please delete

This. Don't forget injury lawyers. Develop a JV system for them to implement. For example, they send a letter to every insurance agent, towing company, attorney, and roofer in town offering to start a commission based relationship. Why roofers? Hail damage! If this is an area that has hail, cars need to be fixed. Those roofers are out beating the streets.

Car dealerships - don't forget them. They often have excess work, some always sub out their body work, or have jobs they don't like to handle. Also, offer them the opportunity to send a letter out to all car buyers in the last year for a discount of fixing scratches and dings on their cars. This makes the dealership look good for negotiating a discount, and gets some new customers for life. Write a letter to all of the dealerships in the area and test these things out. Send the manger to meet with anyone who responds.

So, the direct mail letter goes out, with the mailing list you built him. When people agree to refer the shop the manager goes, shakes hands, and leaves a nice business card stand with a cardboard graphic (your printing company can make them) to put on the desk. I think a $250 commission is the minimum he should offer. Even $400 would be reasonable.

Create all the Direct Mail pieces, build him the lists, and train his people how to answer the phone and what to do. His staff can mail out a certain number of letters each per day. Make each staff member responsible for a different campaign perhaps.

Advertise to Car clubs - target shows and groups of people who love their cars. If they get a scratch, they will fix it right away.

On another angle, fire up your PR skills and start targeting local radio talk show hosts. The owner can go do a show about the scams in the auto body industry and how to pick a good body shop. Then, in the second half, people call in to ask questions. This can be a full hour segment. Of course, the owner tells people to call him with help for their problem and gives the number, name, and address over and over. He will love you. Tell him he will owe you $1,000 for each radio show you can get him on. It is well worth that.

Another note, this is a friend of the family. Charge good money for all the work. And at least half paid up front. No contingency fees and such. It will only cause problems later. Campaigns this size should be $5,000 or more for the amount of money they can bring in.

The problem is that using the dinosaur yellow pages, or posting business cards on a bulletin board might work well for a 1 many handyman gig. However they do not work well for serious businesses - such as those that have 3 locations and are hoping to dominate. If I were to suggest a business card-bulletin board program to any of my clients I would probably lose all my billings within a month. YP companies are losing market cap at an accelerated rate, newspapers still struggle to fill ad space and brochure kiosks are for dusty tourist info, not car repair shops. Perhaps in his area he can get a killer deal, but its 2012 and it is time to move on.