It's not just like, Oh, well, let's wing it and see where we're going. No, if you want a specific level and you want a specific point in which your journey is going to going to grow and scale, and you're going to put yourself in a better position, then you have to look at it from a holistic, what do I do? How do I do it? How have. Others done it, have I asked those people how they've done it and how am I going to execute it? Myself, the talk and paint podcast is brought to you by detailing growth. That's detailing growth. com. Detailing growth is the industry's only us based full stack agency that provides you with full custom web design, ongoing SEO, local SEO via Google business profile, ad management for Google and Meta and an entire business suite of automations. With our grit suite, CRM detailing growth also helps businesses with consulting and business coaching and systems implementation, head over to detailing growth. com and sign up for a free strategy session. Hey everybody. It's Gabe at the talking paint podcast. Welcome back. Thank you for listening. This podcast is sponsored by detailing growth. com. That's detailing. Today, I wanted to take a minute and talk about something that I thought would hopefully help some people just kind of maybe realize that they're a part of their, where they're at in their journey when it comes to pain protection film. And I've worked with shops up and down both coasts across the country, and there seems to be a tier of shop that is, dare I say it's self imposed tiering, right? from the shop itself and also just from what industry experts expect from a paint protection film shop. So there are a few different ways that you can approach implementing PPF in your business and there are different types of businesses for PPF across the country here. So they've kind of been broken down into five different levels and that's what this podcast is today, to talk about what those levels are. This is the first, this is what we call level zero or starting from Challenges they face is they're afraid of investing in Getting a plotter and having limited skills and low output quality. Valid points, right? This is gonna definitely be your starting point if you're thinking about getting into film. Do I buy a plotter? Do I not buy a plotter? Do I go to training? Do I not go to training? How do I make sure that I give quality and value for my clients? My answer to that is of course, maybe skip the plotter first, get yourself some training. At the bare minimum, put your hands on the film. Buy a roll of film. You can buy film online or from a number of other film manufacturers and distributors here in the industry. You can get your hands on something from like Global or whatever it is for pretty cheap. And all you got to do is start playing with it and like you're doing headlights, you're doing partial hoods, you might do some mirrors, some door edges, some rockers, small stuff. You can get your hands wet, so to speak, not dirty because dirty hands and PPF don't mix. You want to get your hands wet. You can dabble in this and you can grow into PPF. You don't need to jump in with a 10, 000 investment. You can jump in with just the basics, squeegees, knife, heat gun. Just take your time and be careful. What we consider level one shop, or we could call you a plotter pioneer, is you got yourself a plotter, you're learning software, you're cutting patterns out on that software, you may not really understand where your pricing is, you've got high competition, or you've got competitors, and you don't really have super high confidence in yourself. So that's also a normal stage in your progression path. So you want to get your ethos and why you're better and why you're different defined. You want to continue to work on your film handling, work on your quality, make sure you've got the basics down. Just keep going. Keep putting the reps in and just be sure that it makes sense for you and that you're not just burning up film left and right. This is also a point where if you've got the capital to acquire a plotter, you probably should have had the capital to go to training. So training is a fundamental important part of growing and scaling up in paint protection film. Because training that's available online, a level of information that's available online to like understand what paint protection film does and doesn't do and the nuances of it. It's very scattered with the exception of Autofilm Mastery with Mike Norn. You can purchase that program from them and don't get me wrong. You get a decent sense of what film is and how to handle it and the different components, but there's nothing that's going to be in person training. And if I had to guess where you should go for training, I would definitely say. Hit up Jamie Werner at Equip Academy. You could do manufacturer based training like Ceramic Pro or X Bell. Autobahn has a decent training program from what I've seen. There's training programs from different film manufacturers. Mike Noring has a training that he does in house, although very, very expensive. And I don't think he does it very much anymore. Only for people that really, really want it. And, truth be told, where you go for training can often decide and set you up. For the level of speed and which you are going to ramp through these shop stages. So pick the right training facility and one that matches the most for you and your trajectory. Then you kind of jump up to a level two shop. This is what we call like solid foundation. You've got basics down. You're continuing to use computer cut software. You're adjusting kits in the software. You might bulk a hood. You might bulk headlights. You've got a solid understanding of where your costs are in terms of like, how much you're spending on film per job, how long it's taking. Jobs are probably still taking too long at this stage because you're still learning. You're having an issue with setting customer expectations. You might have imperfections in your installs that are driving you crazy. So this is all again, a part of the growth path and there are things here that every shop at some point experiences. And we step up here, what we call level three, you. Probably got a pretty solid ground to stand on. You're an established expert shop in the area. You have good solid knife skills. You can bulk most work, although you're probably still leaning on computer cut business on computer cut patterns. You're mixing installation techniques in bulk and custom and hybrid. You probably got a really strong market position and you've got your pricing dialed in and you've got a solid ethos as to why people should choose you. So, you know, this is kind of the scale. At which most shops are going to start seeing positive return on investment into paint protection film. And this is usually after about a year and a half to doing PPF. This is kind of where you're at. Usually about a year to a year and a half. This is just a level four shop. This is what we're going to call Titan status. This is going to be where You are the known go to for paint protection film in your area and for doing it right at the highest tier, highest quality possible. You have a team of installers that have exceptional skills. You have a strong brand reputation. You've got solid financial extraction happening from your paint protection film department. You have set yourself apart from everybody else. You've got dedication. You've got team building going on all the time. You've got optimization in your process. You've got all these things dialed in. And you. You are probably, you know, net positive on paint protection film at this point. And this isn't the top either. There is one level above this, and that's level five protective only shops. Meaning this is a shop that only does film, and that's its primary offering is film, automotive protection film. This is going to be your AFS Houston's, your protective film solutions. Ryan Townsley. It's going to be shops like ours, ceramic paint. It's gonna be your Menards Premium Detailing. It's gonna be these shops that primarily focus on film. What they do, day in and day out, is mainly paint protection film. And it takes a while to get there. You gotta really, really make sure that you're structuring your business appropriately for that level. Because, You don't just jump straight in and you don't go into being a protective only type of business without getting through the rest of them. First, it takes time, effort, and money. Three years, usually minimum to even get to that point where you're starting to figure that out. And truthfully, the growth record based upon what you envision for yourself can be much longer than that. You could be having to put five years into this before you get there. You could be a two years, you could be a three years. It all depends on your level of commitment to putting your business where you want it to be and using the tools available to steer and guide you. guide the business towards that. If you want that for your business, you need to create a plan and execute the plan. It's not just like, Oh, well let's wing it and see where we're going. No. If you want a specific level and you want a specific point in which your journey is going to grow and scale, and you're going to put yourself in a better position, then you have to look at it from a holistic, holistic perspective. What do I do? How do I do it? How have others done it? Have I asked those people how they've done it and how am I going to execute it myself? And it's with all of that information that you can start to put together a solid plan to grow and to put yourself into these different shop tiers. And at the end of the day, my takeaway message is that it doesn't matter where you're at in film and it doesn't matter where you've started. As long as you start, As long as you move through progression and you move through with pace. And you understand your pacing real quick. I also wanted to let you know about our detail shift newsletter. Our detail shift newsletter is completely free. You can sign up for it at detail shift dot email detail shift is a extremely clear and actionable email newsletter that I personally write and send out several times a month. That contains lessons I've learned and dials it back in easy ways for everybody to digest. It'll be some of the most accurate and dialed in content that you'll ever get in your inbox. So you can sign up for that over at detailshift. email now. You understand your skillset and you're taking the time to know and see where you are, but also. Not letting your current stage inhibit your growth. Just know that it takes time and it takes reps to learn. Without time and reps, you're not gonna improve and you're not going to win. You have to put time and reps in. You can't skip that part. That's the hard work. You can't skip the reps. You can't skip the tongue lashings. You can't skip unhappy customers. You can't skip the negatives. You can't skip employees leaving. You can't skip costs rising. You can't skip all of these problems that come up in the shop and through the part of the business. You're not going to be able to skip it. You can try and anticipate it, but you're not going to be able to skip it. I need you to realize that if you want to put yourself and your business in a different position, you need to Be ready to take your lashings through the journey because let me tell you that if you go through this expecting not to have any lashes, not to get any whoopings or get knocked down, you are going to be very, very sorely mistaken and have a very sombering awakening as you work through this. So I hope that some of this was helpful for you guys and that you kind of got An idea for where you're at in your business and where you want to go. Hopefully some of this was helpful. If you've listened to this and you found it helpful, please leave a rating on Apple podcasts or whatever platform you're listening on. Follow, like, subscribe, please leave a comment. If you are listening on a platform, leave a review. Five stars is what I'd love to see. If you want to see us cover something, please reach out. If you have a business that you'd like to cover, you want to come in and talk about something that's going on in your business, please reach out. I will be more than happy to put you on the podcast and see how we can help you and what we can dive into and give you some actionable information on. So hopefully you guys had a good time. You can visit us on your favorite platform for previous episodes. You can sign up for our direct emailer at detailshift. com. You can grab the link for that down below. Join our free Facebook group that has tons of free marketing and business advice in it. It truly is a one of a kind, and you're going to find winning information there. I highly suggest you join it and please don't hesitate to visit us online at talkinpaint. com. That's T A L K I N paint. com. All right. My name's Gabe. I'll see you next time.