4. If maintaining a good image is important to your life, your career or your business, driving a damage-free vehicle is vital to maintaining that good image.

5. If you lease your vehicle, you will be responsible for repairs at lease end. You will be under less pressure (and get a better repair price) if you get the repairs done now.

6. Damage on a vehicle may say to a potential thief, this is a cheap car owner who is unlikely to pay for an anti-theft security system.

7. In some areas, police are more likely to stop a damaged vehicle.

8. Driving a flawless, beautifully refinished vehicle can add to your self- esteem and maybe even add to your success in life.

If any of these suggestions communicates to your prospective customer, he or she will be more likely to at least come in for a complete estimate. At that point it's up to you to convert them into a customer.

Why stop at college lots?

My former client told me there weren't any colleges anywhere close by. How could he make use of this strategy? While getting those affluent college kids as customers is certainly most desirable, I can't see any good reason to limit the strategy to college parking lots. Shopping malls with expensive department stores should be equally productive. Certainly there is an abundance of shoppers with dented vehicles. If the strategy works on college lots, it ought to work in nearly any parking lot.

Best of all, this strategy allows you to comply with the first (and perhaps most important) of the Twelve Commandments of Marketing: "When business is so slow that you have time on your hands, you must be out generating more business for your shop!" If you don't have a copy of the "Commandments," contact me and I'll send it to you, no charge.

So when business gets "real slow," try going straight to the real source of more business: careless drivers with vehicle damage that should be fixed in your shop.

Tom Franklin has been a sales and marketing representative and consultant for forty years and is the author of the books, "Business Battlefield Marketing for Body Shops," "Tom Franklin's Top 40 Marketing Tactics for Body Shops," and "Strategies for Greater Body Shop Growth." His marketing company now provides marketing solutions and services for body shops and other businesses. He can be reached for questions or comments at (323) 871-6862, by fax at (323) 465-2228, or by E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .