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Maximum Octane

Body Shops Don't Market. Here's Why That's About to Catch Up with Them

Ep. 146
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Most collision shops have spent the last 50 years letting insurance companies bring them work and calling it a strategy. It worked for a long time. It's working a lot less now, and the shops that haven't built any presence outside of their DRP relationships are starting to feel it. This episode is for every body shop owner who has ever said "we don't need to market" and is now wondering why the bays are quiet.


In this episode of Maximum Octane, Kim Hickey, Jason Patel, and ATI collision team leader Mike Paim sit down with Daniel Burkholder, founder of BodyShop Marketing and author of a complete internet marketing guide for the collision industry. Daniel grew up in his family's collision shop, spent years in shop management, and in 2023 launched the only marketing firm in the country built exclusively for body shops. He has seen the same blind spots across shops coast to coast, and he is not shy about naming them.


The conversation covers why the collision industry's historic dependence on DRPs has created a marketing blind spot that is becoming a real liability, why SEO and AI search results are now the highest ROI channel for body shops, and why spending money on marketing only when things get slow is exactly backwards. They get into brand building, the difference between search-based and awareness-based marketing, the importance of tracking every dollar spent, and why the shop that does not tell its own story is letting the algorithm write one for it. Daniel's two-part closing message is about as direct as it gets.


Tune in to episode 146 of Maximum Octane if you own or coach a collision shop and you are still relying on referrals and insurance relationships to fill the calendar. The market is shifting, the search landscape is shifting, and Daniel makes a compelling case that the shops building their brand right now are the ones that will be standing when it does.


Episode Takeaways:

  • 01:54 Why body shops came out of COVID fully booked and still skipped marketing, and why that mindset is exactly what puts them in a bad spot today
  • 07:01 The marketing spend benchmarks most collision shops have never heard: 5% of revenue to maintain, 10% to grow, 15% to grow aggressively
  • 09:21 How decades of DRP dependence became a limiting belief, and why shops convinced they "can't market" are wrong but not entirely without reason
  • 13:51 Why younger shop owners who think they can handle marketing themselves are making the same mistake as owners who have never touched it
  • 20:26 Where BodyShop Marketing sees the best ROI for clients right now: organic search, Google Ads, and the rapidly growing AI search landscape
  • 21:28 The second biggest problem Daniel sees across the industry: shops spending money on marketing with zero tracking and no idea what's working
  • 25:15 Why you can't turn on marketing when things get slow, and why Daniel will turn away shops that are already in trouble
  • 26:10 The long game of brand building: what it looks like when a shop owner's name becomes what people are searching for, not just the service
  • 29:29 The Safelite and Nike argument for why collision shops should be marketing even when they are fully booked
  • 34:32 Daniel's two closing takeaways for every shop owner: start marketing now, and track every single dollar you spend


Connect with Daniel Burkholder:


Connect with Mike Paim:


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