mitchellreid
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mitchellreidParticipant
Owners and Associates,
This is a quick followup to a post on August 21, 2021, just a few scrolls up on this very forum topic. This post was about one of our techs, Ryan McGann, who cold called a Chop House restaurant in his area. Not only did he get a huge upholstery job out of the deal ($14,220), but in addition, the Regional Manager asked if he could do the same type work at ANOTHER one of their locations! Now that truly shows the reward that is out there. This reward is for those who take the initiative to go after the work that is waiting for us all. It just goes to show what is possible for those who are willing to go look.
This pandemic has shut down many upholstery operations as well as other trades. Please understand many businesses, restaurants and otherwise, are desperately looking for someone to do the work for which you are more than qualified to do. Please go out and see for yourselves if what I am saying is true. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”mitchellreidParticipantOwners and Associates,
This morning while I was bringing my daughter to school I passed some of the restaurants where I take care of the upholstery. I realized since Covid came to town I have gotten out of the habit of checking on these locations quarterly as I had done faithfully for years. I pulled the files of 3 restaurants that I carry with me in my van and noticed it had been 3 months since I had worked any of the locations. At 8:00 a.m. no one was at the first or the second locations. The third location had employees on site including a manager. Even so, I held little hope for work at this location. I was counting on the first two restaurants to provide me with the majority of the upholstery on this day.
Lo and behold, the third restaurant, Buffalo Wild Wings, had 4 long booths with damage and the manager wanted all of them recovered as soon as possible. I was very surprised to say the least. I had already made plans for the next 2 days work so I told the manager I would be back as soon as possible. It was 8:15 a.m. when I left the restaurant. I double checked the first two locations. They still had no one on site. Then I realized a few things, it was ONLY 8:30 in the morning, BWW’s doesn’t open until 11:00, and I had their vinyl on the rack at the shop! I drove directly back and started to trace, cut, and sew those booths. I got back to the restaurant by 10:00 and installed all the covers by 10:45. I wrote them an invoice and was out the door a full 10 minutes before they opened for business! They were not only surprised but extremely happy that their store upholstery was back at 100%. They thanked me for “having kept a stock of their booth covers on hand”… their words not mine.
When I started today, I had no idea or intention of doing any upholstery work. Normally, I would have scheduled that work for another day later that week. However, the opportunity presented itself and I took full advantage of it. So instead of starting my day off with a zero before I went to my car lots, I started off with $700. I knew I was going to have a great day no matter what happened during the rest of it. I bet you can’t guess what I am going to do tomorrow morning. I am going to check on those other two locations!
You never know what you can accomplish until you get out there and try. Good hunting to all you Dr. Vinyls and remember those rocks don’t turn themselves over. That’s up to us.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”mitchellreidParticipantOwners and Associates,
I don’t usually follow a post of mine with another especially so closely, but this one just fell into place.
Within a week of the post listed above, the tech that took over Ryan’s interior accounts, Kyle Roberson, was looking to also boost his sales and called me to ask about pursuing some upholstery jobs he was aware of in the same area. Kyle is one of our newest techs and has no experience with upholstery work, but he does have experience with developing new customers and hard work. We will be looking at this job soon and you never know what it may lead to….maybe another customer. Honestly, even I was surprised at how quickly word had spread about this type of success. We will see how this, as with any job, works out. I will tell you though, without these techs trying and reaching for this work we may never have known about it much less have had a chance to do it.
Something we have noticed is success without pursuit is often not maintained. The tech that goes out and pursues accounts is much more motivated to maintain those accounts into the future because he knows how much work was involved in finding them. He also knows how rare it is to keep them and is more determined to do so. In contrast, work that is handed to a tech, even myself, is more often than not, taken for granted. As crazy as it seems the easiest work to obtain sometimes demands the least amount of attention. Hence, the saying “The squeaky wheel get the grease.”
In our Franchise we have adopted a philosophy of trying to maintain all customers regardless of the difficulty it took to obtain them. We base this philosophy on the fact that it doesn’t matter where the sales come from because “All their money spends the same.” Something to think about. Good hunting to all those techs in the field.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”mitchellreidParticipantOwners and Associates,
I just wanted to pass on a note of encouragement for all those Dr. Vinyl Techs out there.
One of our techs(Ryan McGann), looking to increase his sales, was investigating a lead I had given him on a restaurant (Beef O’Brady’s) in need of booth repair in his area. Apparently, he was there a little early and no one was at the restaurant yet. Now he could have given up and gone on to his normal daily route of car lots, but due to the inclement weather that morning he thought “What other restaurant can I go to that is close by?” He picked the nearest one (The Chop House) and thought at least this will kill a little time until the first restaurant’s staff arrives. Little did he know what an opportunity he was walking into.
The Chop House manager surprisingly was very anxious to show him her booths that were in dire need of recovering. Her area manager had given her to the end of the month to have them recovered, but she had been unable to find anyone who would do the work they so badly needed. The quote for the work on the “cold call” restaurant was $14,220.00!
While what is written above is exciting, it is not the most encouraging part of the story. The tech’s main work is and has always been on car lots. However, we try to cross train as many of our techs as possible in the different trades offered by Dr. Vinyl whether that be interiors, paint, dents, wheels, windshields, or upholstery. While this tech had done some booth recovery work in the past, he had never done this type of work. However, he did not let this discourage him. He asked how early they were there each morning and told the manager he would have to come back when he could devote enough time to measure the entire job. While she was worried he would not return, he reassured her he would call her and let her know exactly when he would come back with enough crew and time to quote the entire job.
He did everything mentioned in the paragraph above having no idea of how to quote or even recover the work shown him in this restaurant. He knew something that we try to instill in all our techs, he knew he had people in his Franchise and in his Dr. Vinyl family that he could draw on to get this job done. He called me and we both went to this restaurant together. We disassembled and reassembled the booths enough to not only quote it but make a solid plan of attack on how we were going to do all the work involved.
Ryan McGann has been an interior tech for our franchise for years. Recently, he passed on his interiors accounts to a new tech and went to further training at corporate to become a paint tech in the same area and at the some of the same accounts he used to work interiors. Ryan was THE FIRST TECH we moved from our hub in Cookeville, TN some 225+ miles away to start a new area in the furthest NW corner of our territory. We call that moving to the “Wild, Wild West”. Picking up roots and starting a route 100% from scratch takes a special individual. Ryan was the first of several we have transplanted into other areas 2-3 hours away from where they were living to become very successful in the Dr. Vinyl trade.
It is people like Ryan that make our Franchise successful. Please encourage your techs; for they are the ones who will make your Franchises even more successful.
You never know when that next stop, even an unexpected or unplanned stop, will be the next piece of the puzzle that makes your business soar. I hope this story will encourage each of us to strive to overcome any roadblocks that may get in our way.For the record, I did not know how to recover this upholstery either. I called on other Dr. Vinyls like Nina and Brian Greenfield and Jason McCurdy to give me as much guidance as they could. Their input was not only invaluable and encouraging but empowering. I don’t know if all Dr. Vinyls out there realize how much their advice and instruction gives us with less experience the confidence to learn and grow in this trade. Thank you to those who helped us in this endeavor as well as those other Dr. Vinyls that help each other everyday.
Please know there ARE other Dr. Vinyls that are willing to help you. It may be someone you met at a Convention or that you heard about from a fellow associate. If you don’t know who they are or how to get in contact with them call 1-800-531-6600. Corporate can give you their contact info. Help is only a phone call away.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”mitchellreidParticipantOwners and Associates,
I have observed another Covid pattern. Along with receiving calls from existing customers again, I have also received calls from NEW customers. This group of customers includes restaurant chains that we were previously unable to get into, even locally. This was due to restaurant chains where corporate had set up contract agreements with vendors to do their upholstery work. One restaurant in particular was Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. There were 2 reasons this restaurant chain called us. One was their contractual vendor did not survive the restaurant maintenance shutdown for Covid. Two was that we did work for a sister company of theirs, Longhorns. Both chains are owned by Dardin group. We have long done work for several Longhorn restaurants but never any Cheddars. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement. They needed someone to fill the gap immediately and we gained a customer that is very loyal to its vendors.
I say all this to encourage you to look for the gaps in upholstery accounts you may not have previously serviced. It may be at a Cheddars or almost any other restaurant chain in your area. We have also had calls from medical facilities and playground rental companies. These are all brand new customers to us. They are searching for someone to fill the gap of a displaced upholstery company. Whether we like it or not the last year and a half has been a time of attrition. Many small businesses have not survived. I would encourage you to take advantage of this time and scoop up as many customers as you can take care of. I know we will be looking for them. It is always a good idea to be looking for new customers, but there will probably never be another time like this with so much potential new business. Whether it is the biggest accounts in town or the ones that have always turned you away, now is the time to knock on their door. Your next customer may just be waiting for you to drop by. You never know when you will arrive just in the knick of time to fill a gap for a customer you may have for years.
Please take advantage of the time immediately following this Covid catastrophe. Your business can surely benefit and grow during the weeks and months to follow.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”mitchellreidParticipantBruce,
Thanks for the insight on the door panels. On the formula for the tan color I assume the numbers do not represent ounces. Are they in grams?
Thanks again,
Mitch Reid
mitchellreidParticipantOwners and Associates,
I want to continue to encourage all upholstery techs that the upholstery world is continuing to open up even more but with a bit of a twist. In the months since my last post on this topic I have had several upholstery jobs that were somewhat different than the work before the world shutdown for Covid. Instead of the normal number of booth recovers I have had to do all the work which was stopped for the past year to year and a half all at once. What I mean by that is all of the sudden the tap went from off to full blast. My most recent job involved recovering over half the booths in a restaurant and also spring repairs on all the booths. This work could only be done between 8-11 a.m.each day. No overnight work was permitted. It took me 9 days at 3 hours a day to complete this job.
My purpose in making the previous statements is to let you know that as restaurant chains start loosening up on their maintenance restrictions they are wanting all their upholstery back to pre Covid levels ASAP. This sounds great but is a tremendous amount of work which takes quite a bit of time. I have found that the best way for me to catch up on all this work is to push as hard as I can to get it done as fast as possible. I can easily see how things could get backed up and customers get frustrated waiting on us to complete the work which they are being pressured to get done by corporate. I never imagined that I would or could be the reason for any slowdown in service when it came to upholstery. The ONE thing I thought I was actually good at in the upholstery world was service!
I say all this to encourage all you upholsterers to complete all the work you can as fast as you can in order to not only take care of your business but to help preserve those customers that we have worked so hard to get in the past. Best of luck to you all in the Post Covid Era.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”mitchellreidParticipantTechs and Owners,
Recently I touched base with a fellow Dr. Vinyl, Steve Biggerstaff, out of North Carolina. We have become friends and have done our best to stay in contact at least, a few times a year. During our most recent phone call we were talking about the entire gym recovering work we had done for Hi Tone Fitness in the Southeast. He mentioned that he had received a call from another private gym in his territory who had heard about us from that previous work. This gym was a little far away to handle while he and his nearby, fellow Dr. Vinyl’s were so busy with their local work. I let him know I might be able to get to it as I was near that area once or twice a week. He was nice enough to send me the matching vinyl so I would not have to make a “dead head trip” to that location just to see what colors they had at the gym. The week after I received the vinyl I traveled to the location in North Carolina when rain chased me out of my normal route in East Tennessee. I spent a few hours working on the priority pieces the customer needed recovered while I was inside out of the weather. I made arrangements to return on a second trip for pieces that required sewn covers. The next day I traveled back to finish up my weekly work in East Tennessee that the rain had pushed me off of a day earlier. It really worked out well for me. I was able to work my route and additional work and not be hampered by the weather. That is what we mobile techs are constantly looking and striving for.
The funny thing was Steve felt like I was helping him when in fact, he was really helping me. This has become a reoccurring theme with us. I would have had no work to do on that rainy day. Basically, I was once again handed a job to do when I normally would not have been able to work.
I know I may be starting to sound like a broken record, but I want to continue to encourage all Dr. Vinyl’s to work together. I know in the everyday grind of business we have to focus on our own day to day problems in order to be successful. My point is that I think we can make money and help our fellow Franchises out as well. There is little to be gained in letting ANY work we can do as Dr. Vinyl slip away and possibly go on to help our competition. Just think about the possibility of what I am saying. Doing this could fill gaps in your business, like it did mine, and make your business stronger while weakening your competition who does not have other Franchises to work with, learn from, or rely on.
Morale of the Story: Helping another Dr. Vinyl out is a great thing to do…You may just find out the one you are helping the most is You!
Mitch Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
All Who Wander Are Not LostmitchellreidParticipantOwners and Associates,
I have started to see a little light at the end of the tunnel recently in reference to restaurant upholstery. While there was some work still going on between March 2020 and March 2021 I have to say it was at a severely reduced rate. The floodgates by no means have swung open, but they are starting to open somewhat at least in our area of Tennessee. I am interested to know what, if anything different, is happening with other Dr. Vinyls around the country involving this element of our business. Any light you can shed on this subject would be welcome news. Please take a minute and share anything that comes to mind.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering UpholsterermitchellreidParticipantWill,
The following is another direction you may wish to take instead of the repair. It should take much less time, produce great results, and be worth more to your customer and I mean you could charge more for it.
I have dealt with this situation before first in Cadillacs then other vehicles. When I was strictly an interior tech this was a much more difficult repair. I currently do upholstery work so I have a few more options. I never felt confident in the longevity of my repairs in this particular case so I understand your concerns for the future. I currently recover armrests in door panels in the $200 and up range. The door panels are normally not to hard to take off the door. The panel the vinyl is covering can be screwed on or plastic welded on. Both options are able to be removed. However, the plastic welds are a little more tedious to remove and reattach. The new vinyl cover with a “real” sewn seam looks like the imposter but is much stronger. The vinyl can be glued to the foam, stapled to the substrate, and is very durable. Some positives are that the material is brand new and therefore does not look like a repair. However, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is that the job can be done easily within an hour and look great. Even if you have to get someone else to sew the material for you, you will be time and money ahead recovering the panel. I doubt you will have an concern over the look, strength, or longevity of the repair. Your customer will like it and should be happy paying the $200+ recovering charge instead of the $500-$1,000 for a new door panel which they only sell in whole units not in replaceable parts.
One thing you didn’t mention is if the foam behind the vinyl is injected into a form that the vinyl is the outside skin of (basically bonded to it in a mold) or is the vinyl simply glued to the foam shape. If you can find out I might have some other suggestions.
Best of luck to you on your next fake stitching repair.
Sincerely,
Mitch Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All who wander are not lost.”mitchellreidParticipantTechs and Owners,
I was sewing an upholstery job the other day that was bulky and cumbersome when all of the sudden my machine stopped sewing correctly. I know for some of you more experienced upholsterers that would not be a big deal but for me it caused a great deal of concern. Since I bought this machine 5-6 years ago it had sewn perfectly. Then I remembered a similar experience I had with another Dr. Vinyl….
Jason Cole, Dr. Vinyl of Lexington, KY, was doing his first Steak N Shake booth upholstery job and I offered to come up and give him a hand. Jason had his own sewing machine and material and all I had to bring to the party was what little experience and/or knowledge I had. So we cut the patterns out and started sewing the welt cord and ends on when I noticed that there was something wrong with how Jason’s machine was sewing. The seams were loose and loopy on the back side of the stich work. I had never seen this before, but I was fairly confident that it involved the tension on either the thread from the bobbin or the spool or both. I had no experience adjusting the tension on either one and told Jason I was not comfortable experimenting on his machine. I thought I would surely mess it up further. So I headed home. It wasn’t very long before Jason called me to let me know he had adjusted the tension and now the machine was sewing fine. I was amazed! How did this novice upholsterer accomplish this? So I just had to ask “How did you do that?” His reply still amazes me today. He said “I knew that machine was already not working right and I would have to take it in to get it fixed. So, I thought if I messed it up any further then I could still take it to the repair shop.” I was amazed at his insight. It was just like we were taught in Interior Training. The piece is already broken you can at least try to repair it and you might just surprise yourself with what you are able to accomplish. I thought I was going to teach him something about upholstery and he ended up teaching me.
So getting back to my story…I was sewing an upholstery job the other day that was bulky and cumbersome when all of the sudden my machine stopped sewing correctly. It felt like I was reading Brail on the top of the stitch and it was all loose and loopy on the bottom…my mind flashed back to that time I was helping Jason. I immediately knew it was a tension issue. I guess the bulky work must have hit one of the tensioners and knocked it out of what I like to call the “Lifetime Setting Position”. Now knowing what is wrong and knowing how to fix it are two very different things. I had never touched the tension on my machine…ever. I didn’t know whether the top or bottom needed to be tightened or loosened or by how much. Then I remembered that I had sent Jason a picture of my machine that showed the settings of both the tensioners. I immediately scrolled through my phone and there it was…an exact picture of the “Lifetime Setting Position”. I turned the knobs to match the picture and the machine started sewing like a champ. I was again amazed how trying to help someone else out had actually benefited me in my upholstery work more than anyone else.
Morale of the Story: Helping another Dr. Vinyl out is a great thing to do…You may just find out the one you are helping the most is You!
Mitch Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
All Who Wander Are Not LostmitchellreidParticipantTechs and Owners,
I just had to share another story of Dr. Vinyls working together.
I recently had several challenges on some upholstery work at gyms I had been working on. Some of the pieces to be recovered were cylindrical, tapered, had zippers, and had drawstrings. In my years of restaurant experience I have never had to do any of these things to any piece of upholstery I have ever recovered. The only zipper work I ever did was in Upholstery Training years ago. I immediately knew that these pieces were going to be the most challenging for me. So I, appropriately, left them for last. When you leave things for last on a job, you do get to think about them more and look at them more closely than you do the rest of the work.
After I looked at and thought about them long enough I decided that it would be best for me to call some other Dr. Vinyls who had already been working on them! My first call was to Dustin Williamson who works in the Charlotte, NC area. He was very patient and informative about these cylindrical pieces. He even admitted that they did have their challenges. That made me feel a lot better. Dustin not only shared his insights into how to make the covers but how to make them more simply. He was absolutely correct. Dustin, as well as other Dr. Vinyl Upholsterers, has an innate ability to think outside the box when it comes to upholstery. I do not possess this ability. What I mean is when I see a piece of upholstery my mind does not immediately go to a creative place that tells me that there is another way, an easier way, to assemble this cover. My mind tells me to build it, sew it, and assemble it the same way I see in front of me. Luckily for me, I have the ability to phone a friend when I get in unfamiliar waters. Dustin’s help was crucial to the completion of this job. However, that is NOT the end of the story.
While Dustin’s help over the phone was very informative, I think he sensed that it might not be enough for me. He very graciously took time out of his busy schedule to make me patterns for covers that he had had success installing on the same equipment I was going to have to work on. He boxed them up and shipped them to me asap. I was very relieved to see how someone else had actually constructed them. The covers were actually fairly simple to make if you could just get around all the tapers, zippers, and drawstings not to mention the cylindrical nature of the piece. However, that is NOT the end of the story.
About a week later, I received a call from another Dr. Vinyl, Nelson Helms, working on the SAME cylindrical gym pieces. He was wondering if I had any luck with them and if I could share any insight into their mysteries. I told him about Dustin’s work and everything else I could think of to add to the conversation. After that I knew I could do more for my comrade in arms. So I sent him the patterns Dustin had sent me and some of the original covers that came off the recovered gym pieces so he could better envision the work he would have to do. He said he was working with another Dr. Vinyl, Jason McCurdy, and he would be sure to share with him what I had passed on. Now the funny thing is that Nelson and Jason work in the Charlotte, NC area just like Dustin does. So the patterns that Dustin sent from Charlotte to me in Tennessee were soon sent back to Charlotte to be used again by others. I guess you could say the help sent from North Carolina completed the circle.
Please call on your fellow Dr. Vinyls when you have a problem, upholstery or otherwise. We want to help others because we have been helped by so many others.
Now for the “Rest of the Story”
I am so grateful for Dustin’s help. It was just a few years ago at a Convention in Kansas City that Dustin and I got to know each other. He asked me about upholstery and if it was very difficult. I spent just 5 or 10 minutes with him and showed him what I knew and how easy it was. He has been helping and teaching me ever since.
I think that 5-10 minutes was some of the most beneficial time… I know it was for me. It has been paying me dividends for years.Morale of the Story:
It is great when we in the Dr. Vinyl world can work together…and can share what we know so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.Mitch Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
All Who Wander Are Not LostmitchellreidParticipantBrannon,
You are getting good advice from Teresa. She is top shelf when it comes to repairs. She has led me in the right direction for years. Hope all goes well with your repair.
Mitch Reid
Dr. Vinyl Associate in Cookeville, TNmitchellreidParticipantTechs and Owners,
I am not sure if anyone in the field is monitoring these forums, but just in case there is someone doing so, I would like to encourage you to attend this years convention and fill out the 2020 Convention Response Form listed on the Dr. Vinyl Website. If you are as inept as I am in the technology field and have a hard time with this I am sure that a call to the Corporate office at 1-800-531-6600 will suffice in alerting Headquarters that you are indeed coming to the Convention on March 5-7, 2020. I really hope to see you there. Dr.Vinyl Corporate is trying to provide those of us in the field with this opportunity to help and benefit each other.
I personally would like to share what I have learned in the Upholstery world and would like to learn, in turn, from you as well. There is a wealth of knowledge that we have at our fingertips. That knowledge is stored in the hundreds of hours of experience that we have all spent in the field honing our craft. We merely need to allow each other to access that vast knowledge. I assure you we will all benefit. The perfect access point for this is at the conventions each year. Please consider coming to share what you and others have experienced in the last 12 months.
If the knowledge is not enough, there is always the opportunity to be encouraged by your peers. This is often overlooked at conventions but is so effective in motivating us for the upcoming months. I remember sitting at a table at a convention with a Father and Son run Franchise. They were a little down about what more could be done to grow their rural area. I took it upon myself to tell them about how our Franchise was also very rural and how we had gone about growing it. They were surprised to here that when our Franchise Owner originally inquired about purchasing our area Corporate was very concerned about him not being able to make a living in this rural setting. I let them know that we never gave up and tried our best to grow our Franchise every year, even if it was just a little bit of growth. I wanted so badly to encourage the Father and Son team and I did my best to tell them everything I could to help them. Lo and behold, the next year they came back to convention with a very different perspective and attitude. At first, I just thought they were happy to see me, as we had become fast friends and had spoken on the phone a few times over the last year. However, I was very surprised at how their demeanor had so drastically changed. When we sat down at a table again, just like we had done at the previous convention, they were very excited to introduce me to their two new techs that had come on board with them in the last 12 months! They had been motivated and encouraged enough by the last convention to strike out in their area, beat the bushes, and grow their business. At that convention they definitely encouraged me. To this day I remember them whenever I am feeling down or question what more I can do to grow our business.
Very much hope to see any and all of you within the sound of this forum at the 2020 Convention.
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering UpholsterermitchellreidParticipantMike,
I am glad to see someone else is monitoring the forums. I thought it was just me and Buster. Thanks for the interest in the online warehouse. I hope we will see some action soon.
Thanks,
Mitchell Reid
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