sticking to a good morning routine. Yeah. Um, meal prepping. 

Eating right. Exercising. Um,  and then learning. I'm, I'm trying to spend at least four hours a day on podcasts reading. I'm trying to read as many books as possible while I have the chance. Just nice stuff like that sharpen up for next year to be better myself. That's always a good idea. Uh, yeah. What book are, what book are you in right now? 

Uh, Simon Sinek. What does it start with? Why it's the first. It's a great book with this series. Start with why. Yep. It's a great book. I, uh, not that, I mean, if you want to join it, great. But I'm sure you'll probably outpace everyone. A lot of us in the group. But I actually started a, a business book club, I think. 

Oh, did you Club, I saw you posted on Facebook about it and wondered. Yeah, it was, it, it was a really, uh, it came around kind of nonchalantly, but I think it was something to, to do with the fact that, um, I saw a whole bunch of people posting about, you know, new Year, new me, blah, blah, blah, new Year resolutions and stuff, right? 

and I was talking with a friend of mine who's also a business owner, and they were like, you know, I'd, I'd really love to just.  business books with people and just like, get feedback from 'em and, you know, uh, shared mindset type of thing, right? Mm-hmm. . And I was like, oh, you know what? I wonder if we could just, I wonder if there's a business book club out there, like a book club just for business owners or self-improvement, whatever. 

And I do a Facebook group search and see this is what I, this is what I fucking hate about Facebook. Did a search, found zero groups out there for business book clubs. Really? I was like, Really, I'm the first guy that's thought of this, which is, by the way, never happens , right? So I was like, well, shit, I'll start up a Facebook group then. 

And so I invited a bunch of people and had a bunch of people in the, or got some people in the group. I think we're up to like 30 or 40 members, something like that. Oh yeah. Right now, yes. And anyways, concept is very simple. We do a poll at the beginning of every month. We pick a book that everyone wants to. 

You have the month to read it, which again, if you have a couple of hours a day to dedicate to it, you're gonna rip through a book in no time. Right. ? Yeah. Um, especially, uh, I know we're kind of go, kind of going on a tangent, but whatever you guys signed up for it because you're listening to the listen to the podcast episode. 

Um, and the thing that I've kind of realized about reading business books is that every chapter has a.  and really the, the bits that you actually need to contract, uh, concentrate on are kind of the beginning where they're trying to lay the foundation for the point that they're about to make. And then like the very end, so you can, I don't, I don't advocate skipping, but what you can do is it's, it creates a really good environment for speed reading, so mm-hmm. 

you kind of read the ver couple first paragraphs of that, and then you can literally just skim through because all they're doing is just building a story to make their. , right? And then so you can speed read through that part, and then you can get to the end and they're, and then they get to their point and it's like, oh, okay. 

Yeah, I see what you were trying to go for there. So if you get used to the cadence and rhythm of a business book, you can read through a business book in like no time whatsoever. But anyways, so we pick a book every single month, and then mm-hmm. , um, the first week of the following month, we then do a Zoom call. 

Everyone comes in, we can talk about different points in the book, what we learned and everything like that. Cool. . But that being said, it's really amazing to me that even in this environment, that you have people that have that lack discipline and lack, um, wanting to self-improve, which is kind of funny because the whole group is about self-improvement, right? 

Mm-hmm. , the very first meeting that we had, uh, the book that we read was a, or yeah. The book that we read was Atomic Habits, um, and one person showed up for the video. . You know, I spent a lot of money to join a mastermind and hire a coach last year specifically for this, and this was big ticket. And we started out the year with probably about 30 of us. 

and by the end of the year, the group chat was completely silent and I couldn't believe it. I mean, it really surprised me, but that's what led me to, uh, to kind of decide that I would dedicate a portion of the time I would be at work in season, in the off season to learning. Because having that coach and, you know, high performing people around me,  really helped me get to the next level. 

And then reflecting on it, it showed me where I could have been better and where my business could have done better, more or less, if I would've been better myself. So that's what I de dedicated this off season to and will continue to going forward as just being the best I can be. Therefore, my businesses can be the best they can be. 

Yeah. And honestly, I think that's a really great way to go about it. Um, you know, detailing follows the same cadence, right? Mm-hmm. , well in the Midwest anyways. Um, so come spring, fall, it's peak season. You're not gonna get anything else done other than answering calls, messages, booking people in, detailing cars. 

And then kind of around July, August, it, it, you kind of go into a little bit of a slump, and then come September through November. As much work as you can possibly do until the snow flies and then it just falls on its face and then you're not doing anything. However, you could be a piece of garbage and not do anything for the next three or four months. 

Or you could spend that three or four months and work on your website, work on social media, posting, work on videos, self-improvement, you know, any of those kinds of things. So there's not, there is an off season, but an off season doesn't have to necessarily mean that you're not doing anything. It can just mean that you're just, um, doing different things, which, uh, so I live in the Midwest, so obviously we like to use farm 

analogies here, but you know, you reap what you sow. If you, yeah, if you start planting shit in the wintertime, um, then, and you start improving yourself in the wintertime, then come spring, fall, you're so much better off because you've just built up on that for sure. And I think it'll compound, you know, over the years as well. 

Yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about kind of what's going on right now. You got some big. Yeah, so I think we talked about last time on here, um, re refinish Performance Advocates, which I developed as a consultancy of packages, um, to bring re refin departments or conventional repairs to PDR shops. . So going into the season, I had a bunch of people calling me, asking me if I was gonna set up, and I never had intended on me being the one that was setting up the shop. 

Mm-hmm. , we were going to age shop owners or operators in setting up their own thing. And so many people kind of pushed me towards it. I started entertaining the. So we were in Florida, um, visiting our families, hanging out at my parents. They put in, uh, RV hookups for us out on the farm. So just hanging out and, uh, a massive storm hit Seabring, which is, I mean, I was in Florida for 28 years and. 

I don't think I ever saw a hailstone, and this was like full on Texas style, big hail. So nice. I drive down there and look at it and within like two days every corner's got a hail guy set up. I mean, it was like a feeding frenzy. So couple people are like, Hey, set up. Set up a shop. Set up a shop. So I started going around and just talking to all these owners and handing out cards and stuff, and every single one is like, man, if you set up, we'll bring you cards. 

If you set up, we'll bring you cars. So I'm like, well, I mean, I'm here. So I ended up finding a shop space and uh, setting up and we, we did pretty well. I mean, uh, especially for going from basically a, a concept, an idea, um, to wide open in four months. Um, , I would say it was a success. Um, I bought a lot of equipment. 

I kind of ended up breaking even after all of it because I spent top dollar on everything. Just being a snap on guy probably wasn't the smartest decision. But, you know, I spent a lot of money on equipment and kind of broke even and was like, do I want to do this again? Is this, is this where I want to spend my time? 

Is this how I see myself in five years? You know, as a business owner? And for the most part, the answer was like, not really. So I had brought in, uh, one of my best friends who, uh, actually we had our first jobs ever together when we were 16, loading hay and feed at the local feed store. Um, he came and worked with me as a helper, became a painter, stayed in the industry, is a fantastic technician now. 

Um, he actually came and worked with me down there. So we started entertaining the idea. Of going forward and me training him on the business end of everything so that I wouldn't have to be so hands on because it's just kind of not where I see myself, but it has potential. So, got him trained up. Good to go. 

We decide, all right, next year, um, we're gonna partner with one of these companies. And instead of us doing our own separate operation, we're gonna be in-house with them. So we'll take care of all their vehicles and then be able to pull in, you know, the surrounding people as well. In the meantime, the owner of that company offers me a job as a GM for one of his operations, so I agree to that. 

I really enjoy working with him and his people. Um, I agree to that. We have everything set. We're planned, we're good to go for next year. Then I get a call. A company that was actually my biggest client down there and they say, Hey, we want to do this again next year on a much bigger scale. Um, are you interested? 

And at first I was like, well, I've designed this package that would be perfect for you guys. Right? I have everything laid out, you know, a couple weeks of training with your staff and we have you boom, set up to do your own thing. And they're like, yeah, we don't wanna. We don't want anything to do with this 

We just wanna know that our cars can get painted. So I go back and forth with them for a couple weeks and, uh, really get to know the, the owners and the leaders of the company and, um, like working with them. And we, we came to an agreement to expand next year. So as of right now, we're planning on doing two add. 

uh, conventional setups and it's kind of contingent on, you know, how many can we do, what's the season gonna be like? Uh, they're really big into wholesale, so, you know, expanding into wholesale. They're overseas. We're talking about expanding overseas, just kind of seeing how it goes and what we can put together. 

So I would say from the last time we talked, my path definitely took the det. . Hmm. It changed. It changed, but, uh, for the good. So it's exciting. So can you, for people who might not know exactly, um, what you did do or mm-hmm. , what this kind of looks like, can you just kind of give a brief overview? Because again, you know, in the last podcast we definitely went in depth into what you do, but just kind of give a brief overview of what this looks like for everyone. 

So basically the easiest way to put it is where a pop-up body. To assist the hail repair center. So 99% of these hail repair guys, you know, they travel around from storm to storm and either pop up a tent or rent, you know, shop space. Um, they do PDR and they don't have an outlet for paint and conventional repair, you know, light body work. 

Um, so we kind of bridge that. . Gotcha. Yeah. And you already put it perfectly, which is kind of bridging the gap between pdr hail repair and mm-hmm.  body work. Right. Like more intensive body work. Right. Uh, which we kind of went over in depth in the last episode. Mm-hmm. . And it's really interesting because I, I, I'm pretty sure I said this in the last episode, but. 

there's a lot of body guys out there that hate pdr. Like they're just vehemently against it. Right. And I'm, yeah, I just don't really get it. Like, I, I don't, it's like, oh, I don't, I don't like making repairs faster. Or, and that's it. I think it's a mindset and we talked on the last pod in depth about my idea of hybrid repairs and how I think that is the future for the collision industry. 

So that was another thing we really got to do hands on, not with collision jobs. We did actually do a couple collision jobs while we were there. Um, but the glue pulling, uh, pushing to paint, stuff like that we were to, to able to do this stuff ourselves and, you know, do some kind of timing and, uh, tracking of the repairs to see how much better it really is, and then what the learning curve is. 

Because, you know, Brendan, who's my right hand man, him and I have never done pdr. So we ordered some PDR tools and we're like, well, we can fix this convent. And, you know, grind it down to metal stud, pull it all this, or we can try to glue pull it, you know, or, uh, he made, he actually made some push rods, you know, trying to push stuff. 

Some, some blending. He, he actually, by the end of the season, 100% self-taught was finishing some dents, completely done PDR style. And, uh, yeah, the, the amount of productivity he was able to, to put out in or accomplish in a, a.  period of time was amazing. I mean, if we just would've been doing old school style Bondo and metalwork, um, I don't think we would've accomplished the volume we were able to accomplish down there. 

So it was really good for, for a, you know, kind of a proof of concept as well. Yeah. What were, I'm guessing, in order for you to get to the point where, you know, you're working with this, um, company to kind of build out this program, you're building out SOPs, you're building. , um, that kind of stuff. What's that like? 

What has that been like for you? Because I'm assuming this is the first time you've probably ever really done it. Um, building out SOPs, building out tool lists and stuff like that. So, no, actually, um,  it would be, well, when I was in Florida working as a painter, um, the people that I kind of followed around and worked most of my career with, they were serial entrepreneurs in the sense of body shops that they would build them and sell 'em. 

So I got to witness and be, you know, a part of opening and all the way to acquisitions, um, with body shops. So I already had. A sense of the actual tooling and, and side like that. And then for the SOP stuff, um, that's stuff I've been studying for years and I have written that for, um, my fleet hail repair company. 

Um, I have that one so ped and, and planned to like an eight figure mark.  or I just have to go in and tweak little things as we grow. Um, and honestly, like that's the exciting stuff for me anymore. You know, years of being a technician burned me out on the industry. So I get excited about the SOPs and optimizing process and, um, you know, just finding ways to be better 

Yeah. I, I, I visited, uh, two shops this last week. Mm-hmm. , and these are high level body. Mm-hmm. , one of 'em is very aesthetically pleasing. Uh mm-hmm. , like very clean. And then the other one is kind of what, probably what you would figure as a normal body shop. You know, just, not that it was dirty and everything like that, but one was just more aesthetically pleasing. 

I don't know how else to put it, but I don't mean that in a negative way. Right. Prettier . It was prettier. And what was crazy? The thing that both of them had in.  was, there was a, there was a standard operating procedure to everything. Even if it wasn't necessarily written out like it, there wasn't parts thrown everywhere. 

There wasn't, um, every single department had a way that they did their job and there was a definite time that they handed off that job to the next department. And then that department did their job. And what was really interesting to see was. , the less aesthetically pleasing one man, those boys cranked out some work like. 

Yeah. Uh, Justin, my business partner is basically just at this point, notorious as being a poor time management person. He's just the most awful time management person I've ever met in my life. Um, so normally when we do trainings, we never, ever. Um, this is for clarity Coat for you guys who are, are not being able to follow along. 

Uh, we, we do not insist on doing, uh, a full car, right? Mm-hmm. , because trying to get a full car done in three to four days while doing training and video and everything like that, it's just too much. You just, you can do it, but it, it just gets to be super stressful, right? . The, first of all, they picked a perfect car to do this on. 

It was a Subaru, uh, g I forget what they're called, but it What, sorry. No, it was a cion, but it was the Subaru b r z, but the Cion version. Mm-hmm. . Right. So like this guy, um, I forget what the, I forget what the r and i guy's name is now. He had this whole car part.  a couple of hours, like bumpers off, headlights out, bump, uh, ready to go, and uh, and doors off in like a couple of hours. 

And then probably everything, some eggs, . Yeah. And then we had this, uh, guy, uh, the head painter, his name is Carlos. Mm-hmm. . And he, so he had a masking guy, um, who was underneath him. I'm like an apprentice or whatever. And then Carlos was the painter and him, and this. Had this car taped, masked ready to go and parts in the booth by like one o'clock on the first day. 

It was insane. It, it was just such a well-oiled machine, even though it kind of looked like a, a crazy misma of things just going everywhere. These guys were just dialed in, just, Nope, we're doing this next boom. And then they didn't stand around and wait at all. Like they just went for it. So much so to the fact. 

to the effect that we got there on Thursday by Saturday, car was painted, it was put together, it was ready to go. All except for, uh, the quarter glass was the only thing that we were waiting on that wa that had more to do with, uh, their glass guy just didn't show up when he said he was gonna show up. Um, so, you know, it's interesting because a lot of times you talk to business owners and they kind of roll their eyes about standard operating procedure. 

and I've never really understood that. I don't understand. You're literally saying no to being faster and more efficient and making money. Yeah. I think the reason why people say no to stuff like that is because it's kind of like a, it's kind of like when you ask someone to do a budget, they're like, oh, it's gonna be so restrictive and I'm, I'm not gonna be able to have fun with it. 

No, actually, if you have a standard operating procedure because you're doing something so fast and. , you're able to actually have more time for, I don't know, fun shit. Like it's absolutely a budget, right? So let's take a budget. , I don't know. Here's a crazy idea. Have a line item in there for fuck around money, or let's have fun money, right? 

crazy idea. Just throwing it out there, right? Like, it's just about, um, it's about streamlining a process that's really, that's all you really need to do on it. And. It's just interesting on that viewpoint is, is that something you've run into as well? Oh, for sure. And I'm Ooc D about it. So when I was working for other people, it drove me absolutely nuts. 

Um, I mean, I, uh, my blog is, is called Counting Steps and , somebody I used to work for, uh, I can remember they set a new shop up and the paint booth was. , I don't remember the step count, but it was something like 12 or 15,000 steps away from the mixing. Oh. So I lost so much time between mix and paint and spraying paint that I ended up writing this email to him. 

I was like 23 or 24 and uh, I didn't get that at the time. Oh, sorry, my watch is going off. Damn Siri. At the time, I think they told me something like, we'll walk faster or something like that. . But yeah, it drives me crazy. Uh, we might have even talked about on the last podcast, um, my last couple years as a technician, I got so O O C D that I would time everything and w it, so I'd try like, like buffing for instance. 

Um, I'd cut up to 2000 and then buff with wool and time it out. And then I'd cut up to like 5,000 and buff with foam and time it out and, you know, fair club, uh, if I'm saying that right, compound and 3M compound. And I had a notebook of like, All of these different steps and the time difference between each step and then at the end so that I could dial in my process, um, to be, you know, the best painter I could be. 

Cause I always looked at that as being, you know, an independent, like I was the business in myself. So if I wasted time, Walking around or just doing a bad process. Um, you know, it's costing me money as a flat rate technician. So yes, that, that definitely, I think where that comes from. Um, in my early twenties, I read the four hour work week and I've read it four times since about to read it for the fifth time sitting over here, I just ordered it again. 

Um, and that's kind of, you know, all about efficiency and having a system for doing everything.  and my wife would probably tell you it's annoying because it's, it's become so ingrained into me that even like getting ready to go mountain bike, um, you know, like getting our shoes, getting our gloves, getting our glasses, helmets, all this stuff, like I have a process specifically for it. 

is, uh, in my mind, the fastest way. And if something gets outta whack, I'm, I'm messed up for a little bit. . Hey guys. Adam from the podcast. I hope you are enjoying today's episode. Just wanted to ask you a quick favor. If the show has brought you value in some way, would you mind giving us a review and sharing the show? 

It really helps the show get out there. Also, if you are looking to expand the services that your shop offers and you want to do more than collision work, you should really check out our company Clarity. Clarity Coat is a peelable paint that allows body shops to offer color changes cheaper than a repaint, while still looking like real paint. 

You can also offer clear protection that has no edges and is sprayed instead of laid. Unlike vinyl and ppf, clarity coat can be sanded and polished so you can give your customer the exact look that they are wanting. If you are looking to expand your shop services, go to clarity Coat.com and fill out our, become an installer form. 

All right, let's get back to the show. Dude, I, I relate to that so much and funnily enough, I've never read the four hour work week. Yeah, you got to, but my brain operates in the same way. When something is inefficient or probably the thing that, the answer that drives me the most nuts is this. When, when I'm talking with someone, I'm like, oh, okay. 

what's the next step? And they go, ah, well, you know, we just kind of play by ear. No, that's a terrible answer. We're here to make money. Like, what are we talking about? What do you, what do you mean you're gonna play it by ear? Because you know what happens when you play something by ear, you forget about it. 

Something slips through the cracks or whatever. Don't play something by ear if you are doing something repetitive. , guess what? You can create a process for it and then all you, and it doesn't mean that you have to stick to that process. It just simply means, hey, these are the steps that we're at currently. 

And then in a couple of weeks or a month, we just review it and say, Hey, could we cut this out? Or Could we automate this part or whatever like this is so. To me, this is so simple, so basic that I just don't understand why you would be like, eh, you know, we'll figure it out when we get there. Eh, there's a time and place for that. 

Definitely. And I've found it was harder for me, um, as a business owner to do that on administrative stuff, which honestly, I don't have much business doing accounting or, uh, marketing, you know, um, at one point a decade. Um, I was doing marketing consulting for the action sports industry, and at the time I was good at it and I figured now things have changed and I started doing my own marketing and stuff, and then it was like, Man, this is draining me. 

This is draining my energy so much. And I know there's somebody that can do it 10 times better than me. So why? Why am I doing it? My, and this is where having a coach really came to help me a lot. For somebody to be able to be like, what are you doing? You're wasting, you just spent four hours on Photoshop trying to make a logo that you could have paid somebody $30 stew. 

Come on. Stupid. Like . Yeah. And I will, , I know I'm being kind of egotistical or whatever, but that is a, that is something that I'm hyper aware of on my, on for myself. Mm-hmm.  is, listen, if, if I'm, if I don't think that. If this is a low cost activity, meaning I can outsource it to someone else for a relatively low cost, but it's a high energy output on my part, meaning I have to dev, I have to devote a bunch of energy to it, F that get it away from me as fast as possible. 

Now, I'll spend a lot of energy on finding the right person to do that activity. Yes, yes. Right? Mm-hmm. . But because once it's off my plate and I just have to actually, this podcast is a great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell everyone out there how this whole podcast operates in the background. Okay. . The part that I enjoy about the podcast the most, and the part that I have the most action in is this part right here, you and I talking, Greg, after that, and before that, it's pretty much hands off. 

I have Sarah, who's an amazing assistant. Mm-hmm. , she goes on LinkedIn, finds people to have on the podcast. Messages, 'em says, Hey, we think that you would be a great person to have on the podcast. And then when they reply back, yes, no, whatever, uh, she sets up the appropriate time. She looks at my calendar, sees when a good time is, blah, blah, blah. 

Right. And you've dealt with Sarah plenty of times. She's incredibly professional. Great. At her job, she's. . And then literally I just all of a sudden wake up one morning, I'm like, oh, look at that. I have a podcast today. Boom. Yeah. , hop on. Put my smile on my, my, my attitude, my charisma, you know, whatever. Right. 

The sauce that makes the podcast , right? . And then we record it. And then as we're going through this recording, I don't, people probably have heard it a couple of times, but I just hit M on my computer. A couple of times, right? That marks a point that I think we're talking about something really neat, interesting, whatever. 

After the podcast is done, uh, I have an editor. He goes and I, all I do is drag in a sauna podcast recorded, boom, done. He downloads the files, pulls everything in, edits the audio for me, and then goes back to every point that I. . And so, and then he just kind of searches in there, creates a whole bunch of shorts and reels for me. 

And then when that's all done, uploads it to OneDrive, Sarah grabs it, pulls it into the podcasting hosting platform, schedules it, and then schedules out all the other social media and everything for me, and then boom, it's done. That, that is like, that's a, that's a standard or operating procedure. And, and yeah, it, it allows us. 

crank out so much more volume and high quality content than if I were just to do it on my own. Because, you know what? I don't like doing, I don't like doing outreach for a podcast. It's not because I'm shy. It's not because I'm not good at it. It's because I just, I'm not, I'm, I just don't want to do it. 

Like, period , um, just, that's the end of it. The editing part, I would actually argue that I could probably do that just as fast and the same quality that Harvey could. . However, um, it's, that is what Harvey is dedicated to, and that is his, that's like what he does, right? So like, instead of me worrying about all the other stuff that I need to worry about with Clarity coat as well as editing, because the editing doesn't necessarily produce a bunch of money, whereas this stuff produces a lot of money, right? 

Then I worry about these activities over here, right? Mm-hmm.  and not the activity that doesn't create a whole bunch of money. Right. Um, so a good example for people that are listening to this, if you're a body shop owner, right? Why are you spending time, um, tracking down parts? You could pay someone fuck $18 an hour, something like that to track down fucking parts for you. 

They probably already are paying somebody to do it, to do that, and they're just not doing it. You know,  it, it should already be somebody's job. , yeah. Yes, it's scary because it's an additional cost in the business and everything like that, but how much more valuable would your business be if you were, you as the business owner, have so much, you're worth so much more per hour to the business than what most people realize. 

Mm-hmm. . So, um, body shop guys love to shit on the detailing industry, right? They just, yeah. Fucking hate us, right? Mm-hmm.  me, I, one time calculated.  what I was worth per hour to the business in my detailing business. And it was like one 50 to 2 25 per hour. Because what I was able to do was I was able to go out, talk with people, build relationships with them, build business relationships with whoever, right? 

And then if I, because I was out there landing jobs and stuff like that, then that work came into the shop. I had a team of guys that did the work, blah, blah, blah, right? Like, Me going out and executing this stuff was making the shop more money than if I was actually in there doing the actual cleaning itself. 

That mm-hmm. , it doesn't make any sense for me to be doing those activities. Um, working on a growth strategy. What's that, sorry? Working on a growth strategy because, I mean, what are you doing it for? Just to do the same shit over and over and over again? No, and it's not gonna, it's not gonna grow sustainably by. 

No, he, you, you're gonna hit a hard cap on what you're able to do on a daily basis real fast if you are doing things the right way. And it was actually even getting to the point where I was on the edge of hiring a, a secretary or an assistant, you know, whatever you wanna call 'em. Simply just answer phone calls and messages. 

Because while those activities are extremely important and are very valuable, because if you don't answer the phone calls or the messages, you don't bring in work. . Mm-hmm. , it was getting to the point where it was like, that's kind of what I was occupying four to five hours of my day with. Yep. Well, again, if I'm o, if I'm spending all of my time doing that, then I'm not out doing the stuff that makes the business a lot of money. 

It's including. If I'm, um, if I'm not on the shop and wandering around and kind of looking at things and saying, Hey, you know what, if we bought this one tool that would save us five to 10 minutes per job, and if I say five to 10 minutes per job and we do eight to 10 jobs a day, that means that we save this extra amount of money per month, blah, blah, blah. 

Right? Like, yeah, there's all these things that you could be doing in your business that nobody else in your business can do except you, right? And that's why consultants are usually as highly paid as they are. They're the experts that are coming in and able to step outside of your realm of knowledge or expertise and say, Hey, dumb ass, have you thought about maybe doing it this way? 

And they're like, ah, shit. You're such a genius. . No, actually I'm just on the outside looking in. Yeah. So I don't know if that was, I threw a whole lot of information out there all at once. I'm sorry, Greg. No, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. And that's what I said when I developed the consultancy was I'm the guy you wanna hire to tell you that your baby's ugly. 

Right? Because you're not gonna  see this stuff, right. You're, you're not gonna think your own baby is ugly, but chances are like they're somewhere everybody can approve. Right? And that's why. , I hired a coach. You know, that's why I wanna be a part of a mastermind, or why I wanna be in your book club, you know, so we can talk about these things. 

And it only takes that one little idea to spark something like, oh shit, I've been doing this entire process wrong. It's gonna save me, you know, an hour or whatever it may be. Yep. Yeah, I, I, I certainly do not think that I have everything figured out by a long shot . Um, there's so many things that I could improve on and, and get right inclu, including with Clarity Coat. 

Um, there's some pretty significant challenges that we ran into in this last year. Mm-hmm. , and we are looking at solving.  solve. I don't know if solving those chall those challenges is probably the right term, but we're gonna do things that we think will fix that problem in this next year, but requires a lot of time and effort. 

But, um, uh, it's exciting though. Yeah. It, it is. Um, and one other thing that is pretty exciting that we have going on, and I, I think I've mentioned this.  one previous podcast, but I think as of this recording, we're actually gonna be announcing it today that we're taking over the Autoplex brand. Oh.  in Peelable Paint. 

There's only a couple of well-known names out there. Clarity Coat, obviously being the most premier, biggest one in the entire world because that's, that's who we are, um, . But one of the things that Clarity Coat has lacked traditionally is a North American presence or mm-hmm. , installers, distributors, you know, that type of thing in North. 

And a big reason for that is just because Peelable paint as an industry is just bigger globally than it is in North America. Um, one of the other things too that we found is that no one has been able to crack the restrictions of California and Canada, meaning vo voc restrictions. Ah, because Peelable paint is a, a very solvent heavy product, 

And so,  when we, as far as I'm aware, we're the first Peelable Paint brand to actually have a low VOC is actually able to be sold in California and Canada, um, product. And so what that did for us was, you know, we sought out brands that had a good North American presence and approached them, talked to them, and we ended up having finding. 

Great relationship with Aflex and decided that, you know, we could probably aid in training and technical help and sales and everything like that to do with, um, the Aflex brand in North America. And so that's what, um, hopefully we're announcing it tonight cuz oth otherwise this is gonna be a little bit weird if I'm saying this right now and then we release. 

Well that's awesome. Awesome. Congratulations   and how many, uh, you know, massive brands. Have built themselves like that. I mean, that's really a smart way to do it. Most of these, uh, like the big three of the body shop world, that's, that's how they do it. I mean, yep. Yeah. And I would be, I can confidently say that in peelable pain, I don't think there's ever been something like that's, that's happened. 

Um, yeah. A couple of things that Clarity Deco is, I, I realize I'm tooting our own horn, but whatever. It's my podcast. If you don't like it, then just leave  . But we like hearing about it. Uh, one of the things that Clarity Deco did better than other peelable paint brands out there was th. . What was really interesting was that Peelable paint, other brands did two things that we did differently. 

I don't wanna say that we did it right or wrong, you know, whatever, because there's a market for everything. But what number one was that a lot of brands kind of went for the low to mid-tier type of customer. Mm-hmm. . Um, they advertised doing just low to mid to your cars. Again, there's nothing necessarily wrong. 

But in our opinion, the way that car car culture is, love 'em or hate 'em, everyone looks at the Lamborghini Ferrari's. Porsches, right? And then all the new technologies just kind of filter down from there. You just, you have people that look at a Porsche and say, oh man, I wish I, I wish I could get that in my car, because that's fucking sweet, right? 

Yeah. So that's where we concentrate on was the high end. That was the first thing that we did differently. But then number two was there are other peelable paint brands out there. However, they tend to be pretty localized to where the product originates from their home base. Um, so you might, you have a product, but then it only goes to. 

I don't know, five or six countries in and around where their home base is. There's never really been a brand that really shot off to all different parts of the world. And I think within two years we were in 20 plus countries out there. Um, so not only were we, did we have a, a smattering of.  installers in North America, but we were much bigger globally, um, everywhere else in, in a lot of different markets. 

So anyways, it was time for us to take over North America. We're taking over North America. You're awesome. Better recognize . I'm excited. I'm excited to see it. . Yeah. I still want it on my truck. . Well, I mean, all you gotta do is, you know, just hit the, hit the next, next time you need a demo vehicle. , , just add the card, put in credit card information, the, you know. 

Right. We're good to go.  . Awesome man. So, uh, do you have anything else going on in your world that you want to kind of just enlighten us on? Um. Something that, uh, my buddy and I just started brainstorming. Um, we've been talking about, he, he owns the marketing firm. We've been talking about an info product for years, and, um, we found, or I found this year, the biggest disconnect between conventional and PDR is estimating and pricing. 

Mm-hmm. . Um, so we're the infancy stage right now. We're, we're just getting the ideas together, but, um, we're planning to do some kind of information product that will be for estimating to bridge that gap. Um, estimating, um, probably a little bit of training on like insurance negotiation because there's, there's a lot of little intricacies that, you know, Bring that from the collision side to the hail repair, you can, you know, get paid more appropriately. 

A lot of these guys, um, just not knowing how to estimate it, they end up losing money. And for me, it was kind of hard to, I felt like I was in the middle because obviously my company and my people have to make money so I can't give stuff away. But then I felt bad because these people are not able to get the money. 

from the insurance company because of how they approach the claim to begin with. So they end up losing money. Mm-hmm. , you know, to get the car done for the customer. And it's like, I, there needs to be something there to, to, to bridge that gap. So we're trying to put our minds on it and figure something out there. 

That sounds like a very interesting challenge to overcome. Yeah, it, it was, it was definitely tough. It was enlightening to be in the position I was in so that I was seeing all of these estimates from all these companies. Now, you know, in the past I've only seen what I've done or what like people very close to me have done. 

So I didn't really kind of grasp the full mindset from that.  world. Um, cuz it, it really is, you know, it's autobody and I always say it probably pisses some people off, but at the end of the day, fixing cars is fixing cars, right? It's different widgets, you know, it's different processes and products. But autobody is autobody, right? 

The car is dinged up or dented up or crashed and we take it and we fix it and we give it back to the customer, back to an OE standard. Um, so it's surprising to. , completely different spectrum ends, um, between hail repair and collision repair. Hmm. Yeah, that'll be, we'll have to have you back on the podcast when you kind of get that. 

Um, that'll be next year, I think.  Well, yeah, I mean, that's not surprising. That's a big hurdle to try and overcome. So Yeah. Luckily my buddy that I'm gonna partner with on it, um, you know, he is a marketing guy, so. Already, for the most part, knows how to build it all. I just have to provide the information. 

So this year, as I mentioned, I'm gonna be running an operation for another hail guy as well. Um, so that's gonna be a really good opportunity to, you know, have hands on hundreds or thousands of claims myself.  to really be able to dial that in and not just give some blanket more. Is there, shit, is there not estimating software out there right now for pdr? 

So y Yes. Yes. And, and there is one that's specific to it, but the times are different for the conventional repairs. Um, as opposed to like CCC one, which is what pretty much all the insurance companies and the collision side uses and the majority of the PDR side uses, uh, mobile. , which is fantastic for dent count, for rni, for stuff like that. 

But the times don't match up and the procedures, um, don't always match up. So you still need to know. And then little stuff like, you know, if you're gonna do a roof, what type of seam sealer it's gonna have on it, you know, as a seam sealer included, or do you need to bill extra for that? Um, and there's a million, a million of those. 

Tiny things that have to be seeked out or you're losing, you know, 60 bucks here, 40 bucks here, 80 bucks here, you know, you miss materials on an estimate that might be a thousand dollars. Um, and that shit adds up. Yeah, yeah. No kidding. So we want to build templates for everything. Um, it's actually something that I've been working on already for my clients with Refinished performance advocates is having a template to say, here you go. 

You're writing your repair with conventional on it. These are the things you have to look at. You know, this is what you need to reference in the OE procedures, stuff like that. Um, but making it accessible to everybody that's not just one of our clients. . Awesome, man. Well, like I said, we'll have to have you back on the show once you get that not cracked and talk about it and see how it. 

Help other people out. But, um, absolutely. Yeah, man, it was great talking with you. Thank you for spending some time today talking about what you have going on in your world and how it can benefit other people, SOPs. That's, that's what we're taking away from this start leading to standard operating procedures. 

Everyone, , you've been listening to the Autobody podcast presented by Clarity Coat. Our passion is to talk to and. Anyone in the industry, from painters, bodyguards, manufacturers, and anyone in between. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like rate and review and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, visit us@claritycoat.com. 

And find us on Facebook and YouTube at Clarity Coat. See you next time on the Autobody Podcast.