Even in this rural area, there are three rules:
1. There is no loyalty in this business.
2. Money talks.
3. More money talks louder.



Like Shendog said, persistence pays off. One auto body shop, I stopped every month for two years to talk to the owner. But when "his guy" blew the engine in his truck, I was got the shop after that. Then after a couple years, I lost every other shop on all my routes to an out-of-state core buyer. Really stunk at the time, but worked out ok.