Maybe we do have a face for radio.
Collision center owners are launching podcasts -- depending on the definition -- and finding benefits, but not always the first one they’d sought.
Shop operators who’ve hit the internet airwaves for some time, including current owners now helping others, are boosters. Marketing mavens usually recommend focusing on the basics: Get Google up to speed, and then see if you’re ready for drivetime.
Still, conventional promotion and primetime comment can also work together. And those are two questions for you and podcasting: why do it, and how to use it?
A Man, A Plan, A Microphone
The “why” has one best response: focus; the “use” is multiple choice and the answer is “all of the above.” We like hearing our own voice and figure others will too. But that might not be good enough.
Clayton Millsap began his Behind the Bumper podcast this year to help people: clients and other owners.
If Millsap discusses AI, what it means to be “certified,” or “body [shop] positivity,” he pitches his message to both groups. What should body shops consider and how customers perceive and experience it. Many podcasts drill it down to focus on one or the other, or get even more specific, and the audience develops accordingly.
Robert Grieve’s broadcast work is known for talking to the customer, and often specifically about insurance.
Clayton Millsap.
Drew Bryant plans podcasting of sorts, at least aiming to acquire client testimonials, with his recording room.
Here also, consider whether you want true, streaming podcasting -- Spotify or Apple Music, for instance -- something posted to an older platform like YouTube, or general content for various uses.
Millsap does the first, Grieve the second, Bryant might open door No. 3.
“A shop has to figure out why it wants to podcast,” said marketer Micki Woods. “Why you do it, how you will promote it -- or whether to do one at all.”
Saying Yes for the Love of the Game
For Millsap and his 3,000-square-foot The Damage Co. in Greenup, IL, it became partly personal.
The business -- technician shortages, insurer woes, small shop/rural area -- had begun to drag him down.
As he started talking, he “looked at why I’m in a body shop, and do I want to be?” and rediscovered he does.
He didn’t just want to help others, he loved it. “I love this, and people who are interested in how things work,” Millsap said.
Drew Bryant.
He likes breaking down complex issues, advocating for clients. He wants people to feel welcome in a clean collision center. So podcasts discussed the image a shop presents, why quality parts are crucial, with down-shifting on the greasy, ragged, “doom-and-gloom” complaints often heard at floor-level.
“We’re not a multi-million-dollar shop, but there’s no reason you can’t be professional and positive,” Millsap said.
At a state association meeting for southern Illinois, Millsap “did a shameless plug.” He broadcasts from home. A 20-minute episode takes an hour of work. Mixer and mics: buy online. Total costs: under $500.
Behind the Bumper aims at smaller operators who want to do better and customers who want to know more.
Millsap talks personally and personably and directly to listeners: “Whoever I can, to learn what to do.”
Some Start, Others Stop, There’s No Shortage
Video didn’t kill the radio star, but it’s kneecapped many budding influencers. One podcasting platform seemed littered with abandoned collision shop episodes. A Boston-area body shop posted 10 video clips to its YouTube channel in the second half of last year, but none so far in 2025. Clips are simple, short, useful, quiet, good quality -- and most got fewer than a dozen views.
Robert Grieve.
Many podcasts are also already out there, from people and groups with industry connections, not shop owners, though some are ex-operators.
Grieve is an outlier here, owning Nylund’s Collision Center near Denver, while serving other shops who set up his YouTube videos on a loop in their customer areas.
“They’ve also used them for training,” he said.
The Beyond Repair podcast includes an ex-shop owner now focused on coaching and mentoring others. Autobody News offers The Collision Vision and hosts Mike Anderson's "On the Road with Mike Anderson - Serving Up Collision Advice."
“It’s hard to do a podcast,” said Woods, who has one. It’s “known for fantastic guests and hot topics” on what successful shops are doing. It gets her name out there, but she works nationally, and in marketing. Her task is helping body shops, not being one.
“Start a podcast” might be a solution without a problem.
You Are Not Going to Make Money
Information or education, industry help or a passion project. But podcasts are unlikely to make you rich.
Micki Woods.
An upstart podcaster won’t see many new clients, Woods said, at least not tomorrow, “and most owners are busy with the work they’re doing.” She counsels a strict, hard look at whether to get into it.
At least, “use content for many other things,” she said, including “e-blasts, YouTube shorts -- but that takes more time. So often I come back to, ‘What’s the goal here?’”
Bryant sees many angles, from grateful clients’ testimonials on their way out the door, or possibly as a benefit available for members of the Florida Auto Body Association, of which he’s president.
Grieve has posted some 250 regular videos in 15 years of doing so, plus many short clips, and is active in the industry, which gets the word out. His work is YouTube-only -- a broader idea of podcasting -- because “it’s visual,” crucial for showing something wrong or right in collision repair and discussing car insurance. He regularly drops episodes on Saturday morning.
Millsap aims for the assist.
“The podcasts I listen to are consistent,” he said. “I don’t expect it to be a massive hit.”
Paul Hughes