An opportunity awaits!

by Kian Amirkhizi & Doug Snow

Think about your career choice for a moment. How did you end up there? Do you enjoy your work? Are you having fun or do you dread the everyday monotony?

Many of life’s choices “just happen” including your profession. As John Lennon said, “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” Sometimes you might just “end up” doing something because your options have evaporated. However you ended up in your profession, sometimes a change-up is a very healthy thing. Maybe to diversify for economic reasons or maybe you have become complacent and feel the need to be challenged.

If you are anything like me, you will remember places and times where you could have realized huge returns on investments in one thing or another, if only you had seized the opportunity. Sometimes we don’t take action because of a lack of resources, bad timing or other factors. However, if we examine most of these situations honestly, all too often our failure to seize opportunity is due to a lack of vision.

However, there is one opportunity that I did realize, and my participation has been greatly rewarded. The opportunity I’m referring to is when I decided to pursue a career within the field of leather repair and interior aesthetics, becoming a skilled specialist in the restoration of leather, vinyl, plastic and fabric. Not only is it profitable, but it is just so much dang fun!

I know that many readers of this article already may have a successful detailing or car washing business. But I am inviting you to seriously investigate the possibility of adding another fun and hugely profitable service to your business. That would be “interior restoration.”

I have also found it great that I can work in a field that really provides a good balance of investment versus return, in that whatever time, effort and money that I invest in my business seems to provide a solid return of profit, unlike other businesses that are dependent upon other factors beyond your control (e.g. the stock market).

Also, I value the autonomy and direct control that I have over my business, in contrast to other jobs or positions where you may not have decision-making power. Best of all, I have been able to provide a good standard of living for my family while delivering a high quality of workmanship. And possibly the most important component is the immense satisfaction and sense of accomplishment after completing a challenging job. Everyday is a new and different challenge. No two repairs are alike and customers enter your lives seeking a solution to their quandary.

Think of it this way …

Let’s say that you are a small business owner in some facet of the automotive appearance field, but you do not offer repair and restoration services for leather, vinyl, plastic and fabric. When you encounter customer requests for these services, you have had to call some technician or repair/restoration specialist.

Over the course of time, you might have found a person that does a great job, providing great services that you use repeatedly. However, the first thing you might encounter is frustration since this person is usually so booked that it is almost impossible or extremely difficult to arrange a service call. If this person is that busy with business … hmm.

You also notice that they have a great thing going! You have watched these technicians drive up in their truck or van, bring out a paint splattered tool kit of some sort and then what seems like moments later they mysteriously make the damage disappear. Then, after the tech hands you a bill for a $125 for less than an hour of work, you secretly wonder how difficult could this be to learn such a thing?

How hard is it to learn?

Becoming an aesthetic technician used to be kind of difficult. There wasn’t a lot of quality training available, so most technicians learned directly from someone else, which meant that their skill level was directly linked to how good or bad the technician was from whom they learned.

The other reality is that this industry is growing and maturing with time. There have been countless improvements and technological developments over the past couple of decades that have exponentially increased a technician’s ability to offer “almost perfect” results for repairs that wouldn’t have even been attempted 20 or 30 years ago.

Our industry’s ability to provide better and better repair results have also “raised the bar” in what our customers expect. Trying to learn everything you need to know from a single person like in the old days is really not an option anymore. Training is essential to any successful business, but especially in this field since your success will directly hinge upon a solid foundation of technical ability, along with considerable knowledge of the products, skills and techniques required to produce great results.

The good news is that it is not hard to find companies and people to offer training. There are a plethora of companies that offer training. However, the wide availability of training opportunities also brings another problem to bear.

The real trick today is not finding training—but rather, to find the RIGHT training for what you want to accomplish. Unfortunately this means navigating the labyrinth of offers and claims of this fiercely competitive industry.

When looking for a training company, look for these things in your instructors:

1. Their knowledge of the latest innovations, products, tools and techniques.
2. Their experience in the field.

In regard to points one and two, make sure that the instructors have an intimate working knowledge of the craft. This means that they are actively in the field or have been for many years—someone who only has “book learnin’” and no real experience in what it takes to run a successful business really cannot teach this field. At the same time, being taught by someone with years of experience but without knowledge of new techniques does not offer much more.

Long ago I remember attending trainings with instructors that did not meet these criteria, on both ends of the spectrum. I remember seeing instructors that knew all the latest techniques and terms, but were absolutely clueless about other important aspects of business because they had never ran a business of their own. I also remember learning from instructors with obviously dated practices.

In the end, neither “extreme” gave me what I wanted in return for my investment of time and money to learn.

The real key analysis of this conundrum is caveat emptor (buyer beware)!

One thing that is dramatically important to consider is the source of the information that you are purchasing. This will in turn lead to a reasonable guess about the instructor’s motivation and direction of what they will teach.

The claims offered by some training will be unrealistic, and this should be a warning sign. If a company or trainer makes promises that are “too good to be true” or secret techniques that no one else knows, be advised to look elsewhere.

The other thing to remember is to beware of companies that offer free or ridiculously low-cost training. Free training is usually worth exactly what you pay for it. The instructor’s agenda should be clear in this instance, to sell products. If they train you on their products then it’s safe to say that they expect you to buy their products. Of course successful product companies need your business but sometimes the emphasis lies unevenly on the sale of products rather then competent training. I learned about one such unlucky student attending a training class only to find his instructor leaving him alone “fending for himself” while the trainer secluded himself in an office trolling on the Internet!

Beware of “ride-alongs”!

What’s a ride along? I am glad you asked. A “ride-along” is when you find a working technician and “ride along” with him/her usually for a few days.

While this can be beneficial to an experienced technician (so that you can see someone else’s approach and techniques) it’s not a good idea for a beginner. You will be accompanying the tech on his or her usual appointments and they need to accommodate both teaching you and accomplishing their jobs at the same time.

Therefore, you will only learn what they might happen to be working on for those few days, and only the technique that was used on those particular repairs (sometimes there are several techniques to learn for the same type of repair, and they aren’t going to take the time to show you all the different techniques).

They also won’t be teaching you the “basics” that you need to know first. For beginners we don’t recommend this as a way to break into the field. It is far better to find a training company that follows all our recommendations, and also offers a curriculum that is designed for a beginner.

Another consideration: Is the instructor a good teacher?

This is one of the most important concerns in choosing training, especially for beginners. All of us have met experts in one field or another that were tremendously skilled and able … but couldn’t teach their expertise to others because they could not effectively impart their acquired knowledge in an understandable manner. In other words—they sucked as teachers!

Most of us remember our favorite teacher from school. Regardless of the fact that this person was teaching us the same information as any other teacher within that discipline, that teacher was special to us because of their skill, the way they explained things more clearly than any other teacher, or some special connection we were able to make with them.

This is what you need to look for when considering an instructor. Consult with people who have trained with this person in the past and weigh what they say carefully—was the instructor a good teacher? Did they present things in a clear and organized way that was easy to understand and follow? Did they teach their students things that actually worked in real life? All these questions (and many more relevant queries) can be answered by considering the testimony of past students.

Despite all these warnings, remember the good news: there are indeed companies out there that have both highly qualified instructors who are good teachers as well, and have taken the time to prepare a real-life curriculum for beginners and advanced technicians alike that teach the best procedures known regardless of product manufacturers’ agendas. (Hmm … I even remember the name of a company like that … let’s see … I think they are called M-A-T-R-I … you get the point.)

We recommend that you choose this type of training company. Although it might sound like a lot of work in finding the right company, remember that this effort will pay off in the end.

How long will it take for me to be good at it?

Like any learned skill, it takes time to build the neuro-muscular pathways necessary to have such skill. This is through practice and more practice.

However a frequent saying comes to mind just about now that goes something like this: “Practice makes perfect.” Unfortunately, that is not entirely accurate. The saying should actually be: “Perfect practice makes perfect.” Constant practice of techniques which are poorly done, or that do not use the multitude of innovations available in the field are not going to move you that much closer to your goal.

So, again the first principle is to make sure that you have learned the proper methods, and then to “practice perfect” as much as you can. Each time you practice you will get better and better at what you do.

It is almost impossible to judge how much actual time this will take, since all people learn and develop learned skills at different rates. We have seen people that have been in the field for years still unable to perform certain procedures, and we have seen some of our students produce professional repairs after only three or four days of training!

Regardless of your own skill and learning speed, proper training radically shortens the learning curve. This is probably the most important fact to consider. Training = faster learning = faster profits! Get proper training. Being proficient at this industry is a skillful combination of great techniques and proper chemicals.

How much will it cost and how much can I make?

This is a valid concern for anyone attempting to add an additional profit center to their existing business. Expect to pay anywhere from free (not recommended as discussed above) to several thousand dollars for training in the beginning. Supplies can vary widely, depending on the extent of your budget and clientele you wish to pursue. To go top-notch with a color computer and a full supply line you could expect to pay around $12,000 to $15,000. If you forego the color computer and just go for the basics, you could start as cheap as $3,000.

I tend to be cautious of starter kits. It is not unlike buying that cheap toolkit from the discount tool store that brags about a 1,500 piece toolkit for $29.99. The only problem is that 1,487 of the pieces are washers, screws and cotter pins. I am not saying that all starter kits are worthless, but be careful and carefully investigate what you are getting. Make sure that the components in the kit are things that you really need for the objectives of your business.

As far as how much you can expect to make, this depends slightly on which part of the country or world in which you live. A good technician makes in excess of $100,000 a year, some even around $200,000. When you are good at what you do, you make money in this business. Most techs try to average at least $100 per hour time spent on the job.

Pricing your services correctly is vital, so do some market research in your area and find out what your potential competitors are charging. With good training and lots of practice on different materials before you go out into the field, you will become accurate at determining approximately how long a particular job will take.

As for how much you will make—as in all business ventures, a lot of this depends upon your business administration skill. However, the good thing is that in this field we usually have lower overhead costs than businesses that require storefront locations or tons of employees.

Given this information, we hope you can make an informed choice about how to begin your business or add-on profit center. Establishing the case for leather repair is a no-brainer when the profession is continually growing, profitable and fun! Remember that the most important thing is to make sure and be ready, willing and able to answer the door when opportunity knocks.

Kian Amirkhizi and Doug Snow are the founders, primary instructors and owners of MATRI-X, a company that provides professional training and supply for the repair and restoration of leather, vinyl, plastic and velour. Both Amirkhizi and Snow are nationally recognized experts in these disciplines, and have won several national awards. Both continue to operate their own successful restoration/repair businesses in the Los Angeles area. Your feedback is welcomed, so please do not hesitate to contact them with comments regarding this article at MATRI-X at 888.207.6007. For more information on product suggestions, please contact them online at www.reconsupplies.com.