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It all began with a poorly-painted Camaro, which led to a career as an industry consultant whose services are coveted by auto body shops primarily in California.
When things go sideways and a shop owner or manager has more questions than answers, they don’t call the Ghostbusters―they call Juan Martinez.
He learned the industry by working for top shops on primarily luxury brands in southern California over two decades. But the way he entered the collision repair industry happened literally by chance when Martinez was 12.
“My sister had a 1970 Camaro and she wanted to sell it,” Martinez said. “I told her don’t do it, I’ll figure out some way to pay for it eventually. I painted it in forest green and showed it to my father and he told me it was mine. I didn’t have to pay a dime.
“There was a mom-and-pop paint store in our town, and they helped me through the process. It cost me $500 to paint that car, and I started driving it before I was 16. The cops would spot me and pull me over, but they never gave me a ticket. They would say, keep the vehicle parked right where it is, and then I would walk home. But they always gave it back.”
The experience led to a job at an auto body shop in San Diego, CA, as a prepper, and for the next 20 years, he worked as a painter, estimator, shop manager and regional manager.
When he realized collision repair was in his blood, Martinez dropped out of college and went all in. He landed a job as an estimator at a prestigious shop in Beverly Hills, learning from great mentors and accumulating knowledge he could call upon throughout his career.
Some years ago, Martinez started JM Business Solutions, Inc., in West Covina, CA, which helps body shops with fixed operations, business tactics, insurance relationships and customer service. Martinez trains how to write cleaner sheets, navigate through DRPs and make more money on parts and repairs, for example. He’s all about first-person, one-on-one training, visiting 20 to 30 shops almost every week.
Q: As a body shop industry consultant, what are your top concerns?
A: First, I would say safety and then insurance abuse are two issues that immediately come to mind. I encounter them literally every day.
Some body shops are doing things right now that are not safe. They just don’t know when to say “I shouldn’t take this car in.” These shops are more concerned about making money. But if you’re not a Porsche-certified shop, don’t try to work on one. Their attitude is that they’ll figure it out, but in the end it’s unsafe for the owner of the vehicle. Not to mention that it’s also a bad business decision for the shop.
In many cases, they’re not going to make money on the repair. It’s likely that they will also make mistakes, which is a liability issue. I can safely say that 80% of all the shops out there right now have at least one vehicle they should not be repairing. It’s no sin to admit you don’t have the training or equipment to work on a certain vehicle, so find a shop that can do it and give them a referral.
I get calls all the time from shops who say we don’t know how to write an estimate on a higher-end vehicle, can you help us? Ninety-nine percent of the time they shouldn’t have taken the car in at all. I tell them to refer it, get your teardown money and a couple days of storage, and then move on.
The insurance companies abuse body shops by operating with impunity and violating legislation that was created to protect consumers. Most shops don’t know the law. So, they can’t usually catch things, like paint caps that are illegal. But no one addresses them, so guess who pays for it?
If you don’t have well-trained estimators, they won’t catch things and the insurance companies love
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