00:00:00 – 00:01:06
[Music] welcome to the ride and style podcast your turbocharged pit stop for automotive restyling buckle up with Jesse and Josh welcome to another episode of the ride and style podcast we’re on episode 23 and this time we have Christopher go and Wade beer from Wicked wraps Christopher thank you so much for being with us today how you doing uh wonderful thank you so much it’s it’s Christopher goof Goff uh but no no I’m wonderful thank you very much for having me on your you know what

00:00:37 – 00:01:41
Christopher I’ve actually never said your last name out loud and I should have asked you so I uh good you can imagine there are 10 ways Jesse of saying my last name up school all my relationships is it like German or something where’s Goff where does that name come from it’s a German Mid Eastern Heritage uh so kind of the European uh you know El so yeah it comes from that element there are there are 10 ways I actually looked it up to pronounce my last name I’ve heard I’ve actually heard

00:01:09 – 00:02:10
12 or 15 we might even make up one another one today how about about go did you come you can’t add in silent words or silent letters to someone’s last name just because you think it sounds bad I’ve got Google somebody actually called me Google one day I’m go you wish you wish your last name was Google yeah I must said the French version I was doing the French version I guess awesome man well uh thank you tell us a little bit about first of all let’s just talk about the business that you’re

00:01:40 – 00:02:33
in right now so that you let our listeners know you know what Wicked wraps is all about and then we’ll when your partner uh Wade comes in we’ll we’ll chat with him too but tell us a little bit about your business we could start there Wicked wraps is a custom automotive Creative Design Company we specialize in vinyl applications and that is exactly what it means when you walk in our or we usually expect and hear uh we don’t know what we want or we have an idea of what we want or can you

00:02:06 – 00:02:55
do this to our ride ladies and gentlemen like to introduce you to Mr Wade hey Wade yeah little late to the show today sorry guys it’s all right man Wade carries 20 hats and so just even get him to sit down here for a few minutes is is it’s pretty remarkable because he’s got to go and we know we got to go but uh you know he’s he’s the he’s the man behind the myth he’s the one that created this he’s the one that founded the opportunity of what Wicked wraps is today

00:02:31 – 00:03:18
every day I don’t think this guy sleeps without coming up with an idea of what we’re going to do the next day to make and enhance our company so I’m along for the ride when it comes to what it’s like to be here with Wicked wraps I I uh help Wade with a lot of ideas on what we’re going to do and and I support him you know and I’m I’m his left hand when it comes when he’s when he’s dealing with the right over and modifying and making things happen I’m over here keeping

00:02:54 – 00:03:53
things together or building something speaking with a client and uh together we we build this incredible company company and every single day it’s gotten better and better uh Wade good to see you man how you doing doing good living life why don’t we Super Why don’t you go back in time a little bit and just give us the history of how you started this thing uh back when you met me and you wrapped a a van I had and like 20 years ago so Wade and I go go back a little ways and but tell us how you started the company and so we

00:03:24 – 00:04:26
can hear that history how’d you get into this Automotive world yeah well I mean I think I’ve been in the automotive world since I was a little kid um there’s never been a time where I wasn’t tinkering with something or creating building crafting and really um my passion for automotive restyling started with Hot Wheels um you know because my my parents reminded me you know a few weeks back when I was talking to my dad that uh there was a trip that they took us on to Florida and I was

00:03:55 – 00:04:55
stuck in an RV for very long periods of time and my parents would allow me to purchase some Hot Wheels along the way but then I decided that I needed to modify my Hot Wheels which I did so with a hammer and glue things so I would take the bodies off and put you know a different body with a lifted truck body and uh then I took it a step further I started staging all my Hot Wheels out and then I had you know the old school Kodak camera they had the Reel and I don’t know where that camera went um I

00:04:25 – 00:05:28
took a lot of photos of my Hot Wheels who knows what those photos ever even looked like cuz I never developed them but honestly I think that that’s where where a lot of my passion started to grow for cars um and then you know fast forward all the way through you know past high school and all that stuff I was looking for something to do with my life um and you know started building a hot rod uh went got it to the stage where I was ready for for paint and went to see a guy named Miche L Valley in

00:04:56 – 00:05:58
snom she on killer paint at the time and you know this was probably five or six years after he had uh just you know done his Monster Garage TV with Jesse James and that was kind of you know on the downward Trend as other things were starting to come to light and in the reality TV side of things and he innovated the real firef flames and at the time that’s what I thought I wanted on my truck and so went to see him uh in my early 20s uh he quoted me around 60,000 to airbrush his truck and you

00:05:27 – 00:06:25
know yeah he’s he was taled he’s worth every penny of what he’s asking for but I couldn’t afford that so the alternate Avenue was vinyl decal so I bought a plotter started making decals in in my bedroom and and at the time I think people just thought I was crazy because I literally had like naked women decals and this kind of decal and I had the Calvin and Hobs you know decal where he’s peeing on the Ford emblem I just was making anything to everything I could and just cutting different colors

00:05:57 – 00:06:56
and then before I knew I had an eBay store and then I was like well what are what more can I do with these decals and so I dove a little deeper and it was reading magazines uh that were talking about wide format printing and that would be right around 2006 when I would start to inquire about that and at the time everything was commercial geared and I thought to myself I could buy this printer and I could print my Flames why can’t I print Flames or printing sandwiches and stuff why can’t I print

00:06:26 – 00:07:33
fire yeah and so that’s where it really kind of started and um you know I ended up wrapping this truck in the real fire flame wrap for the first time ever and that was in 2007 at the time and took it to a classic car show ended up taking a second place try next to the airbrush artist Mike L valy at killer paint and I thought that was you know pretty cool because I had this little fancy sticker that I shoved on my primer body S10 that when I kept telling everybody that it was a vinyl WAP it was just like well

00:07:00 – 00:07:54
what is a vinyl wrap I’m like well you know the same thing that’s on your van that you have for your plumbing company you’re likew that that can’t be the same it’s that’s a billboard and this is Flames it looks like paint yeah and so I kept trying to explain that to people but really as that was happening the gears started to shift in my head like oh do I really want to chase Automotive restyling or and what I’m am what am I creating here is more of a marketing company and should I shift gears and

00:07:26 – 00:08:34
Chase commercial market and that’s when uh Wicked R’s name came to light and I decided that I would scale back my normal workflow and that’s how I jumped into La tip and B and I and uh chamber groups and ultimately would meet Jesse and I was just a young 20s something year old punk who was just trying to build something for myself and I can tell you that coming into a group with 40 plus business owners that had way more experience than I had was certainly intimidating um but came in with energy

00:08:01 – 00:08:53
and my goal was to sell everybody and their mom as many wraps as I could humanly get people to purchase in there and and as Jesse knows there was probably a lot of things at that time that I did that weren’t necessarily um you know rap related because that’s kind of how you start a business in the beginning you’ve got to do a little of everything until you really hone in as to what your craft is yeah so that that’s kind of the back story today so I got I got a couple questions for you so

00:08:27 – 00:09:21
when you’re doing those Hot Wheels did you ever get electrical tape out and just do the first Chrome delete ever um you know it’s it’s quite possible that I did um but yeah I I was literally taking car bodies and I would very carefully use a a a screwdriver and a hammer and I’d separate the body from the chassis oh yeah and I modding the wheels and tires and I would glue the wheels and tires back onto the chassis and now I had a car that looked like it was a lifted truck yeah so I did a lot

00:08:54 – 00:09:50
you took that van those van wheels off and you put them on like a little Fiero and B that thing looked awesome oh yeah I like uh that’s pretty cool so did you did you teach yourself how to put vinyl on like when you did your S10 did you teach yourself did you I mean I don’t think YouTube videos were really there a thing back then no not really because raps were still kind of like like uh secretive almost at that time it was like oh well you know a lot of people don’t realize they thought the only

00:09:22 – 00:10:16
thing they could get on their their van at that time was just a decal but companies like Coca-Cola and Fredo Le and all these other brands out there wrapping their box trucks why can’t the normal consumer do the same thing and I think that that’s that was the shift that I was in I was in the beginning of that shift where it was going from commercial and only being this thing that these large companies did um I was getting into it as a small guy Boutique shop and now I can start offering

00:09:49 – 00:10:48
tailoring those types of services to Everyday customers gotcha so you’re pretty much selftaught that you you got a lot of trial and error yep lots of failure in order to find the right way to do things I’m an old school vinyl guy okay so when when RS you know I used to do a lot of decals and you know that kind you know the the kits that would come on from Auto Trim Express I’m just I’m really dating myself sharp line and Universal and all those guys yeah I know sharp line I know all those yeah so when

00:10:19 – 00:11:16
rap came around I said where has this been all my life because you know you mess up vinyl you put a wrinkle in vinyl it’s done forever you can’t go around anything curvature so what what was what was the film you were using back then and how did you did you just start pulling it and putting it on a piece of bumper and trying to make it work or what yeah so I I started out doing wet applied decals first yeah with a a plotter and you know you know the struggle of trying to lay down a checkered graphic on the side of

00:10:47 – 00:11:40
someone’s car with transfer tape and everything is going down wet and you can’t pull the transfer tape right away because it’s GNA yank off the tiny little square that hasn’t dried all the way yeah I mean I’d spend 10 hours trying to install the world’s smallest decal just to get a perfect look and you know when you speed into the wrap side of things you’re dealing with a different animal you’ve got a product that has memory to it it’s uh got Air relase Technology it’s repositionable to

00:11:13 – 00:12:11
a certain extent and you can conform and manipulate the product but most importantly we could crumble it all up into a ball and then pull it all apart put some heat on W and as long as we haven’t stress cracked the ink or things of that nature then likely we are able to heat it and bring that film back to looking like it was never harmed which is amazing the technology came about yeah it’s definitely come a long ways I mean when I first started wrapping I was using you know sharp line uh we still

00:11:43 – 00:12:33
actually use Universal products today we order all our pin stripes from Universal products so they’re they’re a great supplier from that and and we use Pinstripes every day um and I still uh Christopher and I just uh striped up an old Grady White uh fiberglass boat and when that came through I looked at Chris I was like dude this is uh this is old school like oh what do you mean by that I’m like well we’re not going to stripe this boat with rap film it wouldn’t make sense to do that we’re going to order

00:12:08 – 00:12:57
Stripes from Universal products we’re going to get the colors as close as we can to the original remove what’s there we know there’s going to be a fade and we just got to make sure that that that stripe is perfectly along that fade there or a little bit larger Christopher and did you make Christopher take off the graphics on that boat yes sir absolutely gosh everybody everybody needs to go through that one time in their life agree I agree yeah I went from one career stripping now I’m doing

00:12:32 – 00:13:33
a whole another one oh I can’t wait to get to that question okay yeah wow sure check out only f p that’s awesome that’s awes I think everybody here in the shop uh all the way to you know Haven our operations manager has removed a decal or wrap or something everybody here has experienced the blisters and the pain that comes along with removing some of that stuff um I don’t get blisters on my fingers anymore but that’s just because 19 years your skin just gets used to it but you

00:13:03 – 00:14:20
still smell like citrus because of all the remover oh yes yeah one big Palace his heart his brain everything basically you know I’m part Citrus remover now and I think the rest of my body is 70% isopropyl so not 90% just 70% that’s good just 70 so how did you two meet um well uh as I meet many people like I met Jesse you know helping him out you know all those years goes with with his other business adventures and and whatnot uh Chris reached out to me on uh a project back in like you know

00:13:40 – 00:14:38
2009 um he had a h uh H1 Hummer at the time that was you know pretty popular back at that time that was a pretty cool car if you had an H1 Hummer you were doing something right and uh so Chris got introduced to me from a local sign shop that uh Chris was having them produce like all his real estate signs for his real estate company they reached out to me because they were had been around in sish for about 30 years uh they made all the political type signs and things like that but they had no idea what it took to rap yeah and I’m

00:14:10 – 00:15:06
not a sign maker I’m a rap guy and so they reached out to me and they wanted to wholesale the project out to me so that they can make a little bit of money but I would you know do all the work and it looks like they you know did the rap at the end of the day so we fast forward a little bit Chris comes by my shop at the time was in Marysville um and I get introduced to him and he’s telling me like hey I want to wrap this whole Hummer I want to picture my head on the side I need a picture of these hands

00:14:39 – 00:15:29
like this literally they’re hands like like how I’m holding now holding some keys that are just floating out of the side of the car I’m like cool I can do that so create this design and uh I don’t even think at the time I even sent Chris a proof because no back then it was Dro off pick up yeah pretty much I was coaching his kid in soccer and he says you know what he you know you’ve done so much real estate for everybody on the team no one knows who you are you should put some logos in your truck I

00:15:04 – 00:15:55
said well great I’ve got a homer why don’t we WRA it’s like a billboard he goes well this would be great he say I can’t do it but I got a friend who does it he’s he’s opened up a shop there in Maryville so I think this is actually back 2007 because I bought my I went to Napa drove the first Hummer back in 2005 and then you know I came back here and I was like I I want one so as soon as they opened up into com I bought it and I took it to Wade and my ideas in my head were were expressed Wade took it just

00:15:29 – 00:16:27
perfectly but he put He took it very logically and just theoretically said okay I’ll give you what you want yeah and uh you know so when I came back to pick up the H2 maybe it was a week later uh I I drive up and he backs it out and sure enough there is a two and a half by three foot picture of my head is big as you can imagine just staring you right in the face from the door and then there’s the ghost hands with the keys and then just a few little other things on the on the and of course I was like

00:15:59 – 00:16:50
well that cool I well let’s it was different in my head but let’s let’s run with this and uh I uh luckily I was going on vacation for that week so I picked it up and I had one of my assistants drive it around and she goes I’m embarrassed to be driving around with your big ass head on the side of my truck but I’ve never driven an H2 so I’m just getting used to it as long as I don’t look at the door I’m okay so for about our first week though I started getting known I I

00:16:24 – 00:17:20
started getting uh pings from everybody in my in my group people driving down the road seeing the H2 saying man you are now the guy with the big ass head yeah and so I had that going for me uh but Ming on I I did so much business because of that uh so then I took it back to Wade few months later yeah I think we ended up removing it h Chris went a different route and then for he’s like hey I got a Dodge Viper can you do something with this and we’re pimping out Dodge Viper he’s like hey I picked

00:16:51 – 00:17:41
up this 900 RR CBR uh what can we do with that and we ended up doing a really cool like spider wrap design on it um and I I swear every car I did Chris is just bringing to me he’s like decorate it and then he’s like hey I just sold it he’s like I sold it for more than what I paid for like so you know it it we’ve always had a really good Synergy of working together I think when Chris and I met it was kind of like two lost Brothers found each other yeah yeah it was pretty great it was pretty great and

00:17:17 – 00:18:15
I don’t think we ever thought at that time that we’d actually enter into business together I think we we focus on a friendship aspect of our friendship over all these years and uh you know life just kind of showered down an opportunity for me and I used that opportunity to re Envision the tunnel of this you know company that that I started all these years ago and how do I grow it and how do I align myself with the right partner and the right person and I need to have somebody that’s as

00:17:45 – 00:18:43
energized as me a dreamer a go-getter a hustler uh someone that knows how to make people like them because as we know in business everything is relationship based and Chris compliments me in all those aspects and and and brings a lot of really amazing positive energy to the company and we both do really well with the you know bad cop good cop type of thing well yeah you’re Wade’s natural intelligent it’s potent and people don’t recognize when they look into his eyes what he’s capable of thinking he’s

00:18:15 – 00:19:11
tearing he’s tearing apart a conversation and he’s already rebuilding what you’re trying to tell him before you’re done talking to him and he surprises everyone with his Artistry and he’s very humble so he doesn’t truly consider himself an artist but if you watch him work it is no different than watching a painter paint or a horse trainer train a horse there’s there’s a there’s a really fine line at being able to be good at something and then being great at something and and weade Crosses

00:18:43 – 00:19:40
that line within seconds and so uh when you take someone like me that can do that to a person and and I can help their their exposure in their life I can help Elevate their potential of being a great person finding extraordinary results in ordinary situations and you compliment myself next Wade who has that that power in technicality and understanding his his trade craft like a like an expert uh and then you put us in the same room together with somebody who doesn’t quite know what they want I’ve

00:19:12 – 00:19:59
elevated them he’s inspired them I’m moving them he’s got them just moving and by the time they walk out of here they’re just almost shaking with excitement and we get that same that same elevation when they come back to pick up their rig they give us a hug they’re so happy about they’re like I don’t know how you dove into my mind and did that that but what you’ve done is you’ve made me happy you’ve made my business grow and I can’t wait to tell a hundred people about you and that’s

00:19:35 – 00:20:33
that’s what makes Wade nice partnership so great yeah that’s awesome um I want to I want to talk about something uh you guys do something a little interesting to me a lot of restylers uh and and and folks in the industry they’re heavy on the dealership side so they do a lot of business with dealerships and then they’re trying to expand the retail and one area that they’re usually quite weak in is the commercial Fleet side and you guys are the opposite you guys have actually done

00:20:04 – 00:21:01
very successful with commercial Fleet and now you’re only now beginning to expand even more into dealerships and Retail so can you talk a little bit about that the commercial side and just how you’re networking and how you’re growing the business I think a lot of people would be interested to know yeah I think for anybody that’s jumping into you know rapping or exploring that I think solid color is a good way to learn it’s a good way to understand how the film reacts how it works uh getting into commercial is

00:20:33 – 00:21:27
changing the game because now we have registration uh we have alignment we have all these other things that we now have to account for you know is their logo printed the right size is it the right panone colors did you know we use the right font is the background correct is it overpowering the logo there’s a lot more that goes into you know commercial side branding because we have to keep The Branding consistent across all forms and you could wrap a box truct for a client and then the next day they

00:21:00 – 00:21:59
show up and they’ve got some unique truck that we now need to modify this full wrap design now into a partial wrap design and so it’s it can be difficult at times but very lucrative because when you’re on the creative side you’re getting the charge for that creative aspect and and so there’s more Revenue to be made in the commercial side than on the solid color you know Market in in my opinion and we also got to look at you know as things change out there in the world if the economy gets affected

00:21:29 – 00:22:27
or things like that maybe my solid color business is going to die down I can always lean back on that custom print side of things and be able to um you know always have that as a reserve because I not only can tailor to the commercial side but someone comes through and says print me a salmon skin boat wrap I’ve got that ability to do that yeah and so being on the commercial side in in my opinion is extremely important and anybody in the rap business should focus at least 70% of their business on on that model the

00:21:58 – 00:22:38
other percentage will come naturally because anybody that owns a business that has a great business owns a nice car and they’re going to take that nice car they’re going to want it tinted they’re going to want the ceramic coating they’re going to want the Chrome delete they want the paint protection film because we’ve already built the relationship with them on the commercial side and made their brand look good which makes them make money and then they’re going to take their money and

00:22:18 – 00:23:22
take their personal car and bring it right back to us and be happy to spend that money right back with us without ever even batting an i at at our price because we’ve built built that relationship with them um is that is that how you guys got into uh uh wrapping planes and and businesses walls I mean you guys rap anything right you’re wrapping everything 100% I mean uh wall wraps kind of came because it started with again show and tell right anything I bring into the business if I go to try

00:22:50 – 00:23:37
and make somebody believe that it’s something that they could put in their house or their business I need to establish it just like this wall wrap in our shop because my whole goal is I could tell and talk and do all these things over the phone but I’d much rather get the person here to my shop because if I get them here they’re going to see it they’re going to touch it they’re gonna feel it they’re gonna believe it I give my price done well we Al you know this is what made Wade and I

00:23:13 – 00:24:05
such great friends to start with is we we understood logic together we would laugh about it because a lot of people have intelligence but no common sense right and so when when we look at how we can compliment each other uh we look at those age-old tactics from The Art of War You Know The Enemy of my enemy is my friend you can spin that into a positive note you when you duvail that up against the fact that you want to keep your friends closer or your friends closer and your enemies closer we started

00:23:39 – 00:24:32
utilizing those elements in our business strategy so instead of going after a targeted One Direction like a sniper would we’re going after it with a big shotgun effect but as we find out what’s most valuable out there then we’ll start hyperfocusing on that so we’ll we’ll send the warning shot of what we’re looking to do and that is to the the fleet industry or if I do go into say a car dealership I’m that guy that can walk in and within five minutes I know your kids names I know your puppy I know

00:24:06 – 00:25:04
when you guys got married everyone loves me when I start talking to them because I have that aura it’s a natural gift so you use that to your benefit right you flaun it you just push it out there and my goal is to get out there and get the name known and let people know that we can do anything and everything and weade hit it perfectly if you hit a champagne tower on the top flute it’s going to fill everything down below so what we do is we go out there and we hit the bigger businesses that all have 10 to 40 employ

00:24:34 – 00:25:31
or rigs uh with five to 500 employees all of those people typically own a car have a home I know somebody that owns a car or has a home we don’t need to impress everybody right we need to impress somebody and as we know that the world is surrounded and built by six people that it’s it’s basically the law of attraction is what that means it means that you are basically the derivative of six people that are have value in your life that made you the person you are today so we use that again as our business strategy I get out

00:25:04 – 00:25:57
and I keep it going weight keeps it flowing by as me going out there bringing a lot of these contents in and through weight’s 20 years in the business and my 30 years in the business again what we’re focused on is the hyperintensity of relationship building cultivating it incubating it yeah and making sure that every single day that’s what we focus on and if you focus on the right things everything else cumbersome comes it it it tones it down it’s organic so when we look like we’re a

00:25:30 – 00:26:19
duck just letting water run off our back we are we are paddling like hell underneath you don’t most people never see how hard we are truly working because we make it look easy and that’s the sign and that’s the definition of a true professional yeah and one thing I was going to answer you know about commercial stuff uh obviously we we tailor to you know one commercial vehicle all the way to a growing company that may grow into 10 vehicles or servicing from someone that’s already

00:25:55 – 00:26:51
got an established Fleet and then continuing to build on that Fleet uh to answer your question in regards to Vashon aircraft and that you know uh unique relationship uh that happened by complete Serendipity um you know I always tell this story because a lot of people don’t understand what it’s like to work in the airplane realm it is very very strict uh there’s a lot of you know vinyl rap companies 3M a Dennison they don’t endorse it they don’t stand behind it they don’t give you any love for

00:26:23 – 00:27:21
touching these planes because they’re so scared about any vinyl being stuck to an aircraft and so ultimately you know how that happened was I got an opportunity to wrap this half million doll carbon fiber plane that was called a diamond star and it was for a client of ours who owns um glass vodka distillery out of Seattle he was the second distillery in Seattle and he thought hey I have this really cool plane it lives at Galvin flying school in Seattle I rent this thing out and the reason he rents it is

00:26:52 – 00:27:54
because the rental fees will pay for the servicing of the aircraft every year hey smart he knows he’s got the sexest plane and every body wants to rent it at the Flying school so he’s like hey can you wrap this thing so I reached out to a Dennis and said hey here’s the plane I’m looking to wrap and they say is it pressurized nope free game sweet cool so I scheduled this appointment I end up arranging a hanger and everything I rent this hanger for two weeks we wrapped this plane from white to Diamond Sparkle

00:27:22 – 00:28:14
Silver with a champagne glass spilling down the side and the reason it’s called glass Voda Distillery because they have a lot of handblown glass in there so just think like d Chuli and all the rainbow colors just spilling out of a martini glass down the side of the plane so we wrapped this whole plane in solid color then we came back and added printed pieces to help complete this look uh we put honeybees on there because he was a big honey be supporter uh under the wings it had 14 foot long

00:27:48 – 00:28:41
lettering underneath both sides said glass vodka under the wings I mean one hell of a badass billboard if you ask me so we this thing we spent two weeks customer comes picks up freaking mind blown I’ve got these insane pictures of this plane sitting out on the tarmac with all the you know Boeing planes being built out there nobody gets those photos yeah but I’ve I’ve got some and they’re pretty awesome and uh long story short is we wrap this plane customer picks it up flies it down the gon flying

00:28:15 – 00:29:07
school that day and the plane is red flagged so if you don’t know what a red flag means it basically means that you can’t fly because the FAA is thinks there’s something weird about your plane and likely something wasn’t either log booked or something wasn’t recorded reported or something was it and so there was a few little things that were learned in the process of doing that both on on my end as just being a vinyl rap guide not being a pilot not understanding the legalities of you know

00:28:41 – 00:29:38
all those things and ultimately uh myself and the client tried to work with the FAA over the course of three months and I actually had the FAA come and tour my shop uh because that’s how much uh of a red flag this created and um you know long story short they ground the plane 90 days goes by they came back basically told my customer that he could have the wrap on there he could continue to have the wrap but it would need to be ensured as a special interest plane at that point in time which you can’t rent a

00:29:10 – 00:30:04
special interest plane so when that came to fish he basically just said at that point that’s like taking a $45,000 loss every year so he’s like I’m not going to do that and so he said it’s like getting a a new puppy bringing it home finding out it’s definitely sick and then you have to take it out back and put it out of its misery and that’s kind of what it felt like and and I remember having to go down and remove this beautiful wrap and I just the whole time I’m cussing and

00:29:36 – 00:30:31
I’m just mad and I’m pissed because we’re removing this really beautiful rep if they if they would have painted it would it would it have been okay well so here’s the deal with this plane and what I’ve learned about carbon fiber aircrafts is carbon fiber is painted white because carbon fiber is naturally gray and black and when the plane gets higher in the air the solar conductivity changes so the plane is absorbing more energy from the Sun and there’s also static charge and all these things that

00:30:04 – 00:30:59
happen up in the air that we’re just not aware of I’m not a pilot I don’t understand these things but I’ve learned a lot through that and so ultimately anything that is carbon fiber you need to have it re remain white if it becomes something other than that then it’s going to be insured as a special interest aircraft or a helicopter or whatever it might might be uh that’s the only way to get around it and the reason is because my understanding now I’m not saying that this is a bold claim for

00:30:31 – 00:31:32
anybody watching but my understanding is that carbon fiber the further gets up in the sky the closer it gets to the sun it’s been known to melt when it’s uh not painted things like white or has that coating on there gocha okay um so that’s crazy see you did all that work made it look awesome but at least you got some good pictures cuz I mean you you did it you did it I know it was in the air and the real the real beauty of that story is that the whole time that I rented this hanger I rented it from a lady who

00:31:01 – 00:32:09
was a flight instructor over at Northway aviation in Everett on panfield and not knowing that she worked for a company called cdk engineering which is Vashon aircraft and donon avionics and they were building number one and number two uh Ranger the aircraft the light sport aircraft that they make and they were looking for designs on it they just didn’t know what they wanted to do and ultimately this is a 10 plane fiberglass aircraft and now I’m talking to the manufacturer yeah so I got my foot in the door with them by

00:31:35 – 00:32:23
creating custom white vinyls to match the painted parts of the aircraft so we could wrap raw fiberglass make it look like paint and keep the weight down which was huge for bash on aircraft I think that saves between 12 and 16 pounds on every plane uh which that’s you know additional fishing pole you know different things you can get in the aircraft that’s huge for those guys um ultimately Avery Dennison creates a custom white film for us uh we wrap a lot of fiberglass Parts in white that

00:31:59 – 00:32:56
you wouldn’t know are are wrapped because it just looks like the painted parts of the aircraft and then we do everything um I I would say every 120 days we do about four planes and every single plane that comes through uh minus a few is a custom order someone wants a custom stripe or maybe you got your first commercial flight job for for Alaska Airlines back in the 80s and it was American Aviation West and you want your Ranger plane that you just bought because now you’re in your 70s and

00:32:27 – 00:33:28
you’re retired you still like to fly but you want it to match that first original Boeing plane that you first flew so I’m getting a lot of requests where we’re taking old retro designs off of big massive Boeing planes and then scaling the design down to fit onto these Ranger aircrafts so if I so if I see a Ranger with a tww or a PanAm going around I’m gonna be like I’m gon know Wicked RS did that and we just and we actually did a PanAm one not long ago awesome so quite a few of those different ones out there

00:32:57 – 00:33:59
it’s it’s a fun unique thing to be in and be part of um I still don’t get much love from Avery or anybody in the vinyl industry and that’s okay um because the the way I kind of look at it um is the rap industry encourages and endorses young people and all the way up until their you know elderly to wrap everything and anything and they wrap super exotic cars that are upwards of four to5 million and some even more expensive than that that can hit speeds of 300 miles per hour and and a lot of

00:33:28 – 00:34:26
these airplanes that I do will only get as high as 4 to 7,500 feet in the air and are maybe traveling at speeds of 100 to 120 mes per hour so the reality of it is is that there seems to be a misconstrued there and I think part of that just because of fa’s control in in America because if we are in the UK I can tell you that they’re already applying vinyl to aircrafts and massive Jets they don’t have a problem doing it over there that’s just restrictions in this country yeah so you know but I will

00:33:56 – 00:34:49
also uh end that with anybody that is on the commercial side if you’re smart and you have a client that is manufacturing and building something a trailer uh a plane a custom vehicle get involved and find out what they’re doing and understand their build process because there’s a lot of ways to upsell and say hey what are you guys doing over there well how come you’re leaving the dash raw aluminum like that and they’re like well because we’re gonna put this crummy velcro product on here but it looks like

00:34:24 – 00:35:16
crap well hey cool we’ve got this textured carbon fiber film that looks really awesome aome it looks highend we could wrap it right over the metal it looks like it’s factory and we’ve elevated the look of your trailer or your plane and now what I did is I I generated a a product in inventory that they now add to their inventory and now I get to build them every time they make a plane just for that one little idea I had that now becomes a constant Revenue generator for the business so the

00:34:50 – 00:35:37
manufacturing side it’s a little different it’s all the time and and Vashon and and also Mammoth Overland they don’t fit in our normal schedule we have a normal schedule that serves all of our normal clients they don’t fit in there because they’re like hey we got four ples we need them done um I can’t tell a Manufacturing Company hey sorry guys You Gotta Wait 90 days yeah uh then we’ll get to your planes um it doesn’t really work that way when they say JUMP we I got to go up there and get the

00:35:13 – 00:36:02
planes done and and get them out the door that’s just uh that’s the downside of on being on the manufacturing side but it’s constant repeat business which also on the flip side allows us to be more aggressive on our commercial reps because we we have that that play or power to do that and then we can also be really aggressive on our solid color wraps as well but that’s also partly because we’re we’re growing our team right um here and also because Jesse is just been you know killing it with our

00:35:37 – 00:36:37
SEO and you know he’s making us look good online and and he’s got another website he’s gonna be working on which I just got today Jesse so um yeah that that’s do you want to talk about that other business is this an appropriate time to mention that yeah sure um yeah I mean there’s a few new things happening here one I’ll start with uh because I don’t I even think you know yet Jesse uh but we did become an official distributor and dealer for XK glow um that is a product that I personally

00:36:07 – 00:36:56
believe in and like um I’m one of those people where sometimes I’ll buy something for my own car and just decide if I like it and run with it for a little while and what I find is it’s a super great product it works every time I need it to work and we’re getting requests for it but being part of XK glow isn’t just about glow kits it’s everything from interior to exterior it’s about adding you know fog lights that you can control and make different colors uh they’ve got a one that’s a

00:36:32 – 00:37:25
search and rescue light which is super awesome you can put this this entire system goes up on top of your roof like a roof rack it’s all LED bands all the way around and you can take a dial a little dial inside your car and you turn the dial and it moves the LED light around like a spotlight and it’s it’s pretty cool um you know they do whip lights for like your utvs and and things of that nature which uh next time you’re here at the shop Jesse you’ll see a really cool uh display system that we

00:36:58 – 00:37:55
mount to the walls it lights up um I’m one of those people where I believe in putting the product and stuff right in people’s faces because I want people to touch C Phil po um and so uh that’s a new product offering I’ve already got uh two people already on jobs for those uh one will be for Corvette that we’re going to do a full underglow system on uh that would be for the back the blue one that you saw Jesse at the Wolfpack arena football game nice and then we just booked an older client that is a

00:37:27 – 00:38:19
commercial client it owns a garage door company and we are installing some uh lights that are called Rock lights which will be installed up underneath the fender Wells of this truck to illuminate the bottom and then he wanted a uh LED strip light across the back that goes underneath the tailgate it’s a sequential light which just means that instead of it just being you know one big brake light it can do the blinker and and it like does the tracing thing on one side and on the other side and so

00:37:53 – 00:38:47
we’re going to install that for him um so I already can see an a a good profit margin there not so much do we make a ton of profit on the product but the install and the labor is where we make make the money on that um it probably really it probably really helps your when you have a cool design like a new color change wrap or something like that and then you add the lighting to it and even absolutely so yeah absolutely yeah people see like my car I’ll turn the lights on like dude how’d you do that

00:38:20 – 00:39:20
and how come you have like lights flashing here and lights flashing there and it’s just understanding how to make the kits work and do that but that’s what makes XK glow systems in my opinion one of the best in the market right now um because everything is so Plug and Play One app controls everything yeah and and that’s what also makes it you know really cool um now uh back to you know the other part of Jesse’s question there for anybody that Tunes in or is listening um I’ve always am in the

00:38:50 – 00:39:51
background trying to think of what is wicked rap’s next move do we want to remain as a rap company do we continue to travel the road of being home PED in on that or do we start to step outside the box of a 20-year brand and start to diversify our our coat of armor and so um about a year ago I had a dream and the dream was wicked wash um I had an idea to create a wash program that would maintain our Fleet customers and our WAP customers so that we could stay on top of our customers again creating that

00:39:20 – 00:40:12
high touch uh experience with our customers so that I have a guy out there at the same Fleet customer that we just wrapped last week but he’s getting SE all 22 other vehicles that we’ve done over the course of seven years and you can say Hey you remember vehicle 425 well that one’s that one we wrapped back in you know 2012 um it’s starting to look old we may want to look at removing the hood and replacing the hood on this one you know it’s an opportunity for us to to continue to keep that

00:39:46 – 00:40:46
relationship close uh Wicked wash will be an on the spot wash uh it will serve everything from inside to outside of the vehicle uh from undercarriage cleaning to you know pressure washer trailer to big giant box trucks to heavy equipment uh Christopher and I are not you know afraid to take on just about any of it uh we have a custom built out Dodge Ram truck that is going to come to Market looking freaking awesome I’ve got a killer wrap design that I can’t wait to share with the world um I know it’s

00:40:16 – 00:41:11
going to be a huge hit in the p&w here just think Seattle Kraken Seattle Mariners that’ll kind of give you an idea of the color palette that we’re going to go with um that’s a strategic play me playing off Pacific Northwest Vibes and and also playing off the you know massive love for our sports teams here um the truck will future a skid Mount system that will give us the ability to uh provide shop back pressure washing with a water tank system uh extraction machine in there and a

00:40:44 – 00:41:39
generator system so we can run other tools other equipment um we are going to invest in a Ryobi system which I think is pretty cool which is going to give us the ability to have some electric equipment as well but also so that we have a a wand that is electric powered that also has a scrubber on the end of it so we can you know get some of those bigger box trucks and things cleaned quicker and faster and cause less fatigue on on the employee or the person that’s having to work some of that equipment yeah now on cars maybe you

00:41:12 – 00:42:06
know we don’t use something like that because we’re not trying to you know cause damage to the paint but for a box truck application it would be perfectly okay to to to use for something like that um but Wicked wash uh I would say we hope to have that up and going by end of June uh I’m shooting for like right after Fourth of July to have the truck wrapped trailer wrapped and for Jesse’s going to have poor Jesse’s got a lot of work to do um so but I’m super excited to bring it to Market I’m super excited

00:41:38 – 00:42:31
to to have Wicked wash become part of the wicked wraps family and we’re not going to stop there that is just one of the many pieces that I’m bringing to the table and uh my goal and Christopher’s goal there is just to lock and dial in that that business don’t be surprised if you see me out there you know doing some of these cars and beginning or Chris we are the type of dudes that believe in understanding our equipment our machines and how do we do it and then we from there we train our guys and and we make

00:42:05 – 00:42:50
them passionate about it because they’re going to see that hey wait and Christopher out there washing the cars we want we want our team to to know that we can also do the work well get we’ll get recognized by understanding how to do it we’ll be able to train but then we’ll also create content all at the same time everything that Jesse needs to make sure that this site goes viral before we truly open it up to the public yeah and you know if you have a Wrap Shop you got a window tint shop and and

00:42:27 – 00:43:13
you do window tint pay protection film you don’t rrap cars right now and you’ve honed in your tint and PPS side of it start thinking about adding wraps to your business you know if you’re running something that’s closer to Wicked wraps and you do design print install you offer the print side wraps you offer the solid color the paint protection film The Window Tint and you’re killing it and all those Avenues then it’s now time to start thinking about what the next step of your business is speak um to me

00:42:49 – 00:43:46
wicked wash makes sense it’s hand in also speaking of which you teach classes now that’s something that I want you to address it’s very interesting a way to give back also so uh really quick Josh my my brother-in-law teaches auto automotive mechanics at the local school Wade and Christopher have gone in there I think multiple times right and taught uh to the class but then also he’s planning on bringing people to his shop not just to train your employees but also to get like certifications or

00:43:17 – 00:44:05
something can you touch on that yeah so so right now Christopher and I and Chris has actually been encouraged me to do like a local type you know program where we could take Tor to local locals and that would be something that I personally would teach and for me it might be something that’s maybe more of a bu business Builder type package where not only are we teaching you a little bit about what rapping is but we’re also teaching a little bit about paint protection film a little bit about

00:43:42 – 00:44:36
window entt and then giving you some of that just real life you know no sugarcoated like if you want to know some real you know hard things about running and operating small business in this industry I will certainly be able to share you a lot of information that’s going to allow you to H the ground running a lot quicker and a lot faster um in regards to certification classes and things like that we actually have a rap school coming up uh I think two or three weeks out it’s in the month of

00:44:09 – 00:45:19
June that that you can actually find on Avery Dennison North America’s website right now um that is US Christopher and I and wicked wraps providing a space uh being host to help Avery Dennison continue to promote their certification program now that certification program is advertised nationally those certification programs and all rap classes are actively taking place every week across the country just in different rap companies different shops uh Avery Dennison will only align their rap classes with Pro Shops they do not

00:44:43 – 00:45:35
want to have students show up to a place that is a hole in the wall if your space is just too small they’ll likely say no because a lot of times they have you know 10 to 30 people sign up for these classes so you got to have a space and one thing that’s cool with with uh Wicked wraps is just the space we have is freaking phenomenal and they love being able to come here and utilize our space because we’ve equipped it for them now does that necessarily does it make revenue for us does it it make money no

00:45:10 – 00:46:07
um but what it does do is it connects me and Chris to other people across uh the the nation uh it gives us an opportunity to provide knowledge help wherever we can as much as we can and and it also Keeps Us hip to all the things changing in the industry because I get to see everything that Avery is doing and changing before anybody gets to SEMA I already know I personally already know right now what they have up their sleeve I know what they’re working on I know what they’re going to release at SEMA um

00:45:38 – 00:46:28
so those are some of the benefits of being able to kind of have that align with them and if I need something on a whim I can pick up the phone and call the product manager and say hey I really need need help on this and uh likely they’re going to give us the help and do the work around around a distributor if we’re looking for color or we’re just running into some problems so do you think what do you think uh the future of WP is do you think it’s you know I mean are we talking you think color ppf’s

00:46:03 – 00:47:05
going to get really big do you think traditional R do you think you think more like uh like carbon fiber ppf where where do you see so the next big step yeah so I don’t see solid color wraps you know going away uh I see the film improving right becoming more user friendly maybe you’re not getting as many adhesive lines uh maybe you can stretch the fil film further you know I like to see Chrome you know specifically Chrome rrap film become more user friendly so that when we’re wrapping a

00:46:34 – 00:47:21
car you don’t need to put 200 seams in it that’s you know something that a lot of people don’t realize is they like hey I want my car wrapped in Chrome and I look at the photo I’m like dang it looks good in the photo but you should see how it actually looks in real life when we’re standing two feet back from the car yeah um you’d see all you would see all the seams so in that realm I don’t see a lot changes in the solid color Market I just see more colors coming and them

00:46:57 – 00:48:03
like for example I’ll give you a great example 3M we’ll talk about them they had their 2080 rap film series for the last you know seven years it was uh uh 1080 before that and um so what they did was they they changed Adesa honestly they they kind of made it worse than the original predecessor and then they added a cap sheet that was their big change and then this last year they came out with the HD Series so basically all they did is they came out their top 10 colors which are the top solid colors that they

00:47:30 – 00:48:26
sell the most of black red you know some of those basic colors and they created the HD series which has no orange pill so that’s that’s the only difference yeah still has a cap sheet we like it we use HD 2080 gloss black for all of our Chrome deletes because it has a true piano black look to it and you get no orange pill so we like it from that standpoint uh so that’s one thing that you’ve seen innovated in that realm um what I would like to see more innovated in the industry is more over lams

00:47:58 – 00:49:04
uh you’ve seen that Jesse on the Phoenix Dodge Charger where it has a shade shifter clear coat that was married to a printed RP now I would like to see Avery 3M kpmf orful all the brands out there that are producing laminates produce more laminates like carbon fibers brush Metals more shade shifter laminates more special effects that we can press over printed images personally I think that that’s what people want want more of now on the ppf side of things where is that industry headed I see ppf headed into

00:48:31 – 00:49:46
exactly where STC is uh going to continue to innovate because they are the biggest innovators in the ppf market uh they have already positioned themselves and they did this at SEMA this last year as a true TPU ppf product that will be dry application installed with no static and that is will be a game Cher in the industry if that film all can perform can install at anywhere close to how a dry application WRA installs that will be a game changer in the industry that will be something where if the product performs to the

00:49:09 – 00:50:11
same level as a wet application ppf which I believe it will then it will literally flip the ppf industry upside down and it will require 3M and Avery and all these other brands creating ppf products out there to either get on board with that or what I will see is a is a shift to installers wanting to make that shift to dry a clear is it a clear uh dry or okay okay yeah so it’s optically clear they’re going to offer it in like a mat the benefit of that is if I was installing ppf in in your car

00:49:40 – 00:50:35
and I did everything to protect this car we clean it we do all this stuff I install the whole freaking thing it’s a 10 out of 10 install and then I look back and what do I see on the hood a little tiny hair yep and I see it my customer is going to see it so now we’re yanking it off Y and so that’s the downside is the static charge that a lot of films create naturally when you remove the backing paper so if you could somehow eliminate that static charge then likely you’re going to get better

00:50:07 – 00:51:00
results uh plus eliminating the wet aspect of it when we think about how wet ppf gets applied and tint you got to hose the whole thing down and you’re kind of floating it off pretty far off the car or you’ve you’ve got it on a big sheet of glass like we have a big giant thing that we move around the shop and that naturally can just pick up particles I mean there’s particles in the air and so that’s that’s a ppf and Tin installer’s worst nightmare so by taking the wet aspect out of it you’re

00:50:34 – 00:51:35
eliminating one less step one less product um and now we’re just treating it more like a wrap and my understanding is that STC will have that release at some point in time this year wow that’s pretty cool stuff so that’s where I see the PF Market going and then on the print side they’re just making um new print media that’s maybe a little a little bit more conformable you know maybe a different clear coat that they’re pressing over the top that’s a bit more conformable uh 3M did release a

00:51:04 – 00:51:58
new print media series that they are claiming to have a 10-year warranty on it now they make that claim but I’m always one of those people where you need to go back and look at the spec sheet because what a lot of people don’t understand in the rap industry is that they’ll rate the film the last seven to 10 years uh but that’s a generalized rating that isn’t necessarily the rating that would be here in Washington and that’s not the same rating you’re going to get in Texas so I’m more realistic

00:51:31 – 00:52:27
with customers and I Break It Down based on how 3M or Aver would break it down to me which is three plus years on horizontal five plus on vertical that’s just the way it is now it’s not to say that that you’re not going to see three years on your horizontals it just means that in reality in hindsight you actually have to take care of your car and that actually means you got to wash it uh we all want to be hippies but we all got to take a shower at some point in time so now now you can call Wicked wash there you

00:51:59 – 00:52:50
go exactly so he’s just creating business for he’s talking that’s awesome we under promise and overd deliver but we also tell people you know it’s it’s zoned you know we’re in a certain Zone here in Washington that that’s not going to be a clamble to the zon St down in Arizona so if you’re going to move down there expect your vinyl to to start deteriorating quite quickly quite rapidly especially if you’re not maintaining it taking care of it keeping it covered keeping it clean all of those

00:52:25 – 00:53:16
variables are installed so no matter what you say uh and how you say what you say the client hears what they want to hear there’s perspective and there’s perception right we all have different values that some of them uh get skewed so we we protect ourselves we we basically make sure that everything is documented everything is written and everything gets signed so when the customer leaves our shop we’re protected yeah and we protect our client by allowing them to create um this Vision

00:52:51 – 00:53:41
in their head and and hopefully that creates a customer and so you know we do our best now if a client or customer comes back and says hey this failed you know we look back in the paperwork and we say well you know you were supposed to be back for a post wrap followup in 10 days and it’s been three months listen you know let’s take a look at it because if it’s if it’s something that we got to take off and completely redo we’re gonna have to charge you if it’s something that we can fix because we you

00:53:16 – 00:54:02
know we we we we enjoyed your business and we want to earn your future business and your great referrals we’ll see what we can do but again that’s where the business comes into play so where the business goes well we determine that we’re we’re you know we if you get caught just sitting in your living room you’re never going to find a date you got to get out in the world right you got to put yourself in awkward situations and that’s what we do so that’s why we’re always increasing and

00:53:39 – 00:54:30
enhancing our business techniques or techniques our uh from going to Wicked wash to XK glow to opening up now we don’t really definitely want to do a lot of planes but you know it’s a caseby case basis you are near Boeing I mean let’s get these Spirits in Southwest P things done drive by me I you watch I’m going to go get going doors I’m GNA go get those on my list but we want to do anything and everything that’s where Wicked wash comes into play is yes we’re going to start with Fleet will that

00:54:05 – 00:54:57
organically grow to your house doing your RV your boat your driveway your garage doors yeah but we’re going to do it uh we’re going to do it very tame we’re going to do it very methodically yeah one thing I was going to put in there too you know for anybody that Tunes in is listening to this is looking for unique ways thinking outside the box um I mean I am the think cide the Box guy how do I get myself in one person’s store make them believe in my product and then get them to sell my product for

00:54:31 – 00:55:39
me so um that kind of came because you know as Jesse knows I have a a side company that was called steelhead wraps uh initially created in 2019 and my goal with that business was to create kind of a DIY boat RP program but Co came and I kind of missed that that opportunity to really build it at that point in time and then Wicked wraps just freaking through and it’s just it’s overpowered any opportunity for that business to to do anything so instead of losing all this time and effort that I

00:55:04 – 00:56:03
spent on marketing creating over 150 you know unique boat wrap designs to fit on these aluminum boats I said there’s got to be another way I can repurpose this branding and so Christopher and I came up with this idea that we would take an inexpensive um iPad display system that you purchase off Amazon was about 400 bucks it’s a nice vertical stand and it holds the IP P up top so what I did is hey we’re going to wrap the whole face of this thing and it’s going to show all these cool boat wrap designs and and

00:55:34 – 00:56:25
it’s going to say ask yourselves rep today for custom boat WP and I put all this you know advertisement pieces on there wrapped all these different things and every bit of it is to ask yourselves rep about window 10 ask yourselves rep about paint protection film and then on the iPad it shows over over the 20 years of the work we’ve done all the different boat wraps we’ve done whether you own a guide service you want the salmon skin that I’ve done a million times you want an American flag people are getting to

00:56:00 – 00:56:57
see that and our goal is to help the boat wrap company just generate a cell right off us they make a percentage they’re getting 25 to 30% off of a boat wrap or window tint or paint protection film and we’re making them look good all we have to do is live true to our word and make them look their best and we’ve now wrapped a boat but most importantly customers can also Finance it within the purchase of their boat which is awesome they sell a used boat maybe the guy likes the Bo he doesn’t

00:56:29 – 00:57:19
love the color or maybe it’s got a few Mari marks on it and he really wants it to be black or he wants a salmon skin on there well that’s where this comes into play so uh just this week we delivered that system down there the owners think it’s awesome it sits inside Three Rivers Marine down Woodenville uh we’re the first shop to do anything like this and for me again it’s just getting our brand in places that we wouldn’t otherwise beat it’s extending the wicked wraps

00:56:54 – 00:57:44
website in there and I’m also smart knowing that some customers that come in there aren’t necessarily going to ask about a boat rap from Three Rivers marine and they’re not maybe they’re not even thinking about a boat but they saw our branding there they scanned the QR code which took them to our amazing website that Jesse kicked ass on and then the person’s like oh crap I didn’t know they did Chrome deletes and window ENT too and so now we’ve just earned a customer through their uh through their

00:57:19 – 00:58:04
door front or through their doorstep and to me that’s the same thing I’m doing with Bashon aircraft same thing I’m doing with Mammoth Overland we’re start with this one boat deal if this works really well then Chris and I will implement it into a second boat dealer and then this same model I’ll eventually Implement into uh dealership that’s what I was going to ask you next I was going to ask you next how long does it take to get that into dealership where people can see their rap and everything and all

00:57:41 – 00:58:26
you know like as we make the dealership look good or if we go to say Ace Hardware or something like that and we make them look good we’re we’re doing this for them right we are a side bu we don’t tell people I mean 90% of the time we don’t even put our name on a car we might put it on the license plate or maybe the windshield but you know we’re not there for us the customer already knows us we make the customer look good what’s the customer to do they’re going to tell people about us so that friendly

00:58:04 – 00:58:49
warm referral is 10 times better than us putting our name on something so we make them we make it look like it’s them that knows a guy yeah yeah and and and they’ve got the ability and we want them to be in the Forefront of the customers yeah and the way to look at this Jesse is it’s it would be like if I showed up and went to the dealership every week to talk about all the new things we do instead all I do is go and update my display yeah I don’t really have to update people because because even the

00:58:26 – 00:59:25
sales guys are watching my display every day they know my product probably better than I know it just so they can try and create an upsell to a customer so to me it’s it’s a much smarter model to go about it also doesn’t make or hone my business in one specific Avenue we’re not stuck saying hey we’re 80% dealership base or whatever I don’t want to be pigeon hold that way because if the dealership ever makes a big drastic change GM changes ownership changes or car cells start to dive then they’re not

00:58:56 – 00:59:54
bringing me window tin they’re not bringing me paint protection film and I’m not getting solid color wraps so to me having that display for 500 bucks down there that’s like an extension of Chris and I we are the display we are the stand we just have to make sure that that that unit encompasses everything we do with as much information and only the information we want customers to know and we also uh I also take all the solid color rap books I pull everything out of those books that we don’t want customers

00:59:24 – 01:00:17
to have access to this is ding down the process because the last thing I want to do is have three Ros Marine hit me up for carbon fiber to go down the side of an aluminum boat or or brush metal so instead we take some of those specialty films out and we focus on the mats the satins the gloss the gloss metallics the pearls the stuff is simple straightforward because we know that that’s mostly what they’re looking for and I do that with uh or orful uh the 3M book and we use the Avery book I don’t

00:59:50 – 01:00:48
do any kpmf um and no cheetah rap which is our lowest Bas cast film and that already gives those guys access to 260 some colors which is more than enough for sure plenty you got to keep you still got to keep it simple for the customer for sure and it’s awesome I mean it’s such a good idea when I think about you know what you guys are doing there and expanding it and you can just continually grow with the technology and digital and what I love most is Jesse the energy they bring I mean these guys

01:00:20 – 01:01:08
love coming to work I I mean there’s something about coming to work but it’s 11:00 right now in Seattle or 12:00 and noon they’re not even thinking about lunch they’re thinking about you know I wish we had another hour but unfortunately we don’t but these guys are like dude we got this this this that’s awesome and what’s even better is you have somebody to bounce it off of and you guys can build on it which which is why I think uh you guys are so successful that’s awesome but go ahead

01:00:44 – 01:01:38
Jessie I think I think the way reason you’re feeling it that way is is I think like a shark right sharks swim every day they never stop swimming they never stop breathing and they’re on one Mission and the only mission is to find and eat so they don’t and and to me it’s like if I came here and every day was like H it’s work and it’s Monday well that’s not how shark feels shark says hey I gotta eat I still swimming I’m still breathing and to me that that’s what’s

01:01:11 – 01:02:01
you know coming here every day that’s why I’m here I got to make sure that I feed Christopher I feed myself I take care of my team and I keep my team energized and uh Christopher and I know that there’s times where I’ll be up here and I’m working on a lot of designs and then I’ll walk out the shop and I haven’t been out there all day and I come out and in half a day I wrap a whole side of a car my team turns around they’re like wow what’s going on here and but what I do what we do find is

01:01:36 – 01:02:30
that when I am out there the presence of the shop and the workflow just it just increases awesome but appreciate you guys appreciate you having us on the podcast last question how do people find out more about you if somebody has a question or if they’re looking if they’re in the Pacific Northwest and they want to rap or if they want to ask questions where where do you want them to go absolutely I mean I can yeah uh well obviously you want to go to Wicked rps.net okay uh we are located in Moto

01:02:03 – 01:03:00
Washington we’ve been here since 2013 we are directly on the mleo speedway which is right near Boeing and uh soon to be a dicks restaurant so we know if you’re G to come up and get dick burs in the future you’re gonna stop by Wicked wraps um you can find us on our Instagram um uh which is at Wicked wraps uh you’ll know it’s us because we have a teal and pink logo so you know we’re the official Wicked wraps your cell phone’s on the on the wall of most public bathrooms it is yeah my cell phone

01:02:31 – 01:03:41
number is about everywhere for the whole world and then Facebook um you know you can find us there and then you know obviously through our webite it’s tattooed right here by on Chris’s and last last I would say is you can also watch our P our Wicked raps podcast on our YouTube channel uh which has a lot of great uh stuff on there from our content that we shoot and create with our content guys uh soon to be uh rugged destination and uh and then also um uh our podcast videos that we’ve done uh with Jay over

01:03:05 – 01:03:59
I3 I I3 med3 media uh he’s done a really phenomenal job on that and I encourage anybody watch those podcast Jesse’s on one of them but our podcast is really just about giving back to our clients and making it about them and giving them an opportunity to tell their story on our pod awesome absolutely thank you guys so much we cold so bring bring anybody just just sh Open Door Shop that’s great man thank you guys again for being on the show today we really appreciate it this was really a fun interview we might have to

01:03:33 – 01:04:30
do a part two after you launch Wicked wash we’ll we’ll have to do another episode I think so there you go absolutely uh that sounds awesome appreciate you guys thanks for you know taking the time out of your day today to make this available and and uh yeah looking forward to meeting you guys at SEMO we’ll suck soon sounds good buddy appreciate it have a good one all right guys we’ll see you bye and there you have it another high octane episode of the ride in style podcast reved up and ready to go your

01:04:03 – 01:05:06
hosts Jesse Stoddard and Josh pson shifted your Automotive game into overdrive if you’re hungry for more insights Trends and gamechanging interviews from the automotive restyling Universe don’t forget to hit subscribe and leave a glowing review we’d also love for you to share this podcast with your Gearheads installers and autol lovers Network because remember knowledge is power but shared knowledge turbocharges the whole industry for more expert resources to supercharge your business cruise on over to autostyle

01:04:35 – 01:05:02
marketing.com your One-Stop shop for Everything Automotive marketing until next time keep those Wheels spinning and your passion ignited thank you for riding in style with us see you on the next lap