Great Opporunity?!

SeaJay's

SeaJay's

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Alright I was just handed an opportunity to be the go to detailer for a local Auto auction. Typically these cars have some sort of damage and are being auctioned off.

A friend of mine is the assistant GM at the local yard and she was asked to get some quotes from detailers for their cars. This is the info she sent me....


So my Corporate Office sent me an email to get quote on car detailing. I think they are looking for someone to come in and perform
detailing services on our vehicles. I was asked to get quotes on certain services. Only thing is you would need insurance to be on site in case
something happened to you while you were here. I know you dont have insurance but if this actually comes to happen, and you would be
willing to get Insurance, I could make sure you get the bid. Here is what they are looking for.....

A package detail: exterior quick wax, tire shine and clean rims.

B package detail: Includes A package plus Shine all interior components (dash, seats, trim, console ect.) Spot stain removal, and Engine detail.

C package detail: Includes all of B, plus shampoo interior and clean glass.

D package detail: Includes all of C plus 2nd vacuumand shampoo if needed and applying applicable moisture absorbant.


So..........they want quotes on all these packages......all work would be on site here. If this happens you would probably have about 15-30 cars per day, that may be a low quote considering we pickup about 80 per day. I am just guessing at that number due to what we do now for most cars. So...if you are interesed....give me a quote for each package and if it actually happens you would need to get insurance to get the bid.

Now I sent her back some questions before I jump into anything.

Obviously this is going to be a high volume, lower quality work. 15-30 cars a day I maybe able to handle on my own (may have to hire a person on).

My main problems here are this:

A) My detailing company is part-time and not incorporated or anything. So, basically it's a cash only business. If this is to happen I'm most likely going to have to incorporate, LLC or something - What would you suggest?

B) Insurance - Obviously they are going to require me to get insurance - which I asked her if they would be willing to have me sign a document that states if I was to be injured on their site that they would not be liable. - But I'm assuming that I'll have to get my company legit before I can get insurance?

C) Since it's a higher volume of cars - what would be some of your quotes for these services? Looking for some of the detailers out there that do a lot of dealerships, fleet cars, etc. I figure that you guys/girls probably have the best idea of what would be a reasonable price.

I'm not sure when I have to have this bid back by (asked her that too), but I figured that everyone on here is so quick to answer anyway, that I'm sure I'll have enough feed back to give her a reasonable quote.

Oh and if this opportunity actually happens and it's enough to keep me busy most of the year - This will become my full time job....I currently work in cubical land and can't stand it! This may be just the opportunity I need...

As always appreciate the feedback and I apologize for the long post! I'm excited and want to ensure I cover all my bases before I get back to her!

 
15-30 cars per DAY?? Even at 15 cars, divided out over 8 hours is 1.875 hours per car. Hopefully you aren't biting off more than you can chew. I know they aren't looking for perfection, but with any "D Packages," I can't see spending less than 4 hours on those.

You say you work in a cubicle now. Are you receiving any benefits at your current place of employment? If so, your company is possibly covering a majority of those benefits, so will you be making enough money through the auction detailing to provide yourself with an equivalent health/dental/vision package? How about 401k?

I love detailing cars, and I'd love to not have to spend so much time in a cubicle, but I'd have to make an additional $15/hr over what I make now, just to provide myself with the same benefits I currently receive. Working for the man, definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. Hopefully it's an easy decision for you, either way. Good luck!

Mark
 
Yeah, I will most likely have to hire someone on to assist, maybe two people.

My girlfriend will be able to put me on her insurance (we live together and in MA you can be on each others insurance if you live together for at least 6 months). So, that will be OK. 401k may be an issue, but right now I'm not concerned about that. I have hopes that if I can get my business started and make a decent amount of money I'll be able to put a % of what I make into an IRA.

This has been my goal to own my own business for probably about the past 8 years. I have the ambition and drive to do it. I'm not looking to become a millionaire or anything like that. I'm more interested in doing something I love for a living.
 
I worked for several years doing work for car jockeys and a local auction. We had an assembly line set up with 6 employees. There was one or two guys that did nothing but buff cars all day using a rotary (me for a few years) and then there was 2 guys in the wet bay and 2 in the dry bay. Start to finish we would bust out a full detail on a car in less than two hours.


As far as working for auctions goes...there was always a lot of pressure to get the cars done in time for sale day and it was not uncommon for the majority of the dealers to bring the cars in the night before the sale. The auction would run different sales on different days but for us Thursday at noon was the big sale day. Most the time we were at work by 7:00 am Wednesday morning and we didn't leave until 10:00 pm that night. The rest of the week was usually just 10hr days.


It's a lot of work but if you have the employees and you get a solid system in place where you can bust the cars out in a timely matter, you can make some good money. Currently the shop I worked at charges $125 for a full detail on cars and $150 for trucks, vans, and SUV's. They also may charge additional if heavy correction is needed (more than one buffing step).

Since none of those packages you listed are what I'd consider "full details" you would likely want to come in a little lower than the price I listed above for your package D.


Rasky
 
Maybe trying to find out in general the type of package they are typcially going to order. I would think someone there would probably know the percentages. They probably also use the "least aggressive" approach so I would think more times than not they are going to be getting the A package to make it look just good enough to get out the door. I have no experience in this but I would think about 80% would be the A & B package. Knowing this would probably be the difference in between hiring 1 or 3 people.
 
Also for the A package, it just says exterior quick wax, tires and wheels. Are you to assume that the cars come to you clean enough to just start waxing?
 
jonn127 said:
Also for the A package, it just says exterior quick wax, tires and wheels. Are you to assume that the cars come to you clean enough to just start waxing?
Click to expand...

yeah I read that and had to ask myself. I would be responsible for the wash as well. All packages are to include the wash portion, what they have listed are just the extras.
 
Be careful this may be too good of a deal, let me explain. I worked for a detailer in Vegas years ago and he got the idea to start doing auto auction cars. The cars were pos's that even a rotary couldn't help but I did wht I could to make them look presentable. For some reason they thought they were sending us vintage corvettes and not rolling pos's and eventually my boss realized he was losing money from sprending too much time on these cars. I even had one catch on fire with me driving it. Make sure you settle on a look that you and the auto auction can agree on because it can become a nightmare.
 
Thanks for the info. But honestly I don't think that it's going to be an issue. A lot of the cars they have have some sort of damage, weather it be cosmetic, engine, etc. They do a lot of salvage titles and stuff, so they are not doing high end cars, so there really won't be much paint correction involved.

I will be sure to let them know that if this is going to happen that I'm not going to be spending excess time on paint correction, unless I'm being paid for it. And to set an expectation with them that I'll make the cars look as best as I can. But again I don't think it will be an issue, but we will see.

Another good point to consider!
 
Sounds like a GREAT opportunity! Just put it all down in numbers. Numbers never lie... Avg time per car... number of employees you'll need.... etc! If you are ever gonna make it out of cubicles, it's opportunities like this that will take you there. Someone on this thread mentioned POS's... (I like that) I would put it in writting somewhere about the amount of time you will be spending per package. This way it's back to your numbers and everything is calculated. If you do get a POS, and my guess is that you will... You've already told them the amount of time it will take you and should it go over that time, that your rate pass that will be.... ???? You'll have to be pretty creative when putting it in writting, but don't do it without it.
 
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