In this podcast episode, Gabe hosts Robert Winters of Ceramic Pro Raleigh where they discuss Robert’s journey in building a successful detailing business. Robert shares that he started alone, mobile detailing, and gradually expanded to owning a shop space and eventually being in a 4,000 square feet facility. He now looks forward to expanding to a bigger shop. Robert highlights how investing in a professional image and delivering an unmatched customer experience helped sell high-end packages. Robert also emphasizes how using a software, Urable, made his operations more efficient. He adds the importance of having a transparent relationship with clients to gain trust. Lastly, Gabe ensures the importance of proper information dissemination to the clients and how he has mastered this to build trust and make significant sales.
My name is Gabe Fletcher. I operate Ceramic Pro Pottstown aka Total Detailing in Pottstown, PA. I have been one of the fastest-growing Ceramic Pro installers across the US. I have a 20-year website development background. I built my first website when I was 11 and have been enamored by Website Development ever since.
Detailing Growth’s Detailing 3.0 is a program designed for detailers. I took my years of website, SEO, PPC and totally crushed our market. It was my proof of concept that I knew we could do it for other people.
Our company was started to help car detailing businesses scale by providing SEO services, web design, social media campaigns, training, and more! We offer many different packages that are tailored for each business’s requirements. There is no cookie-cutter solution.
00:00 Introduction and Personal Journey
00:38 Interview with Robert Winters
01:57 The Growth of Phenomenal Detailing
04:17 The Challenges and Successes of Expansion
07:34 The Importance of Customer Experience
08:24 Learning from Mistakes and Challenges
10:28 Dealing with Unhappy Customers
14:34 The Importance of Inspection and Documentation
15:46 The Importance of Vehicle Inspections
17:49 The Value of Professionalism and Customer Service
20:31 The Power of Trust in Business Transactions
20:57 Delivering Value to Clients
25:28 The Art of Upselling
27:39 Building a Professional Image
30:50 Balancing Work and Family Life
31:21 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Robert Winters: [00:00:00] I’ve had other softwares. It wasn’t for me at the time. It was too complicated for what I was needing at the moment. But now it’s like, I have the premium program. You guys are the most professional looking shop top
Gabe Fletcher: to bottom. We had the pieces in the business to be able to talk about ourselves in the appropriate manner.
And then we also delivered the experience that matches what we’re talking about. That’s how you get 14 grand for a Rivian.
Hey everybody, this is Gabe from the Talking Paint Podcast. And today we are on the show with Robert Winters of Ceramic Pro Raleigh, also known as Phenomenal Detailing. Robert, thanks for hanging out today. I appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re super busy over there, but I wanted to just take some time and, and [00:01:00] talk with you and see how and what you could tell us about your journey and maybe it can help some other people in lessons you’ve learned and where you started versus where you’re at now for transparency, Robert’s a client of Detailing Growth, which is a sponsor of this podcast. So just putting that out there and come in the spirit of transparency is so that you guys are aware of that. So how are you doing
Robert Winters: today? It’s cold. Yeah.
Gabe Fletcher: It’s burr. Burr. Like we just, what did we just have? Groundhog day and up here Punxsutawney, I guess Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. So I guess we’re supposed to get an early spring. We’ll see if that actually comes to fruition, but it’s freezing right now. Yeah, I
Robert Winters: hope so. We were just, it was like two weeks ago. It was like five and eight degrees and stuff down here. And I was like, yeah,
Gabe Fletcher: I’m good. I’m done. I’m so, so, so over it with the, with the cold. So why don’t you tell us, tell us a little bit [00:02:00] about your operation and kind of how you got started.
Robert Winters: I started five plus years ago. Started out as a detailer by myself, uh, kind of just trying to find something. I’d always done it on the side and had a career. Prior, uh, the side hustle became the main hustle kind of thing at some point, and then basically from there was just expanding, you know, I picked up with as far as with mobile detailing.
I didn’t have all the. I guess struggles, but the one thing with on the, on that side of it, at least was, or I didn’t think I had the struggles. I’ll say that was I was able to grow quickly with that for what I thought was quick to a certain point. And then from there, I started to expand into shop space, needing shop space, further, bigger shop space, where we’re at now, even basically started mobile, then started just doing stuff, renting some spaces.
A really good friend of mine helped me out. He’s a custom shop, custom mechanic shop, Insomnia Motorsports. That’s in this area. Uh, he helped me out, kind of [00:03:00] gave me like some basic tips on business and stuff like that and kind of the growth and what to pinpoint. So we, then we started doing ceramic coatings a lot that I started hiring.
People are getting friends to help when I needed some. And then from there, basically got into another shop that was about 1, 500 square feet, give or take, was there for two years. Kind of outgrew that. I always tell people in two weeks, I realized that in two years, I would probably be way beyond this from there.
Now we’re into this 4, 000 square foot facility that we’ve been for eight to 10 months, give or take now, and we’re actually looking at even expanding from here to a bigger shop than here. Now, how big is your shop now? 4, 000. Yeah. Like 4, 000 square feet.
Gabe Fletcher: And what are you looking at? I’ve been looking at
Robert Winters: stuff, just checking the market right now. The market’s still weird. I guess everything’s still correcting itself on that side of stuff. I just toured a place that was 5, 000 square foot, but it was its own place. Acre of land. That was the cool thing. It was like, it’s all, if you got in, my [00:04:00] thing is like, how can you work future growth and looking at like, Oh, if you had mobile detailing to add with this, if.
I could figure that out. Hey, that’s a good place to secure, park your vans in the back and stuff. But, um, yeah, I mean, looking at stuff like that, I guess, really like 5000 plus square foot. I mean, you name it. I probably I’m looking at it right now to see just we, we’ve taken a huge growth, like, within the last basically year or going on a year, especially with working with you guys on everything, every aspect of it.
I think we’ve implemented. Yeah. Literally everything from you, you know, even this, it’s funny, like the talking paint podcast, like I’ve listened to this when I was just a mobile detailer. Like when you were kind of first starting it. Yeah. And I used to listen to it.
Gabe Fletcher: Imagine going from your, you’re going from being a mobile detailer, listening to a podcast.
And like saying, yo, this is where I want to be. This is where I want to go to now being a [00:05:00] guest on that podcast a few years later. But that’s a tremendous growth path. And I think that’s worth looking at and understanding and looking at, like where you’ve started versus where you’re at. Yeah. And it’s kind of taps into like one of the main things that I see.
Detailers and other shop owners put themselves through and that’s just comparing their journey to everybody else without comparing to where they’re currently at and where they came from.
Robert Winters: Yep. I have to do that a lot. Even that’s like a big thing that I have to tell myself, because you do see these enormous shops that are four or five locations.
And like, I want to get there. And like, I know I will at some point get there. That’s already in the growth pattern that I’m looking at. And I’m implementing stuff. You know, I have a really amazing team that.
Gabe Fletcher: That’s where you see the business going? Multiple locations? Yeah.
Robert Winters: Like, I mean, multiple states?
Maybe. Yeah. I mean, like really just targeting in this area specifically, there’s a [00:06:00] huge growth that we’re at in Raleigh. Like Raleigh, you know, it’s always Raleigh, Apex, Morrisville, um, ranks as like one of the best places to live, if not the best place on all these magazines and everything. So it’s always constantly growing.
I’ve been here for quite a while. And, uh, it went from a really small town to where you drive around. It’s nothing but exotic, nice cars. And luckily I’ve been able to having kind of grown up here, meet and talk to a lot of these guys when they were kind of starting out and from their friends of friends, you know, you kind of go from that.
Um, but what’s happened with that is like, even if I add, say we do a 5, 000 square foot shop here, what about the other side? Cause a lot of people don’t want to travel to 20, 30 minutes, which is crazy. Cause I hear about California. It’s an hour drive for most things. And having lived out there for a couple of years, it’s an hour to drive anywhere, but here it’s not like that.
So we were looking at like, how can we implement to get everyone as much as possible? Like, how do we. gravitate and grab and hit markets that [00:07:00] are trending forward. With so much growth here, it expands out. And how do we be there first and like be a leader, you know, like that’s the big thing is leading the industry and our local area.
I think
Gabe Fletcher: leading from the front is a big piece that a lot of people miss. And it’s more than just putting your business on the rails, so to speak. It’s more than just putting Your website together, it’s more than just paying for ads. It’s more than just paying for SEO. If you want to create that client experience and you want to truly.
Expand and grow your business. You need to create an actual experienced based business because it’s no longer transactional at that point, because it, it transcends above and beyond transactions. It becomes about creating such an experience and creating such a gap between you and the person behind you that you can’t be caught.
Because you’ve created so much buffer for yourself by building and designing [00:08:00] your business to over deliver on experience and create memories and create those unforgettable moments of somebody picking up their car going like. Wow. I can’t believe it looks like that. Right. It’s all that little stuff adds up and it adds in compounds.
You know, there’s the concept that all the little things compound over time and it compounds in big ways later down the line. And I think that’s also an important segue into you can’t skip the hard work. You can’t shortcut it. You’re going to have to put your time in. You’re going to have to take your licking.
So to speak, you’re going to get beat. You’re going to get knocked down. You’re going to get shoved. You’re going to get cursed at you’re going to get negative reviews. You’re going to get negative, unhappy customers. You’re going to get things that don’t work out. You’re going to break stuff and you’re going to burn paint.
You’re going to pull paint and you’re going to scratch glass. You’re going to do all these things as you grow and scale through your journey. And. As long as you know that on the other end where your business is going, you’re [00:09:00] going to be able to leverage all those experiences. On the other side and the reason I go through all that is, is because that there’s a lot of businesses that want to jump into this and they don’t understand the level of work and the level of effort and the level of time and energy and just mental fortitude that this requires to get to the point where you’re at.
Robert Winters: I think when me and you first met, it was like, you could see it on me. Like I said, I’ve kind of followed you prior to talking to you. I guess I was scouting you, if that makes sense. Cause you see a lot of this, you know, especially with agencies, like you see a lot of stuff that pops up and it’s like, we’re going to take you to number one.
And it’s like, well, how. Cause for me, it’s like, I’m putting in all this hard work. I need someone who’s going to support that. Not just by, like you said, ads, like ads are great. Like they help you, they will grow, but they don’t do all the work. The growth comes from like word of mouth. Like I still have a lot of word of mouth business and connections that you can’t pay for, [00:10:00] you know, like there’s stuff, um, we’ve helped figure stuff out and that’s the growth is like learning how to.
And I’ll just come to a client and say, Oh, you have this issue. Sorry, figure it out. It’s before you even get there. Hey, I have a solution. And that’s the growth that kind of has come. And I’ve had to learn. I still learn every day. There’s stuff every single day that sometimes makes me want to pull my hair out.
And sometimes it’s already, I’ve already experienced that. So this is how we’re going to go about it. Let’s, I mean,
Gabe Fletcher: that’s a great segue to transition into the car that you just dealt with. You were telling me about it the other day. You said that, you know, you had an unhappy customer that was like putting you through the ringer with something related that was completely out of your control.
Why don’t you give me like the broad view of that and like what happened, because I think that’s a learning opportunity for other people that like, these are things that are going to happen regardless of how much. Time and energy that you
Robert Winters: spend kind of a weird situation. Something I wish on [00:11:00] nobody like in the industry or as a client, basically we did a car probably early to moving in here when we were first moving in here.
Some of this we’ve adjusted due to this situation and little minor things that we’ve just felt gives a better customer experience, but now we require everybody to come back after 30 days minimum to check the film out. This was not one of those. This was prior to that guy waited about four to six months, brought it back.
Film had some weird stuff that, you know, he saw and said, Hey, cool. Like, I understand. Um, this looks weird. Let me address it. Let me go about it. Let me get it resolved. It’s one of those. If you do this, there’s never a perfect install on everything. We try to give that to clients, but this was just out of the norm for even us to see.
So we. Happily. Hey, cool. We’ll, um, some of this could have been prevented if you brought it back within 30 days. We didn’t tell you that at this time. So now, you know, moving forward.
Gabe Fletcher: You get one for, you get one for free, but the next one you got to come back so we can check it.
Robert Winters: Yeah. And I told him that. And so [00:12:00] this one, we basically were like.
Instead of trimming it, we just redid it. So we went to pull the, it was the bumper and a fender that we pulled off. Well, unbeknownst to me, this was told as like a perfectly clean car. You know, we go through all this with clients from their first talking. We try to do as much as we can walking around cars, which I think is missed quite literally by everybody, you know, in the industry, like.
Everything can’t always be on the phone, the sale might happen, but one of the initial contact is there need to look around the car and like me now, even with this situation, like I’m going on cars. And if it’s anything weird, I’m taking a paint depth gauge on it just to see, but come to find out, we took the film off.
It pulled paint on the bumper and the fender, like bad on the fender. Um, it was kind of weird. I remember you showed
Gabe Fletcher: me pictures and hopefully now we’ve got them on top of this, that the paint just kind of like came off in sheets. Yeah,
Robert Winters: so fast forward a little bit, talking to some body shops and getting some more [00:13:00] information because I was like, Hey, we’ll fix it.
And that’s the part. of knowing from past how to handle things is, Hey, you say, this is this. We will fix it. This was a issue with the film that we were trying to resolve. This happened. Lesson learned our terms and conditions covers a lot of this. Now that is something I’ve. Bought into, and if you don’t have it, you should get it.
Gabe Fletcher: Nobody ever, ever thinks they need to terms of service agreement until they got to pay for a respray.
Robert Winters: It was 5, 000 that I was quoted. And I was going to take it when it’s like, no questions asked. 5, 000 coming out of my pocket. That hurts. That’s like rent a month. So come to find out kind of a weird customer wanted us to agree to certain things.
And basically I told him, Hey, look, man, no, one’s going to agree to that. You know, like you want me to agree that if you ever take the film off in 10 years that it’s not going to pull paint talking to the body shops. They were already saying it was repainted. I couldn’t prove anything. So I was just like,
Gabe Fletcher: right.
Cause you said you [00:14:00] looked at the Carfax report later. No, there was later and there was no documented work on the Carfax
Robert Winters: report, right? Is Carfax. He was given at purchase is a clean Carfax. There’s no damage to it or anything. The one that I found, cause me. Being the person where it’s like, this doesn’t add up and like things work a certain way.
Like if you install film and film goes on a certain way, you know, and like, I trust my guys, they do an amazing job, a fantastic job at every time. And they go above and beyond on everything. Uh, we implemented because so many cars come now with like trash in the paint scratches. Oh yeah.
Gabe Fletcher: The inspection feature inside of your able they do.
That’s a lifesaver. Yeah,
Robert Winters: just take pictures. Notate what it is. Point at it a little bit. You know, it’s like customer says anything. Hey, unfortunately, like the car that you thought is perfect is not perfect. Yep. You know, so many people think about a brand new car. It’s perfect. And it’s like, yeah, you drove it for 200 miles and look at all the chips.
That’s right, [00:15:00] dude. I’ve got
Gabe Fletcher: a Rivian in my shop. He picked it up. Uh. Monday morning at 11 o’clock. He drove it. This is the one that I posted on Facebook, uh, in the groups that everyone got so upset about. And he actually decided, I think he changed from Matt to gloss. He decided he didn’t want the mat, but this is the one that I posted in the groups that I said, I charged, uh, 14 grand for it and everyone was so upset about it.
I’m
Robert Winters: over here. Like how,
Gabe Fletcher: right? Exactly. The reaction that you should have, that’s, that’s the appropriate reaction, right? So he brings the car. He lit is so number 1, he lives 2 hours
Robert Winters: that stuff from you, they sent it to me and we’re like, how do we get to this? And I was like, wait, who sent it to you? What is that?
Guys? My guys are in the groups. The scholars, they sent it to me and we’re like, we need this because we just sold this 1 that we have here. That was like, above average of what we can normally get for him because the market on those is so. Yeah, [00:16:00] you know, like because of the programs they have for him and stuff like that.
And I was like, I don’t know. I was like, I mean, I’m going to,
Gabe Fletcher: I’m going to tell you how I’m going to tell you how in just a minute. He lives an hour and a half away from here. Yep. He had to drive two hours to go and pick the car up and he had to drive two hours here to get the car to us. Okay. In that time, in the two hours that he had it, he’s got it here, it’s got.
10 microchips on it already, 10 on the hood and the fender. Luckily words like super friendly with the local PPG colors, a paint blender, and we can get colors that are like build. Those chips will disappear. No problem. Like that’s not a huge deal for us, but like that’s just goes to show in like 10, in two hours, he drove it here and now he’s got chips in it.
I asked him, I said, what were you doing? Were you tailgating assault truck? Where you just like running up underneath Joe Bob’s like concrete delivery. Like what’s going on, [00:17:00] but anywho, but anyway, that’s in the shop here now. And like, that just goes to show that anything can happen at any time. Oh
Robert Winters: yeah. And then that’s where the inspection of the car will save you.
Because like, for me, we just had a Range Rover. That was the same thing. A couple hundred miles had some chips in it. It was actually funny. We ended up selling the guy film because we, on the inspection, just came for coding, we showed him the chips. And it’s that, that new green that’s from Range Rover. I forgot what it’s called.
Uh, Giola or something like that. We showed him that he was like, Oh wow. He was like, I’ve only driven the car. He’s like, I have six cars. I barely drive that car. And I was like, yeah, I don’t know. Like, what have you been behind a construction truck or something around here? What are you doing? Yeah. And he was like, I don’t know.
And. So in it up, it’s actually that inspection helps sell a full front.
Gabe Fletcher: That inspection tool is great. My favorite part is jumping into those inspections after the fact. And I’ll say, hold on. I have somebody who just got this [00:18:00] and they drove it here two hours. This is what was on the car right after they picked it up and I’ll send them a screenshot of it in the software, and then I’ll send them the actual picture.
And. You’re able is great for that. And it does a fantastic job at that. It does a great job of like, you know, CYA cover your ass, right? That’s the whole point of it. And it’s also been like, even when clients get the news that it wasn’t our fault, they still appreciate the fact that we went the extra mile to document it and put it in our system and have it cataloged.
That’s the kind of stuff that you’re able brings to the table for businesses. And that’s the kind of stuff that. Like people don’t think about and how important it is for you to portray that you’re a professional
Robert Winters: business. I used to never have it. And it’s funny since I’ve gotten me and you talked, you were one of those were like, cause I’ve had other softwares that did more of the sales side of stuff.
This is like, and it’s funny, like since [00:19:00] I’ve. Cause I did the free trial before I ever talking to you about it. And it wasn’t for me at the time. It was too complicated for what I was needing at the moment. But now it’s like, I have the premium program. I don’t even know what it is, enterprise or something like that.
The workflow is built in. Oh yeah. It’s like, Oh, it automatically sends message. So that’s part of like why I like it. Cause one, when we talk to a customer, when we send them the deposit request, here’s our deposit policy. We, you know how many people comment to us and are like. You guys are the most professional looking shop, top to bottom, the way you talk to us on the initial contact, that’s where I have the cam.
Who’s my front desk, she’s very professional in answering everything, making sure everything’s done how I want it. I was able to train her that like, Hey, this is how I want you to talk to people. And this is what people expect from me. That’s what I’ve always been known for is the guy that I’ll spend an hour talking to you about something.
You might never even buy anything from me, but because I will. Make sure you got educated being a leader in the education [00:20:00] part of it helps sell a lot of stuff, but you’re able sending these deposits and, oh, here’s your terms and conditions and sign off. And, you know, it makes it more professional looking to where, like, they don’t even question it.
I get that. I see it all the time in the groups like I don’t charge deposits. And then you see them 2 weeks later, like. Oh, well, I had four cancellations and it’s like, where’s all my
Gabe Fletcher: work on? I don’t have any work to do. I’m like, well, you know, there’s this thing called a deposit and you can capture it before they come to your shop and then it holds them accountable.
Yeah. So I think that’s an important segue into the next part of this. And that’s the professional image that you get to. Put together for any of these, for any customer that comes through your door. So let’s real quick transition back. You mentioned the post in PPF intent for money, right? And there were a lot of people upset about that.
You said somebody in your crew took a screenshot.
I’m going to tell you exactly how I did this, [00:21:00] and I’m going to keep a piece for myself because that’s just something that I have to do, right, because it’s something so important, but if you follow the same principles here, you can do the same thing. So, number one, the client came to us and said, Hey, you guys are almost double the price of all the other shops.
This, that, and the other. So I said, totally understand. This is not an apples to apples comparison. And then I said, number one, this is going to be a completely custom install. We really don’t do any kid installs anymore. And that’s because our installer Danik has been doing this for a decade. He came from working overseas where he worked in Moscow on every single hyper car that you could possibly imagine, where he’s done those cars by hand, cars worth millions of dollars that are irreplaceable Danik has protected.
That’s the level of quality he brings here, right? So I did, the first thing I did was I talked about our expertise and our authority and how experienced we are. And I put that [00:22:00] into a practically understood type of, uh, comparison for the client to see, right? And then after that, I transitioned down into the products.
They’re not the same, you know. Our product is this and it offers these their product is that and they offer this and it happened to be that we were going up against expel and I immediately reached in and took the screenshot from expels warranty that says this warranties now voided if you use any other coding except the expel coding and the person he was considering having it done by.
Was not an expel dealer and they were outsourcing to an expel dealer and they had their own coding they were going to use. And I let them know, I was very polite. It was very professional. I was like, listen, this is something you need to know. This is me looking out for you. Then he asked me questions. So like now I’ve given him factual education.
I haven’t lied to him. I’ve told him what’s what and the next part is [00:23:00] now I’ve also approached this from a manner of being of service and I said to him at the end of the day, I’d like you to work with us. But if you don’t, I understand. But what I want you to do is make sure that you have a good experience, right?
So, regardless, hopefully this information helps you to do that. So, that was part of the message, messaging that I sent to him. And what that did is it put me in a position to take any gain from myself out of the question. And I said, listen, you can go there and they do good work. Just know that these are all of the things, these are all the actual facts.
And. By putting myself in a place of service and being of service and just wanting to help, I’ve now built the trust, like the trust grows exponentially from there. And trust is like 80 percent of every transaction. Oh, yeah. So the trust factor goes up. Convertibility goes up. And [00:24:00] then the one of the last things that he talked about that he was asking about cutting on the car.
And I said, listen, for newer shops, cutting on the car is typically a problem, usually related to how they’re holding it or using too much pressure that goes away with time and experience. I can tell you that I’ve maybe Cut one car in my entire career. And it was like the second one that I did. And that’s why I have a decades installer here doing all the work and not just me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a decent film installer and I can do, you know, I can do whatever I need to do and I can handle myself, but Danik works circles around me and he does, he gives a better job, right? So those were the key components. For delivering the value for this and I sent this message to him in an email like this big and it was very well thought out.
It was very, there wasn’t any like bait and switch. There wasn’t any like fancy wordage going on. It was very clean and straight forward. And that is when he [00:25:00] replied and said. I appreciate the fact that you just, you took the time to reply to me and give me this information because nobody else has.
Nobody’s taken the time to talk to me. Nobody’s taken the time to give me proper education. Nobody’s taken the time to answer any of my questions related to this stuff other than just generics over the phone. And the fact that you took the time to show me and give me the actual facts. I would like to work with you guys.
That’s when we captured the deposit 20 minutes later. And then he got here and he ended up upselling himself into like a full car tent, windshield, all that stuff. It was. Everything combined, like we had the pieces in the business to be able to talk about ourselves in the appropriate manner. And then we also delivered the experience that matches what we’re talking about.
That’s how you get, that’s how you get 14
Robert Winters: grand. Like we’ve implemented a lot of stuff from you guys. Like the why [00:26:00] us, you know, like stuff like that, that we’ve kind of. Implemented into it. And I’m still implementing some of the stuff, you know, like I, I’m always interested, you know, it’s kind of looking at the groups, you know, especially since you’re in it and a lot of guys are, that are in this industry, you know, it’s weird, like you see a lot of stuff in there that’s, and I, I’m the, like in the back, like I don’t post as much, or I just, The only
Gabe Fletcher: time I see you post is to talk about us and refer
Robert Winters: us.
Yeah. I mean, really, that’s like it because. It’s mostly the stuff that I see. It’s like, Hey, I’ve been there. Like the follow ups, like I saw you respond to some of that stuff. And it’s like reading some of the comments section. It’s like. We don’t do follow ups like while we follow up and it’s only going to net you one to 2%.
And then you broke it down beautifully that I kind of was like, Oh, that is perfect. You know, it’s like, even if you netted 2%, if you’re a million plus dollar shop, you’re talking a huge gain extra that was just going to be left to the table, [00:27:00] you know? And like, most of the time, it’s not just 2%, like we just had a lady.
Um, I think I told you, I texted you and it’s like the pipeline. You know, like
Gabe Fletcher: we have that automated follow up system for you that sends emails like it’s like once every 3 days for an entire
Robert Winters: year. Yeah, it’s that. And the fact that, like, I had already built a relationship with her talking to her. I talked to her months ago prior to the holidays.
She had some unexpected stuff come up, things like that life happens and I kind of just let it be, you know, I told her, hey, I’ll be here whenever you’re ready. And, um. The automated email ended up catching her just every day. And she just picked her car up, just got a full front. She’s getting that done.
She’s going to Florida when she’s coming back. She’s talking about finishing the rest of the car, you know? And it’s like, Hey, that’s four plus thousand dollars minimum. If you’re depends on the area you’re in or five, six grand or eight grand or 14 grand, you know, like. That you could have just left on the table because you don’t have things and that’s all free, you know, like the implementation of stuff like that, you know, obviously cost some [00:28:00] money to get in there on some of
Gabe Fletcher: it’s money in time, but like it’s once, you know, money in time, one time.
Robert Winters: Yeah, that was the thing for me. It was like, wait, this isn’t like a subscription thing. This is just like a one time fee and I just pay it. Like, and like the, why us, you know, like I use that so often and people get in, they’re like.
Gabe Fletcher: People don’t, don’t think that they’re going to get that from the shop that they work with.
And that’s what makes the difference
Robert Winters: because so many people that run this shop, run it on an installer. That’s great. Like there’s a lot of shops that do really well that are ran one guy, one installer do this. They’re a outlier for the most part. A lot of times they get caught up into. That works until it doesn’t work.
When, uh, I think me and you talked about it where, you know, I was doing like the coding stuff, detailing and trying to answer phones and talk to you and run Instagram
Gabe Fletcher: and everything. Now we do just about everything for you. So the only thing you have to do.
Robert Winters: Yeah, no, it’s, I don’t even do that half the time.
I pop in, you know, like I’m [00:29:00] the. Pop in cam does everything, you know, she just finished up that Rivian. She sold that Rivian same guy. The only thing that I popped in that helped with was a full front talking to him about it, and he was already locked in on something. Just he stopped by the shop, wanted to check us out.
And he was like, wow, like you have a lot of information. You have a lot of cars inside that I can look visually at and see what’s what your installs are. That’s something that we like try to do. Not everybody’s going to take that approach or clients aren’t always going to have the time to stop by. But the ones that are really trying to do these bigger purchases, we found that helps a lot.
Like, Hey, come look at the difference. Like I’ve had film before and it’s, I don’t want, that’s what I’ve had before. It was but I know that’s not what I want now. Cause I’ve seen what it looks like years later. And it’s like, okay, cool. Like we offer kind of like you, like a. Custom hybrid stuff. It’s not full custom kits, kind of like what you were describing where it’s full bulk, but blown up [00:30:00] do the own trimming on the car.
We’ve had that question. Hey, how do you trim on the car? And we’re like. Yeah. I mean, if you’re at a unseasoned shop, cool. I can understand that. That’s,
Gabe Fletcher: that’s a problem. But if you’re working with a professional and somebody who knows what they’re doing, that’s not really a thing. Yeah. And
Robert Winters: if you had a problem with it, then the shop should fix it.
You know, that’s the thing that I explain to people is like, it’s not even a. Answer kind of like what you’re saying, you know, where it’s, you know, we use that, but it’s like, well, if you have an issue, you’ve won, you have a really good warranty with us. You have the fact that if anything does happen, I mean, I quite literally, I just told you off the rip, if something’s wrong, we’ll fix it.
That builds like what you’re saying, that trust, that’s the growth, you know, is getting that trust and that name out there. And again, like having the team that I have that can back that up, as well as me being able to talk to these clients and getting, you always say the bandwidth back, you know, and like.
Me being able to focus on that. Like, I have 2 kids, you know, younger kids, one’s a newborn and one’s, you know, 1. 5 that thinks he’s 13. Um, you know, [00:31:00] and, uh, I’ve been able to get more time with them and stuff. And that’s been able to help me as far as be have time with family, have this, you know, not working every weekend, you know, not doing this.
Like, if I come up here on a weekend, that’s important. It’s come deliver a car and get paid and be out,
Gabe Fletcher: you know, that’s exactly what it should be, brother. You deserve to get some family time back. So listen, Robert, thanks a lot for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your time so much. I had a great time chatting with you.
Hopefully you did as well for those that are hanging out with us. You can check out, you can check out Robert’s website. And check out his facility. Why don’t you go ahead and give out your website name there, Rob?
Robert Winters: Uh, it’s phenomenal detailing dot com and then we’re in Raleigh, North Carolina off near our airport.
And so, yeah, we’re a ceramic pro North Raleigh, um, or phenomenal detailing and paint protection.
Gabe Fletcher: very much. So those of you who are still listening, listen, if you found this podcast helpful or useful for you, [00:32:00] please leave us five stars on whatever platform it is that you’re listening on. Apple’s usually the one that helps the most.
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