How to offer services?

[96Lude]

Hey guys,

I would like some advice from the Pro Detailers if possible. Like all of you, I have a great passion for cars even if I don't work in the automotive field. In everything I do, I always pay attention to detail. Before joining this forum, washing my car was a long and boring chore which I was never enthusiastic about having to do. However, this all changed when I was rear ended while driving to work in the morning in early October of this year. I had plans of having my Honda Prelude repainted since the day I purchased it almost 3 years ago since I didn't like the factory color, however with the accident, my insurance was covering the damage on my car, so I decided to pay the difference in price and have them repaint the entire car my color of choice. At that point I knew that I had to step it up a notch when it came to taking care of my paint. I was not about to let the new paintjob deteriorate in front of my eyes.

This is when I began to browse this forum and began to learn a lot. I also began to realize how much fun detailing can be and I now have a passion for it.

I would like to offer my detailing services, however I am not a very good business man, I just don't have it in me. What I would like to know is how can I offer my services? What qualifications would they expect me to have? Should I offer my services to dealerships? I don't mind if they only pay me to wash, wax and do engine cleaning. I would like to gain some experience and just make a little bit of extra money since I already have a full time job.

Is there any advice that you pros can offer me?

I'm sorry for the long post!

Thanks.

[Five Star]

when i started detailing i worked at a local body shop in between driving their tow truck i would detail the finished cars
that was many years ago, then left to work in a print shop. This is how i got back in it

Detail your co-workers cars and just charge enough to cover expenses and get a few extra bucks, but tell them they are getting an extreme discount not to discuss the price with anyone.

they will tell their family and friends and you will get referrals and they will give referrals.

thats best for a few reasons,

you won't pay for advertising,
you can schedule them around your work schedule
you still have a stable source of income,
you may need to keep your health insurance, mine was $125 a month couldnt get that anywhere

just reinvest your proceeds back into the business to hep it grow

when you can self sustain then you can consider your next move

hope this helps

[fourbanger]

youngin

I have a question that kinda pertains to this. This is my first post sorry for the long windedness.

Im pretty familar with business ethics even in my young age. I made a pretty sorry attempt at starting my own video game related business at 19 which promptly failed and cost me a few dollars, but the knowledge/experience i took from it was priceless.

I too plan on starting my own detailing business for many reasons. First being that i love to see the finished product beit my freshly vacumed carpet or my nicely polished neon. I love the feeling of "accomplishment" and i feel like detailing provides that. I also find it borderline disgusting to hear about the horrible experiences people have with detail shops. SO ive decided to make a go at a detailing business.

Ill be basing out of my mothers garage offering everything from a basic wash and spray on wax to the full blown show car treatment.

I have a few questions that im hoping the experienced detailers can help me with. Im trying to determine costs and calculate prices.

1. Is elbow grease/ a micro-cloth and wax better than using an orbital buffer if your not experienced with the orbital? I have talked to a couple guys who run a two man detailing shop and they said they would show me a few tricks so im not too concerned. Just curious to hear if there is a final result difference in the the opinion of you more experienced guys?

2. Now the ?'s get a lil vauge due to my lack of experience. And basically deal with the pricing of supplies.
How many cars can you wash before running out of a 64 oz. of soap.
Wax? = roughly how many applications do you get outta the bottled wax?
Whats the average time spent on a car? Washing, waxing (by hand to start) and interior????
Ill leave it at that for now i appreciate your time.



Edit: i have since browsed a lil bit and see more info. The time question can be ignored sorry for my noobish/anxiousness.

[mirrorfinishman]

Re: How to offer services?

Originally posted by 96Lude
1- What I would like to know is how can I offer my services?

2- What qualifications would they expect me to have?

3- Should I offer my services to dealerships?

4- Is there any advice that you pros can offer me?

1- Just go out there and talk to people. Yes, talk to people face to face. Explain directly to prospective clients exactly what it is you have to offer. Remember, when you’re in the start-up phase of your business, you have more time and less money to spend on advertising. As your business becomes better established, you then begin to have less time and more money to spend on advertising.

2- I would think that new detailing clients would expect you to know the basics about detailing and at the same time be able to produce overall good results.

3- You will need to figure out whether or not you want to get involved in the wholesale detailing market which is primarily made up of car dealerships. Keep in mind that almost all wholesale work is considered 're-conditioning detailing'. That’s because the cars needing to be detailed have been either taken in as a trade or have been purchased by the dealer at an auction before they're put up for re-sale. A 're-conditioning detailing' can take a lot longer to complete compared to a retail customer who gets their vehicle detailed a couple of times per year. The retail market is made up of individuals who either own or lease their vehicles. Almost all retail work is considered 'maintenance detailing'. That’s because the cars are almost always detailed on a regular basis.
Retail customers usually have their cars detailed at least three to four times a year. A 'maintenance detailing' usually takes a lot less time to complete. Compared to wholesale dealership work, you’ll be able to generate more income revenue per vehicle with retail customers.

4- Use your passion for detailing cars to your own advantage. Keep that drive and determination going forward and you will increace your chances of success.

[Five Star]

Re: youngin

Before you start a detailing business,

1. What is your business goal?

2. What do you expect to gain from this?

3. Are you willing to give this 110% of your energy?

4. What sets you apart from the others doing the same in your area

5. Do you have the proper equipment to do the proper job.

6. Are you always looking to improve your techniques whether its on the job or on a forum like MOL




Your customer are your life blood in this business, whatever it takes to make them happy you need to do.

If you can't keep your customer happy and can't answer the 6 questions above don't bother going into any business.

[mirrorfinishman]

Re: Re: youngin

Originally posted by Five Star
4. What sets you apart from the others doing the same in your area

This is an important point that many people starting up a detailing business fail to understand. It's all about postioning. Positioning refers to the way a consumer perceives a service or company. When you're first starting out it’s important to understand where your detailing business fits into the marketplace.

Are you going to focus only on high priced automobiles? Do wholesale work? Be mobile or open a shop? Are you going to provide a service that’s unique and in some way different? These are all question you must ask yourself in order to successfully position your business.

You have to know where you want to go before you can get there.

[sneek]

Re: youngin

Originally posted by fourbanger
I have a question that kinda pertains to this. This is my first post sorry for the long windedness.

Im pretty familar with business ethics even in my young age. I made a pretty sorry attempt at starting my own video game related business at 19 which promptly failed and cost me a few dollars, but the knowledge/experience i took from it was priceless.

I too plan on starting my own detailing business for many reasons. First being that i love to see the finished product beit my freshly vacumed carpet or my nicely polished neon. I love the feeling of "accomplishment" and i feel like detailing provides that. I also find it borderline disgusting to hear about the horrible experiences people have with detail shops. SO ive decided to make a go at a detailing business.

Ill be basing out of my mothers garage offering everything from a basic wash and spray on wax to the full blown show car treatment.

I have a few questions that im hoping the experienced detailers can help me with. Im trying to determine costs and calculate prices.

1. Is elbow grease/ a micro-cloth and wax better than using an orbital buffer if your not experienced with the orbital? I have talked to a couple guys who run a two man detailing shop and they said they would show me a few tricks so im not too concerned. Just curious to hear if there is a final result difference in the the opinion of you more experienced guys?

2. Now the ?'s get a lil vauge due to my lack of experience. And basically deal with the pricing of supplies.
How many cars can you wash before running out of a 64 oz. of soap.
Wax? = roughly how many applications do you get outta the bottled wax?
Whats the average time spent on a car? Washing, waxing (by hand to start) and interior????
Ill leave it at that for now i appreciate your time.



Edit: i have since browsed a lil bit and see more info. The time question can be ignored sorry for my noobish/anxiousness.

DONT SPRAY ON WAX! theres a reason that people on this fourm spend 8 hours on a car, spraying on wax wont give you that nice shine! although it can be used as a booster...some people like spray wax but i havent had good experiences

1.no wax applied with a DA (dont use an orbital) will offer you far superor results to a hand application. Once ou feel confortable with a DA you can then move on to a rotary this should give you even better results that a DA
-i think that you will soon realize that an orbital will not give you wonderful results it may be a waste of your money so you may want to just start with the DA like the meguiars G100 or the PC DA

2. for washing you should be able to get about 60ish washes out of a 64oz wash, if you are are doing high volume it may be worth is for you to try Meguiars hyper wash with a 400:1 dilution ratio

i think you will find that you use slightly less product when you use a DA vs. hand application i would say that you could get a good 15-20 applications on a bottle of wax. (but my car is small)

average time about a full day 8ish hours as you get more experience you can wash and wax faster. for the interiour you may want a hot water extractor or you may just choose you use a shop vac on the interior


i might be wrong on a lot of this i too want to open my own detailing shop but im only 16 17 in a week!

[mirrorfinishman]

Re: youngin

Originally posted by fourbanger
I have a few questions that im hoping the experienced detailers can help me with. Im trying to determine costs and calculate prices.

1. Is elbow grease/ a micro-cloth and wax better than using an orbital buffer if your not experienced with the orbital? Just curious to hear if there is a final result difference in the the opinion of you more experienced guys?

2. How many cars can you wash before running out of a 64 oz. of soap.
Wax? = roughly how many applications do you get outta the bottled wax?
Whats the average time spent on a car? Washing, waxing (by hand to start) and interior????

1- You should be able to do everything by hand and on most vehicles the final result shouldn't be much different.

2- If you figure about 2 oz's of soap per vehicle, then you'd be able to wash 32 cars. You could figure about 2 oz's of wax per car too. That's about 8 vehicles per 16 oz of wax. Average time about 4 hours per average car for wash and wax, exterior & interior.

[Big Ben]

96Lude, Fourbanger,

I have been detailing cars for about six years but I started my own business three years ago in Kingston On. The hardest part that I found was to establish a client base. Like Frank said, when you start you don't have a lot of money to invest in advertisement so I went to Staples and got some business cards printed out then I spent a lot of time going from car dealerships to boat dealerships and transport truck company and meeting people face to face.

I also used my friends as advertisement as FiveStar mentioned, I gave them a 'very good' deal under condition that they would spread my business card around all of that worked okay but I still didn't have enough clients to make a living at it. It took me at least a year to establish a good client base by constantly passing business cards around. Your best form of advertisement is the work that you do.

I think you will find it difficult to get clients to come to your house at first, especially if you don't advertise, the key is not to give up. As far as I am concern I went mobile so I offered both options to my clients. You will also have to invest a good portion of your money back into your business if you want to make it work, you may be able to function with a DA and a vacuum to start but eventually you will have to remove stains on seats and carpets or marks on the exterior finish and that is very difficult to do without the proper equipment ie: water extractor rotary buffer. You will also have to consider your products like clay, compound, polishes, wax, carpet cleaner, vinyl cleaner, chrome polish, tire and wheel cleaners, pads, brushes etc.

To finish I would like to answer the question about rotary buffer. Some detailer do all their work by hand and they are very good at it, personally I use a rotary buffer for buffing and polishing and a DA for waxing, different speed, different pads. I find that the buffer give me a uniform finish and it is more aggressive than doing it by hand, and beside It would be impossible to make my hand go at 1200 to 1500 rpm.

This is only my opinion and experience, everybody is different!

Good luck and don't give up!

[sneek]

Re: Re: youngin

Originally posted by mirrorfinishman
1- You should be able to do everything by hand and on most vehicles the final result shouldn't be much different.

2- If you figure about 2 oz's of soap per vehicle, then you'd be able to wash 32 cars. You could figure about 2 oz's of wax per car too. That's about 8 vehicles per 16 oz of wax. Average time about 4 hours per average car for wash and wax, exterior & interior.

but i think the Deep Crystal says 63 washes.... hmm maybe its bigger that 64oz or im thinking of another wash and i was thinking 32oz of wax/sealanlt like M20 i think you can get a good 15-20 out of it can't you?

[mirrorfinishman]

Re: Re: Re: youngin

Originally posted by sneek
i was thinking 32oz of wax/sealanlt like M20 i think you can get a good 15-20 out of it can't you?

32 oz of wax/sealant at about 2 oz per car would work out to about 16 cars.

[hot rod]

Re: Re: Re: youngin

Originally posted by mirrorfinishman
This is an important point that many people starting up a detailing business fail to understand. It's all about postioning. Positioning refers to the way a consumer perceives a service or company. When you're first starting out it’s important to understand where your detailing business fits into the marketplace.

Are you going to focus only on high priced automobiles? Do wholesale work? Be mobile or open a shop? Are you going to provide a service that’s unique and in some way different? These are all question you must ask yourself in order to successfully position your business.

You have to know where you want to go before you can get there.

[repo]

Re: Re: youngin

Originally posted by mirrorfinishman
1- You should be able to do everything by hand and on most vehicles the final result shouldn't be much different.

2- If you figure about 2 oz's of soap per vehicle, then you'd be able to wash 32 cars. You could figure about 2 oz's of wax per car too. That's about 8 vehicles per 16 oz of wax. Average time about 4 hours per average car for wash and wax, exterior & interior.

maybe its just me, but when I am doing day after day detailing, applying product by hand gets to you. The DA wont get tired, and you wont be as tired. The results I would say are not the same on DA and hand application. Tape off a trunk lid and buff half by hand and half with a DA.

[nedatony]

Way back in December you made the comment “You are not a good business man" that really has stuck with me. So after seeing all the advice posted here some good and quite frankly some not so good I decided to add my 2 cents.

Just knowing what chemicals to apply, how to apply them, having passion ECT is not going to help when it comes to the business aspect of the industry which you have chosen to enter. Once you are paid to clean a car you become a professional and as such you must think of the other hard working men and woman in your field. I am not sure if you can join but at least check out the Professional Detailing Technician's Association, www.detailersassociation.com there is wealth of information regarding the multi million dollar industry you have chosen to enter.

You should:
1.Write a business plan.

2.Determine the hourly rate you must charge to stay in business (cost of sale).

3.Take some training courses either on line or with the numerous industry trainers.

4.Explore what your city, town, province requires from businesses.

5. Keep very good records.


Just email me if I can help.

Tony

https://www.nedacleancar.com