dealership Commission for Dealerships?

[Ricardo Perez]

I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

I have picked up a few dealerships in my area, and I've thought about offering them some sort of incentive from my side to push my services: window tint, clear bra, chrome delete, and/or ceramic coatings. I haven't looked into it much, but I was curious if anyone has done this before or is currently doing this. If so, how much commission makes sense? 10%, 20%, or even 30%? I know in a way, they would essentially be doing the sales work for us, so I would want it to make sense for them and for us. What's a common percentage?

 

Again, I haven't done any sort of deep dive into this, so any input would be welcome.

Also, how would you go about bringing it up?

[Bham]

My thoughts on this are that tint shops should have never started agreeing to discounts for dealerships.  I mean why? Because they bring you " a bunch of cars ".  Well so what.  That doesn't make them any easier to tint.  Dealerships ask for outrageous discounts and blame it on the volume they bring you.  Tint shops should have never started agreeing to these type of discounts.  Dealerships can well afford normal pricing.  If anything, give the 10% off the total of an invoice, not 10-20% off each vehicle.  At least that will cover you if they don't bring you a bunch of cars and will also give them a better reason to bring you more at one time instead of one here and there.  20% is not necessary in my opinion, but they will want at least that just because they are a dealership.  

 

This is just my take on this subject.  Many will have a different opinion, but I think if shops had stood their ground years ago on this, dealerships wouldn't expect these type of discounts.   

[Dano]

^^^

Just be the guy that can do it reliably and possibly discount their personal cars unless you're getting some serious volume on contracting the whole lot for preloading. Dealerships will sell their mothers to scrimp a dollar tomorrow. I've seen the tinting at dealers start and stop on a dime....literally. 

[Ricardo Perez]

Interesting take. Thanks for both of your inputs. I'd be curious to see if anyone has tried the commission outlook with hail repair shops. Like maybe enticing the sales people to sell PPF or tint to the people with new cars or no tint?

[Dano]

I've done it. Hail shops and especially bodyshops are always looking for someone to replace films on panels that get painted or removed for pdr. Since its sublet the shops are allowed to mark up the local retail (your) rate, so no need to discount.

 

Independent pdr shops will often waive the customers deductible to sell the job....or if they can offer tint/ppf/paint correction to include into the job at no cost instead of waiving. 

 

Neither will be too price sensitive as long as you're not above general market rates in your area. If you can deal with the scheduling chaos and local travel to the shops that goes with that industry you can make good money and develop a good name for yourself as the guy that they can trust to keep them out of the fire. You can easily convert the shop staff and their families/friends to customers

 

With the ammount of full bumper ppf out there, collision repair can be quite profitable over the course of a year.

 

Beware of working on fresh paint. They don't have time to wait to stop the clock on rental cars and the shops need those cars gone so that they can get their billing submitted. Sometimes your invoice being submitted is more important than the film itself before a weekend for that reason.

 

Mobile Tech RX is a great app for billing on the fly. Scan vin, select service and email invoice in just a few minutes. About $900yr....absolutely worth it.

[Ricardo Perez]

I used to work for someone that mainly focused on collision centers. I wasn't a fan of how they ran things so I'm slowly taking into consideration things that I wasn't a fan of and trying to implement things that will benefit the business. I don't know exactly how the other side of the coin works (collision center/hail repair shop) but my thought process is: If I can encourage and educate them to offer higher ticket/profit packages and tickets, then they benefit and I benefit too.

 

When it comes to pricing, the guy I used to work for would price his collision center items higher than what he would charge at our shop. I know he would do it to make up for the hours upon hours upon hours of driving. I don't want to do that though, my service radius for repair shops is fairly small. I currently have 3 that I've secured, but I'm interested in securing maybe 5 more for a "steady" set of income to supplement the retail traffic I get. That's the whole reason for this commission madness, to entice the other shops that I've been to to use me as the new clear bra guy.

 

As far as I'm aware, 20% mark up was the norm for our services or any other sublet services. That said, the whole reason for my thought process is as follows: I offer a 5% or even 10% commission for the shop, but I deal with the customer on my end. Meaning, my shop will get payment for whatever we install and I deal with any issues that arise from any mistakes I make. That in turn lowers the ticket item for the customer making it more accessible of a service vs having my price be inflated by the repair shop. AND in the end, it gives more exposure.

 

I don't know, still trying to work through this. Obviously most of this stuff is something I would have to talk to specific shop owners about. Maybe they prefer the 20% mark up vs. the 5-10% I'll offer (who wouldn't), or maybe they're absolute killer sales people and selling someone a 20% marked up item does not seem like a big deal to them.

 

[Ricardo Perez]

I've had my fair share of paint peeling. From what I've learned though is just a matter of having enough soap, and precuts help a ton. I've had cars strip when repositioning a door edge guard. That had to have been 100% on the prepper or the paint was literally sprayed that day.

 

But yeah, I know fresh paint is trickier to deal with 🤪

[Dano]

On point 1... don't discount anything, to anyone. Instead provide better value per dollar spent in punctual, correct service. Eventually the shops will call because the normal guy is busy or irritated someone who who makes the call. It will happen to you as well.

 

On point 2...I have a never lift policy when it comes to fresh paint because everything can go south trying to reposition, as you've figured out.

 

+1 on the extra soap and I would add that you stop using alcohol in your solution in general. I only use it to wipe the edges before install.

[Ricardo Perez]

I get what you're saying with the "don't discount at all" and instead build value. So you think just giving them a set price will be ok? I guess the whole commission thing will end up being a bit of a headache for me to try and keep track of it, making checks or paying cash, taxes... HMMMMMMMMMM. I think I just talked myself out of it lol

 

Never lifting on partial hoods and fenders is pretty straight forward, but what about full bumper wraps or the dreaded mirror caps? I don't have a plotter so I'm doing everything all bulk by myself. So lifting is inevitable when it comes to a bumper wrap, unless I turbo stretch the crap out of the film to position it "properly" from the beginning. Even then, the overstretch has to be relaxed.

 

I don't use a solution bottle anyways. The guy I used to work with would but I never understood why. You have soap, which slips, and alcohol, which tacks,in the same bottle mixed together fighting one another. I can get away with a soap and water only solution at 2.5mL of soap added to a 32oz bottle. It's slippy enough to reposition, and tacky enough to just hold for a few seconds for it to grab enough. I never understood the solution hype. It works for some but I'm not one of those lol. Soap and alcohol are in their own separate bottles for me.

[Dano]

"but what about full bumper wraps or the dreaded mirror caps? "

 

 

More soap and don't over perform. It only has to be comparable to the original install for bodyshops. After doing enough bodyshop replacements you start to see that most installs are subpar to begin with.