From Barely Piecing Together the Marketing Budget to Closing a $30k Lexus Claim: The Automotive 7 Story

‍It is another late night over here and I am just reviewing some of the incredible things happening inside our client accounts at Built By Shah. I honestly get so fired up looking at these numbers that I just had to sit down and write this out. I want to talk about a shop out in Connecticut called Automotive 7 run by two amazing guys named Waqar and Sony.

When Waqar and I first started talking a few months ago, things were really rough for them. Work was incredibly slow and they were actually falling behind on their rent. They were relying heavily on a local police towing rotation and just crossing their fingers for word of mouth referrals. Waqar was completely honest with me. He was terrified to spend money on marketing. In fact, when they decided to pull the trigger with us, they literally had to piece the starting budget together giving me a thousand dollars here and five hundred dollars there just to get the system turned on.

They had tried running Google ads on their own before and got absolutely nothing out of it. They also tried other marketing agencies where they had to wait three days just to get a simple email reply. Waqar told me the only reason he trusted his gut to go with us was because he knew I actually owned a body shop and because we put our money where our mouth is with our 45 day money back guarantee. He figured he had nothing to lose.

‍How We Built Their Lead Generation Machine

‍We didn't just throw money at Google and hope for the best. We built them an actual system that completely changed the way people in Connecticut view their shop. Here is what we did:

• A Premium Landing Page: Waqar actually admitted he fought me on this at first because he wanted to just use their old website. But I know that if you want high end cars, you need to look high end. We built them a custom landing page that pushed their amazing Google reviews right to the front. Now Waqar says they use our landing page more than their actual website because it builds instant trust.
  
• Hyper Fast Communication: I hate the standard agency wait times. I set up a direct WhatsApp group chat with Waqar, Sony, myself, and my partner Saad. If they have a question, Saad answers it within 60 seconds whether it is 9 AM or 11 PM.
  
• Bulletproof Lead Tracking: We set them up on CallRail and GoHighLevel. Every single call from our ads gets a whisper message so Sony knows right away that it is a Google lead. Sony actually saved that tracking number in his phone as "Money Calls" so he never misses it.
  

The Real World Results

‍They started getting leads within the very first week. Fast forward a few months and they are now pulling in 60 to 70 highly qualified leads every single month. Waqar told me that a massive 40% of their total shop business is now coming directly from our marketing.

Sony is an absolute beast when it comes to follow ups. He answers his phone at all hours because he knows a late night call is usually someone stuck on the side of the road. Let me give you some real numbers on the cars they showed me sitting in their shop just from our ads:

• The $30,000 Lexus RX350: A customer called Sony at 8 PM on a Saturday night while Sony was out shopping at Costco. Because of the trust built by the landing page reviews, she chose Automotive 7. That brand new 2026 Lexus is sitting in their shop right now as a $30,000 claim.
  
• The $19,000 Mercedes C300: A Toro host found them on Google after a bad sideswipe. That job needs doors, a fender, and a bumper, totaling almost 20 grand.
  
• The $10,000 Tesla Model Y: Found them online and brought it in for a heavy quarter panel hit.
  

Just during our quick video call, Waqar walked me around the shop and pointed out almost $70,000 worth of work sitting in their bays that came strictly from the Google ads we are running for them.

‍The Confidence to Grow

‍The best part of this whole story is the change in their confidence. A few months ago Waqar was stressing over how to pay the shop rent. Today he tells me he does not even worry about where the cars are coming from anymore. When he walks into the shop in the morning he already knows they are going to pick up one or two cars that day. They have even voluntarily asked us to raise their daily ad budget because they see exactly how much money it is making them.

If you are a body shop owner reading this right now and you are staring at an empty shop or sending your guys home early, I know how scary it is to spend money when things are tight. Sony was literally eating french fries during our meeting and he stopped to give a message to shop owners just like you. He said to just be confident, put the money in, and you will see the difference. Spending a little bit up front to bring in $60,000 in a month is a total no brainer.

You really do not have to keep struggling alone. If you are ready to stop hoping for tow trucks and want to actually take control of your pipeline, go to BodyShopByShah.com and book a call with me. Let's get your shop completely packed.