Here's my real question, folks...

[Brent Deines]

And once you have 10 posts under your belt you will be able to private message or e-mail other forum members so you can get their true feelings without breaking any forum guidelines. You can also swap telephone numbers and e-mail addresses so you can communicate outside of this forum if that is your desire.

[Frank EU]

Chips-B-Gone; with all respect, but I would NEVER ask for any referal. Most referals are absolutely useless. This is because some manufacturers and suppliers do pay their 'happy customers' they will refer you to. And that 'happy customer' will be contacted even before you are able to place your call, to tell that you are possibly going to contact him/her. The 'what's in it for me bonus' for the 'happy customer' you are going to talk to may come in hard cash, or a voucher, to be used as a discount on their future order. And as you probably understand, many, many people are willing to cash in on that sort of referal programs. Not smart for any prospect to ask for a referal. Trust me; I have been as political as possible in this post.

[Brent Deines]

That's a good point Frank. References make a new customer feel all warm and fuzzy, but a business is never going to give you a reference unless they are confident that reference is going to say good things about the company. It's sometimes difficult to do but you will get a much clearer picture of a company if you contact their customers on your own. Every company has customers who love them and customers who do not, but you can certainly look for patterns.

Before purchasing a tool franchise I asked for references and rode around on tool trucks with several top performers, but they did not tell me that probably 90% of new franchisees never make it past two years, and the overwhelming majority never make it past one. Not sure that would have swayed me as I was full of confidence at the time, but the process or recruiting a new franchisee was a bit deceiving to say the least.

We always tell prospective customers that this is not a get rich quick business, and tell them to expect to work hard if they hope to succeed. Learning how to do good repairs is pretty easy, but learning how to run a business can be a bit overwhelming for some. Also, because of the low cost to enter into the windshield repair business, a lot of newbies don't take it seriously enough. If paying a $50K franchise fee you can bet you are not going to skimp on training or give up without giving it everything you've got, but when only paying a couple of thousand to get started people sometimes give up before they ever get started. That said, I think the success rate in the windshield repair industry is far better than in most other industries.

[Nomad]

Well said Brent!!

I have trained maybe 20 people, tried to get them started. I think maybe two or three are actually doing anything with WSR. It's the business end and dealing with customers and clients that may be having a bad day and take it out on you that messes a lot of people up. Also, the expectation of the tech that he will never screw up, or that every repair will come out perfect when we are dealing with such a range of damage and working conditions.

People will not come knocking on your door searching for a WSR tech if you don't make yourself visible (advertise etc) and/or go out to get the business. That's the most difficult thing for most people.