Charlie Molina’s seen it all in his 20+ year career of fixing dents. When he started, he remembers writing invoices by hand. He remembers the “innovation” of carbon copy estimates sweeping through the industry. Mostly, he remembers how disorganized and inconsistent his estimates and invoices were back then. Ever since, Charlie’s been on a journey to build the best possible PDR business for him and his family. He knew the only way to do that was by finding the right tools. Eventually, he found Mobile Tech RX’s estimating and invoicing software to help him build a PDR estimate that made him more money. But he stumbled through everything else first.
In 2005, Charlie and his wife lost their house in Hurricane Katrina. The situation forced them into living in their RV full-time as they chased hail around the country. The money was good and the experience was valuable, but they always wanted to find a way to lay down roots. While subcontracting with some of the biggest dent companies in the country, he dug into their way of working. He explored their software and invoicing systems to see if they could help him with his own business, but they were never good enough. They never had the right features and estimating technology to get them off the road. When he found himself living in Austin, TX, he tried Invoice2go. Charlie thought this would be the system that would help him run a growing business, but he soon realized the software wasn’t built specifically for auto recon techs. Like other tools built for mobile professionals instead of just auto recon techs, customizing the software to get what he needed took too much time and effort. After months of using Invoice2go, he still didn’t have a digital way to create a PDR estimate or invoice that would help him get his PDR business off the ground.
Luckily, Charlie attended his first Mobile Tech Expo in 2015 and walked into a class taught by Eric Garves, the Mobile Tech RX CEO. After hearing how our PDR app was built by techs, for techs, and seeing how easily the workflows matched his day-to-day, he was interested. What hooked him was the way Mobile Tech RX managed to build estimating technology that increased the value of each job he worked on. Immediately, Charlie signed up for Mobile Tech RX and hasn’t stopped using it since.
“I never knew how much I was missing until I started using Mobile Tech RX. When you’re writing estimates, there’s so many reminders of all the things that might be on the panel. There’s so many things that you would miss on paper invoices or really any other invoicing system.”
Since getting off the hail trail and settling in Austin, Charlie uses Mobile Tech RX to subcontract with other companies while running his own business. By using our PDR app, Charlie’s able to charge $1,500 for jobs that used to be worth $975. He writes a PDR estimate twice as fast as with other tools, which makes it possible for his business to work on more cars per day. Most importantly, Charlie increased his sales close rate by 50% – just by using an estimating and invoicing software that makes him more consistent and professional-looking.
“I’m making more money today, now that I’m using Mobile Tech RX.”