For Johnny, from Brian · October 2026

Selling your method to other shops

The business case, what stands in the way, and the order to do it in.

Bottom line

There's a real business here. Shops won't pay for your welder or your hands. They'll pay for a repeatable procedure, the training and a warranty they can sell. Today that procedure exists only in your head, so it can't be licensed, priced or protected yet.

The first asset to build is a written procedure: steps, specs, photos, and how each job gets checked. Everything else (the class, the licensing, the brand) is sold on top of that document.

What you're starting with

What has to be settled first

None of these kill the deal. Each one is cheaper to settle now than after a shop has paid you.

Three ways to sell it

Each level brings more money and more legal obligations. Prove each one before moving up.

  1. Paid classStart here

    A one-day, hands-on class for two or three Pennsylvania shops you already know. One repair (I'd pick the Wrangler), taught from your written procedure. They pay for the day. No brand, no ongoing fee.

  2. License the procedure

    Shops that took the class pay you on an ongoing basis for the manual, updates and warranty paperwork. They keep their own name.

  3. Franchise

    Shops run under your brand and system and pay you a fee plus royalties. It pays the most and carries the most regulation. For comparison, Ziebart charges a $45,000 fee and 8% of sales.Ziebart 2025 franchise disclosure

Why not franchise first? Once a shop pays you, uses your name and follows your system, the law treats it as a franchise. That means a federal disclosure document, and in New York and Maryland a state registration before you can even pitch a shop there. Pennsylvania has no registration requirement, so the first class stays in PA. And never promise a shop jobs or earnings. That's the claim that gets franchisors sued. FTC Franchise Rule, 16 CFR 436; NY and MD franchise laws

What I need from you

A two-hour sit-down. You talk, I write. These are the questions:

  1. What do you do that other frame shops don't?A Wrangler from start to finish, including the judgment calls a new tech would get wrong.
  2. What are the unit economics?Frames a month, average ticket, margin after parts and labor, and comeback rate.
  3. What training and insurance do you carry?I-CAR or other credentials, and what your garage policy covers.
  4. What would a partner shop get, and what should it pay?Your number to start. We'll check it against the comparables.
  5. Keep the name or rebrand the program?And what happened with the 2020 filing?
  6. How do calls and booking run today?Calls a day, how many go unanswered, and how jobs get booked.

Bring what you have:

The website

Built for the two people who drive your volume: an owner just told their truck is junk, and the mechanic deciding where to send it.

Its job is to turn calls into texts you can answer between jobs. A four-question checker qualifies the truck, the customer takes frame photos right on the page, and you get one text with the vehicle, the problem and the photos. Every visit is tagged by source (Craigslist, Facebook, flyer and others), and you get a Monday text with last week's numbers and which source produced the most leads.

Once it's switched on: missed calls get an automatic text back, voicemails arrive as texts, and every lead lands in one contact list on your phone.

Open the website

The next 30 days

  1. The two-hour sit-down.
  2. I write up the Wrangler procedure. You check and correct every step.
  3. You pick two or three shops for the first class.
  4. A franchise attorney and a trademark attorney review it before anyone pays you. The brief is ready, so the meeting goes to decisions.