PDR Technician: How To Get Restoration Work Part II
When a classic car owner is budgeting and thinking of how to go about getting the restoration help they need, you will want to be on their short list. How do you do this? Figure out their pain points. First, you will need to have the right words, you don’t want to feed him with lies, you want to be honest and up front about everything. You also want to have a portfolio of pictures of before and after pictures as well as positive feedback from your customers. You also want to provide a phone number for each of these clients so that they can physically check into your references. Your website should have an entire page of nothing but references. You will also need to ask your past customers if you can in fact use them as a reference and if they are okay with the occasional phone call checking your authenticity.
A lot of work goes into preparing yourself and your business for the watchful eyes of potential customers. You just need to anticipate their needs and give them what they will want to see. Let them ask, pace yourself, don’t just throw everything at them at once. This is a dance, take the lead and show them how awesome you are. Most of all, have the answers for their questions. Doing the work in their garage may also be a selling point. They can keep tabs on how far you have come and how much longer you will take. In fact, they may even want to pitch in a little to feel like they too had a hand in the restoration. The greatest selling point you have, besides your past work, is that you don’t own a shop and that you can easily work in their garage. Their car is far safer with you.
Your need to be willing to give your prices up front, either on your website, or in person. If they know how much, or approximately how much, this project is going to cost them then they feel as though they have control. If you him and haw around the price, you will appear suspicious and they will not use you.
The very next step is the contract. We’ll get into that in Part III.
