Sell Me This Pen

by Jerry McNee, AASP/NJ Collision Chairman

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably seen The Wolf of Wall Street and heard the line: “Sell me this pen.”

Now, let me ask you: do you own, work in or run a collision repair shop? Then sell me this pen.

Like it or not, every one of us in this industry is in sales. That does not mean being flashy, pushy or dishonest. It means knowing how to communicate. It means knowing how to build trust. It means being able to explain why repairing a vehicle correctly matters. It means having the ability to professionally identify, explain and respond to tactics.

I have seen this industry change firsthand throughout my career, especially in recent years. The old-school, mom-and-pop mentality, the lack of training, the lack of education and the “we’ve always done it this way” approach are becoming a dying breed. Keeping up today means staying on top of sales, education, training, tooling, equipment, staffing and process.

But when I say, sell me this pen, I am not talking about the kind of salesmanship that made The Wolf of Wall Street famous. We all know how that story ended. I am talking about something far more important: honesty, respect, expertise and confidence in what you do. Those should be the first business decisions you make, because they will lead you in the right direction. Q: Was that Lamborghini repairable? A scratch or a dent is never “just a scratch or a dent.”

A customer walks in and says, “I was told to get three estimates.” Another says, “I was just passing by, and I need a price.” Another says, “I was next door, saw your place and wanted to get an estimate.”

How do you handle that?

What does your CSR say? What does your estimator say? What is your process? Because in that moment, you are selling. You’re not selling a cheap price or fear; you’re selling your knowledge, your professionalism and your ability to repair the vehicle correctly and safely along with the ability to substantiate a safe and proper repair.

Too many shops still look at that situation and think: It’s just a dent. I don’t want to lose the job. That mindset creates the wrong motivation. Are you driven by proper repair-quality or by quantity-price? Are you educating the customer, or are you just rushing to throw out a number to make them happy? Be careful – liability does not disappear just because you gave the customer the price they wanted.

I recently wrote an estimate for a corrective repair on a Volvo with quarter-panel filler. It was obvious to me what had happened: years earlier, that repair had been price-shopped, and some other shop got the job because they had the lowest number. The customer told us her husband handled it at the time. I walked her through the corrective repair process and explained what should have been done. During our prequalifying questions she told my CSR she did not even know who performed the original repair. During my conversation, she said she called that shop and was told the repair was out of warranty. Think about that – they got the job, had the best price and still lost a customer for life because of price. But that is the problem in our industry: too often, “industry standard” gets reduced to whoever is willing to do it cheapest.

From my own experience, I have watched our closing ratio drop from 80 percent to 50 percent, and I know why. The real question is: Do you know your numbers? Or stop long enough to understand? Education is not just about repairs; it is the key to business success.

In our case, we made a few decisions that hurt us. We allowed people to schedule their own estimates. We stopped charging for estimates. What did that get us? More tire kickers. More time spent on people who were never going to become clients. Waste of our time.

A 2003 Mercury comes in needing a rear bumper, body panel, tail lamp, trunk lid and quarter panel, and they are “just looking for an estimate.” That is time, skill and energy being spent with little or no return.

I am not here to tell anyone how to run their business, but I can tell you what we did: we went back to charging for estimates, and we turned off online appointments through our estimating system. That forced us to be more intentional with our time, and our process raised our closing ratio to 75 percent.

The bigger question is this: what have you done to educate yourself to sell your services?

And I do not just mean advertising. I mean training CSRs and estimators to handle real-world conversations. Are they educated enough to explain the repair process? Can they qualify a lead? Can they spot the difference between a serious customer and someone who is just shopping for the price? Can you politely keep people from wasting your time?

The truth is, not every estimate will become a client. That is reality. Sometimes reality stings. In our case, that 2003 Mercury left with no estimate but left us a one-star review. That is the world we live in. Shops are expected to give away expertise, time and energy for free, then take the hit when a non-customer gets upset or the bill payer denies procedures.

Over the last few years, business has dropped for most shops. We have all felt it. The question is not whether things have changed. The question is: how are you responding? What have you done to raise your game?

People say the time to advertise is when you are busy, not when things slow down. The same goes for education, training and salesmanship. Are your people improving when times are good, or are they only reacting when things get slow? We need to be proactive versus reactive. Are you developing your staff to properly address appraisers? Do they understand gross profit, percentages, repair planning and proper procedures? Do they understand what happens behind the scenes that keeps a shop healthy? I have seen firsthand what happens when shops, and even MSOs, are so desperate for help that they just hire a body with little to no training or education. Too often, that person has no clue whether the company is making money or whether repairs are being done correctly. That is not a staffing solution. That is a liability.

Education. Salesmanship. Sell me this pen.

Do you really know sales? Do you understand your numbers, or are you still running your shop on instinct and habit?

Take KPIs, for example. I have called them Bigfoot before. We have all heard the stories, seen the plaster footprints and listened to people talk like they know everything about them – but how many have actually been verified? That is how a lot of shops treat KPIs. They throw the term around and act like they understand it, but once you start asking real questions, the room gets quiet. Do you know the average severity in New Jersey, and do you know where your shop stands against that benchmark?

What is a good body labor gross profit percentage – loaded or unloaded? Do you even understand what that means? What is a strong paint hour per repair order? What about total hours per RO, closing ratio, severity or whether your staff is prepared to handle appraisers the right way? Do you know your numbers? More importantly, does your team know them?

Because if you know, you know. And if you think you know, you do not.

What have you done to educate yourself and your staff? Have you taken sales classes? Attended training seminars? Invested in learning how to improve your business and your people?

I am not here to tell anyone what to do, but for God’s sake, wake up. Step outside your comfort zone. And I am talking to everyone – owners, managers, estimators, CSRs and technicians. Too many people say they do not have the time, that they are too busy and all they want to do is go home and watch reruns on cable. That mindset is a slow, painful death for a shop, a career and an open invitation for the bill payer to walk all over you.

Knowing your business matters. It helps you make better decisions, train your staff, improve performance and protect your business. Or you can bury your head in the sand and keep doing things the same way you always have. That is a choice too – but it is usually the choice that separates shops from successful ones.

You have to get out and learn. Educate yourself. Train your staff. Respect is not given; it is earned. And trust me, the bill payer knows all this. They know the weak players. They know the game. The question is: do you? Or are you easy pickings? Do you truly understand what you have and what you are doing?

I have talked to too many shops that sound impressive until you ask a few basic questions. Then they look like a deer in the headlights. Now, I am not saying I know everything. Clearly, I do not. I am not the smartest person in the room, and I have learned some lessons the hard way. I have lived through having 110 vehicles on site, working 18-hour days and still losing money. Yes, you read that right – losing money. If that happened today, if I continued down that path, I would be out of business. I was forced to figure it out or go out of business. It was a hard lesson, but it was also the best thing that ever happened in my career.

Training is not an expense; it is an investment. If you want a return and success, you have to be willing to put in the work. Look at your facility objectively. See it as a corporate business through the customer’s eyes. What do they see when they pull up? What do they feel when they walk through the door? What does your process say about your standards? And ask yourself this: are you building your business around the success of the customer or around the bill payer’s opinion of you?

Learning does not only happen inside your four walls. Some of the best lessons come from getting out of the shop – at a training event, during a break, drinks, dinner or even in a quick elevator conversation. Sometimes, one conversation can open a door you never expected and cultivate a connection. Growth often starts when you step outside your routine and stay open to learning.

Culture and passion come from within. If it is only about the money, then you are the problem. Yes, every investment should produce an ROI, but not everything valuable shows up overnight on a spreadsheet. Sometimes, the return is better people, better processes, better repairs and a better reputation.

Get out of your comfort zone. Ask yourself: what comes first, speed or process? For me, the answer is process. We will not compromise the standards that define our success.

Because in collision repair, sales is not about talking someone into a job. It is about educating them on the right repair, done the right way, by the right shop and why it matters. Price will follow. We have all seen what happened when the local hardware store had to compete with Home Depot. The same pressure exists in this industry. And honestly, I do not believe many MSOs can consistently deliver on everything they claim. Too often, the mindset becomes, just put a warm body in the position, keep things moving and make the bill payer happy.

So when I say, sell me this pen, I mean something bigger than closing a deal.

Sell me on your process.

Sell me on your standards.

Sell me on your training.

Sell me on your integrity.

Sell me your education.

Sell me on why your shop is worth trusting.

Because in this business, sales is not about talking people into a repair. It is about showing them why the right repair matters. And if you cannot do that, someone else will. The Volvo corrective repair is a clear reminder of what happens when a job is sold on price and poor education instead of being sold on doing the repair the right way.

Want more? Check out the May 2026 issue of New Jersey Automotive!