How to make a $200 detail look quality with only 2-3 hours?

If I were a customer I would be looking for attention to detail. Such as corners of the the windows, places where you usually do not look (underneath the steering wheel, etc.), beneath airdams and wheel wells, engine compartment, and inside the trunk, just to name a few. As for the time spent, I'm not able to answer that. Good luck.
 
BWG707 said:
If I were a customer I would be looking for attention to detail. Such as corners of the the windows, places where you usually do not look (underneath the steering wheel, etc.), beneath airdams and wheel wells, engine compartment, and inside the trunk, just to name a few. As for the time spent, I'm not able to answer that. Good luck.
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Yeah I figure I might have to cut out some of that stuff or find some tools such as the steamer mentioned by another above, to cut time down and still get those areas
 
I'm going to agree with others here and say that a $200 detail cannot be done in 2 1/2-3 hours by yourself. Not without cutting a lot of corners. And do you want to be known as the guy who charges $200 to do a quick detail? Or would you want to be known as the guy that charges $200 for a quality detail that will help your business reputation?

I average about 4-4 1/2 hours for my Deluxe detail. Which is an interior (apc cleaning, dressing, leather cleaned/dressed, etc) no carpet shampooing, and exterior wash, decontamination (de-ironizing spray & clay bar), and wax or sealant.

Add in polishing or carpet shampooing and the time goes up as well as my price.

My customers are extremely happy with the quality work I do and know that when they bring me their car no corners are cut.

Remember it's your business and your name on it. Think about what you want others to think of your company.

If you are charging $200 per detail, you could hire someone to help you out and get that detail done in 2-3 hours and still be making a good amount of money. Say you do 3-4 cars a day that's nothing to pay someone.

I currently am swamped and still work on my own. Considering hiring someone at least a few days a week to help me out on bigger jobs.

Just my 2 cents.
 
UltimateDetail said:
I really don't have anybody like that to hire, and I get anxious having to rely on other people when it comes to my income.
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Especially when you pay them $8/hour and expect them to do top quality work, and maybe even "do extra work"...
 
Think about what you could do for $100 that's the pricepoint most people are willing to listen to. My express detail Is $100 and that's what a lot of customers want. Some want more done like leather cleaning, carpet shampooing Extra paint polishing step all that is extra. If I did not have the $100 express detail as a launching point i thin It would kill my business. If I had to try to convince everyone they needed the "works" at $200 that would cost me most of my customers.
 
Just use a glaze like most do.

But don't go advertising it as "paint correction" because that would be messed up.
 
2 1/2 Hours sounds extremely hard. I dont detail for my permanent income but i am as close to a professional part time detailer as it gets. I work all summer after work and every weekend unless i have it booked off for myself.

Also Like rusty truck mentioned, the "bang for the buck" detail is what gets you customers in the door. Think of it like this the car wash giants will do it faster and cheaper, no matter what. If you do the same services but at a slightly higher price, and take a bit more time, and treat your customers like there bringing in there ferrari no matter what they drive, they will see the quality. They will notice trust me, "holy this guy charges $20 bucks more "The Wash and Go" but everything is flawless this is great no streaky windows, no missed corners, dont see streaks on the gauges" etc.

Also, from that you will get customer who ask for much higher end work, assuming you can perform higher end work. My little side business went form me asking family to do free jobs, to charging my friends material cost, to charging my friends friends full price, to getting randoms calling me, and now i do only mid to high class vehicles, usually only 1 a day on the weekend and i now charge 4-500 more then the shops in my area. The customers take on my work in that, "hes my custom detailer, he deals with me one on one, and i'm not a number, thats why i go there"

I have even recently starts to doing some "sevice calls" lol, i had a customer with a late 90's ferrari call me out to remove bird droppings from his car and give it an onr, dress the wheels, for a couple hundred bucks.

Slowly if you have the right mind everything will come around. If you want to target in and out customers or you want to make clientele its two totally different procedures.

Good luck, sorry for my long story, dont post much, but when i do i go crazy. Hope some of this info helps, i was in your spots, just a few short years ago.
 
UltimateDetail said:
I was worried about that, but I've had a lot of people say: "It takes that long!" when I tell the 5-8 hours for a detail. The main problem is, a lot of people can't justify the price point for the extra services they get.
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If someone can't understand (and is not willing to pay) that a quality job takes time you're better off without them

How old are you? (be honest)
 
Flash Gordon said:
If someone can't understand (and is not willing to pay) that a quality job takes time you're better off without them

How old are you? (be honest)
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^^^^ this man speaks the truth. I detail as a hobby sometimes people expect to pay $50 for a full detail (polish and interior cleaned) and want there car looking brand new for that price your getting a wash and wax. Best way is to explain the whole process and ask the customer what they are trying to achieve and go from there.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2
 
Your time frame is not even close to being realistic. If you are firm on working by yourself then you need to change your game plan. Less services and a lower price to fit into the time frame is one way. The amount of work you think you will get is ambitious to say the least especially considering you haven't even started yet. I hope you get the long hours six days a week but it may take you a year to get to that point. Will this be a registered full fledged business that is insured? Seems like more thought, MUCH more thought needs to go into this.
 
I would scale down your package. There is no way a full detail is going to take 2-3 hours by yourself. You sound like you are a business neophyte.

Do not listen to all of the OCD detailers who say that you have to spend 8 hours detailing a Ferrari to build your business. You need to investigate your competition, check out competitor prices, and figure out a way to charge a fair price for 2-3 hours of detailing in your area.

The average consumer just really doesn't care too much about a perfect car. You should be targeting this type of consumer for your start up business. Don't listen to these Ferrari worshipers on here who act like the high end detailing business is growing on trees in every community.
 
It kinda sounds like you want to make $800 a day detailing doing everything by yourself. Is this correct?

If you do that 5 days a week that's $4000 a week. Do you currently make $4000 a week and need to replace that income with this new venture?

Also, sounds like you're a hobbyist, like a lot of people on here (as am I). Are you thinking of going into detailing because it will be "quick easy money"? I think you said you do this on the weekend, what do you currently get an hour approximately?

From what I've read on here it's a pretty hard battle when you start out, and I would only be changing to it because I loved it, and would get to do what I love for a living, not for the billions I'd be making.
 
UltimateDetail said:
Yeah I figure I might have to cut out some of that stuff or find some tools such as the steamer mentioned by another above, to cut time down and still get those areas
Click to expand...

Every time I buy a new product or piece of equipment my first thought is 'man I'm going to save a ton of time with this!'. That has never been the case....never. I just get better results. I don't care what you buy, what chemicals you use you will still need a certain amount of time to get the job done correct.

You need to do a fn phenomenal job on every car you do...then people will talk, then you get more business, then you hirer a guy, then you higher more, then you sit in an office collecting money....I'm still at 'getting more business & at hiring someone'. Not far from sitting behind a desk...lol maybe 10 more years Haha!
 
ShineTimeDetail said:
Every time I buy a new product or piece of equipment my first thought is 'man I'm going to save a ton of time with this!'. That has never been the case....never. I just get better results. I don't care what you buy, what chemicals you use you will still need a certain amount of time to get the job done correct.

You need to do a fn phenomenal job on every car you do...then people will talk, then you get more business, then you hirer a guy, then you higher more, then you sit in an office collecting money....I'm still at 'getting more business & at hiring someone'. Not far from sitting behind a desk...lol maybe 10 more years Haha!
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ShineTime, I'm glad to finally see someone post what I've been thinking for a long time.
Even a tool such as a Tornador may free up some time, but it can also add time to a detail.
I agree, you get better results...and can get places where the hand doesn't go.

My biggest use of this tool is for heavily soiled door jambs and rubber mouldings, cleaning the rear areas of suv's and for the pseudo-carpet lining of trunks. I rarely use it on headliners and dashbord vents anymore.

Not everyone has the same experiences but I commend your post. :props:
 
SeaJay's said:
I'm going to agree with others here and say that a $200 detail cannot be done in 2 1/2-3 hours by yourself. Not without cutting a lot of corners. And do you want to be known as the guy who charges $200 to do a quick detail? Or would you want to be known as the guy that charges $200 for a quality detail that will help your business reputation?

I average about 4-4 1/2 hours for my Deluxe detail. Which is an interior (apc cleaning, dressing, leather cleaned/dressed, etc) no carpet shampooing, and exterior wash, decontamination (de-ironizing spray & clay bar), and wax or sealant.

Add in polishing or carpet shampooing and the time goes up as well as my price.

My customers are extremely happy with the quality work I do and know that when they bring me their car no corners are cut.

Remember it's your business and your name on it. Think about what you want others to think of your company.

If you are charging $200 per detail, you could hire someone to help you out and get that detail done in 2-3 hours and still be making a good amount of money. Say you do 3-4 cars a day that's nothing to pay someone.

I currently am swamped and still work on my own. Considering hiring someone at least a few days a week to help me out on bigger jobs.

Just my 2 cents.
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I agree, I want to do quality details, but I thought the market was bigger for the people who don't know what swirl marks are. I think that there's not enough time in the day to make the money I want, on my own. I'm going to have to do some thinking about employees. Or I could try and build a clientele that wants no corners cut. Which I felt was very limited, but I suppose I generalized too much. Now, If I hire someone, how would I go about it? And how would I go about making sure they do things correctly, I am mostly worried about polishing.
Now, I figure 3-4 cars a day, that's 6-8 hundred dollars a day. I going to be honest and tell you, this will be my business for life, and I want to make sure I make what I feel comfortable making. After all expenses, I would like to make at least 100k a year for myself. But, in the end, right now I am still early in the planning phase for my business, I don't plan to start up until a year and a half from now.
 
bmwgalore said:
Especially when you pay them $8/hour and expect them to do top quality work, and maybe even "do extra work"...
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Yeah, that's hard to come by. Especially around here, it's mostly young kids who don't wan to do anything.:rolleyes:
 
Think of it like this if you were going to hire somebody.


if its a 200 dollar detail, I would do 50 dollars to you and 50 dollars to the other. The 100 would then go to products and any items that run out of warranty such as shop vac and washing machine, etc so if you did 4 details a day that would be 200 for you and 200 to the partner which is pretty good for one day. And would also mean 400 towards supplies and storage,etc


I would then reccomend doing inventory as you are mostly required by law and it would be good as you could see you need more or less product depending on how big each customers car was
 
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rustytruck said:
Think about what you could do for $100 that's the pricepoint most people are willing to listen to. My express detail Is $100 and that's what a lot of customers want. Some want more done like leather cleaning, carpet shampooing Extra paint polishing step all that is extra. If I did not have the $100 express detail as a launching point i thin It would kill my business. If I had to try to convince everyone they needed the "works" at $200 that would cost me most of my customers.
Click to expand...

You know, when first trying to get people, a few of them look at having their car detailed as just a "throw a 50 or 100 bucks" at me kinda thing. And in return, have quick wipe down and wax is what they picture.
 
Kaban said:
Just use a glaze like most do.

But don't go advertising it as "paint correction" because that would be messed up.
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Strangely i find glazes not to be enough to cover most if barely any swirl marks or any other defect. Then again I just started practicing using glazes. So maybe if someone wants a quick detail, I could go over with a hand glaze.
 
Maybe even do like a lottery gift card type thing where if you just recently had your car detailed, you will be entered into a drawing to win a 50 percent off card on your next detail
just a thought
 
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