Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
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Class - How to become the recognized detailing expert in your hometown by Mike Phillips
At Detail Fest - Saturday March 18th
Topic: How to become the recognized expert in your hometown
Time: 8:00am
Location: Classroom 1B
This class teaches you how to put on your own 45 minute class for car clubs in your area. Car clubs are made up of passionate car enthusiasts. The name of the class is,
The 5-Step Paint Care Cycle
The point of the class is two fold.
1: You help car enthusiasts in your area to better understand the 5 basic steps to taking care of their car's finish. This helps car owners to avoid damaging the scratch-sensitive clearcoat paint on their special interest car.
2: Some of the people in the club while finding the information you present interesting, won't want to detail their own car. By demonstrating you have the knowledge to professionally work on cars, you will earn their trust and thus earn their business.
Been there done that
This is a process that I have used all my life to move ahead from working on mundane daily drivers to working on cool cars. It's the backdoor into a club because walking in through the front door doesn't work.
Let me explain...
When you go to a car show, you see lots of cool cars but they are all swirled out. You know you can fix them. You walk up to the owner of the cool Mustang, or the cool Corvette, or fill-in-the-blank and tell them who you are and that you're a detailer but you never get the job. The reason why is because when you cold call like this people don't know you and thus they don't trust you. This is walking in through the front door.
Now follow me on why cool cars are always swirled out...
The owner doesn't know how to work on their own car and they don't trust anyone else to work on their car so over time their car looks worse and worse.
When you teach a class, that is walking into the club from the back door, you are presented as an expert there to help them learn how to correctly clean, polish and wax their cars. You're not their selling yourself in a flagrant manner, you're helping them. And you really do help them when you show them the basics by going over the information I share with you called The 5-Step Paint Care Cycle. But from years of experience that I've gained first-hand by teaching this class, some of the members of the club simply will not want to do the work themselves. And unlike cold calling at a car show you've just demonstrated that you know your stuff.
And what happens after the class if one or two of the club members will ask you
What do you charge to detail a car?
You’re in.
Have you car detailing packages dialed-in and ready to present like I share with the VIF or Vehicle Inspection Form. There's a second page to the forum where you create your detailing packages. You should always have a detail package for everyone's budget for the different types of cars people own. There's a huge difference between washing and waxing a 2003 Honda Civic and polishing the paint on a 1986 Porsche 911 SC Cabriolet with Turbo Wide Body Slant Nose conversion and boxed rockers.
Next you do a GREAT job of detailing any club member’s car, (like you normally would do because you're a professional) and now word-of-mouth advertising takes over inside the club.
Repeat this process with other clubs. Simply by helping fellow car enthusiasts to understand the basics that you already know, (and possibly take for granted), you make friends and earn trust. This is how you elevate your business to work on more and more cool cars at a higher price point than work on mundane daily drives which are for the most part production detailing. Production detailing is using a one-step cleaner/wax and there's nothing wrong with this. In fact, it's the major portion of most detailing business. But if YOU want to work on cool cars, not mundane daily drivers, then you need to put out the effort to become the recognized expert in your home town and you do this by helping others.
Of course, all of the above assumes you actually do know what you're doing when it comes to being a professional detailer. And if you don't, maybe you're just starting out, you don't have to trudge along for years or decades learning from the school of hard knocks in order to become an expert you have plenty of resources to fast track your career.
Resources
Joining the AutogeekOnline.net car detailing discussion forum and reading all the informative articles and discussions.
Watching videos on the Autogeek YouTube Channel
Reading my how-to books
Attending the Competition Ready 3-Day Detailing Classes held three times a year here in Stuart, Florida
Attending our Boat Detailing Class taught in February each year.
Become a member of the IDA - International Detailing Association - Become recognized as a Certified Detailer and a Skills Validated Detailer.
At Detail Fest - Saturday March 18th
Topic: How to become the recognized expert in your hometown
Time: 8:00am
Location: Classroom 1B
This class teaches you how to put on your own 45 minute class for car clubs in your area. Car clubs are made up of passionate car enthusiasts. The name of the class is,
The 5-Step Paint Care Cycle
The point of the class is two fold.
1: You help car enthusiasts in your area to better understand the 5 basic steps to taking care of their car's finish. This helps car owners to avoid damaging the scratch-sensitive clearcoat paint on their special interest car.
2: Some of the people in the club while finding the information you present interesting, won't want to detail their own car. By demonstrating you have the knowledge to professionally work on cars, you will earn their trust and thus earn their business.
Been there done that
This is a process that I have used all my life to move ahead from working on mundane daily drivers to working on cool cars. It's the backdoor into a club because walking in through the front door doesn't work.
Let me explain...
When you go to a car show, you see lots of cool cars but they are all swirled out. You know you can fix them. You walk up to the owner of the cool Mustang, or the cool Corvette, or fill-in-the-blank and tell them who you are and that you're a detailer but you never get the job. The reason why is because when you cold call like this people don't know you and thus they don't trust you. This is walking in through the front door.
Now follow me on why cool cars are always swirled out...
The owner doesn't know how to work on their own car and they don't trust anyone else to work on their car so over time their car looks worse and worse.
When you teach a class, that is walking into the club from the back door, you are presented as an expert there to help them learn how to correctly clean, polish and wax their cars. You're not their selling yourself in a flagrant manner, you're helping them. And you really do help them when you show them the basics by going over the information I share with you called The 5-Step Paint Care Cycle. But from years of experience that I've gained first-hand by teaching this class, some of the members of the club simply will not want to do the work themselves. And unlike cold calling at a car show you've just demonstrated that you know your stuff.
And what happens after the class if one or two of the club members will ask you
What do you charge to detail a car?
You’re in.
Have you car detailing packages dialed-in and ready to present like I share with the VIF or Vehicle Inspection Form. There's a second page to the forum where you create your detailing packages. You should always have a detail package for everyone's budget for the different types of cars people own. There's a huge difference between washing and waxing a 2003 Honda Civic and polishing the paint on a 1986 Porsche 911 SC Cabriolet with Turbo Wide Body Slant Nose conversion and boxed rockers.
Next you do a GREAT job of detailing any club member’s car, (like you normally would do because you're a professional) and now word-of-mouth advertising takes over inside the club.
Repeat this process with other clubs. Simply by helping fellow car enthusiasts to understand the basics that you already know, (and possibly take for granted), you make friends and earn trust. This is how you elevate your business to work on more and more cool cars at a higher price point than work on mundane daily drives which are for the most part production detailing. Production detailing is using a one-step cleaner/wax and there's nothing wrong with this. In fact, it's the major portion of most detailing business. But if YOU want to work on cool cars, not mundane daily drivers, then you need to put out the effort to become the recognized expert in your home town and you do this by helping others.
Of course, all of the above assumes you actually do know what you're doing when it comes to being a professional detailer. And if you don't, maybe you're just starting out, you don't have to trudge along for years or decades learning from the school of hard knocks in order to become an expert you have plenty of resources to fast track your career.
Resources
Joining the AutogeekOnline.net car detailing discussion forum and reading all the informative articles and discussions.
Watching videos on the Autogeek YouTube Channel
Reading my how-to books
Attending the Competition Ready 3-Day Detailing Classes held three times a year here in Stuart, Florida
Attending our Boat Detailing Class taught in February each year.
Become a member of the IDA - International Detailing Association - Become recognized as a Certified Detailer and a Skills Validated Detailer.
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