Peoples advice greatly appreciated.

[mosin55]

Hello Forum, I would greatly appreciate your help and advice. I've recently moved to an area of a small population. (3,000). There are areas around me that are slightly bigger which I do not mind to travel to. Anyways, the new area has caused problems with my pricing and how to pull in work.

Being from a larger area previously the work was easier to find and the amount you could charge was better. The good thing is that there is basically no competition, but the competition is doing the famous "full detail" for $85 and I will not be apart of that. I have called detail shops 30-45 minutes away from me and they consistently charge $150 for a inside and outside detail. What really shocked me about these shops is they do not offer paint correction. The shops are more along the lines of quickie car wash "detail". I have yet to find a detailer around the area that deals in paint correction.

I know that you are big in finding a package for every car every customer but at the area I am at I just need help at doing just that. I am not sure at how to set up my business here. I am finding it hard to show what I can do without people thinking that my prices are crazy or my business model not being effective. I want to give these people the quality that they deserve without me going broke, or them thinking my prices are stupid. What may you suggest?

I have read articles about production detailing, which would be this areas main line of work. Could you please give me some advice or sense of direction to go with this. I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you, very much for your time or any reply.

 

[BurnsDetailing]

Worrying about the competition's packages and prices will drive you crazy and possibly out of business, as Mike says Keep It Simple Simon.

I understand where you are coming from, we're in a fairly rural farm community here, a little larger at 12,000 though. Before we converted our used car reconditioning department to a detail department open to the public, I looked at the competition, all of it automated tunnel washes, some with people at the end of it slinging drying towels all around, others not, everyone was fighting over that $20 to $50 wash. One of them offered to have the attendants vacuum or apply wax for certain minimal upcharges. So when I came out and said I'm going to charge $210 for interior and exterior, everyone thought I was crazy, but it worked, because people inherently understand quality costs money.

Paint correction should be done on a quote basis, way too varied to get yourself cornered in at a price, only advertise that paint correction is X dollars per hour. Instead, lead with a paint enhancement service in it's place (decon wash, clay, AIO), goes along with Mike's Squirrels vs Swirls, your average consumer is not going to look at paint the same way as you, clean glass, shiny paint and tire shine and 99% of your customers are ecstatic with the results, even though when we take our lights to it and get our eyes within millimeters of the paint we see it's "trashed".

Have an exterior wash price, interior clean price and that paint enhancement price and say large SUVs/trucks add $XX to those prices and call it done, don't overwhelm customers with too many options and don't try to get yourself in a price battle with the competition, you know your value, hold yourself to that and learn to pass on work that wants to talk you down on your price.

 

[98CayenneTA]

You are going to have to be a good judge of potential future work with this but if you see somewhere with a lot of potential business then pick one of their cars and give them a big discount or a free be to show your work off. After that they can take it or leave it when you tell them your hourly rate for the appearance/ final product you just provided.

 

[dgage]

Early in the Instagram days, I saw several detailers start out and they were doing Honda Civics and Accords and a few years later they were doing Lamborghini and Ferraris. Pay attention to someone like Sizzle Chest where he does a great job of taking pictures. If you want to be successful with a business, the business (you) needs to be good at marketing. So take time to thoroughly document your work and find a website or platform where you can show off your work. After a while, you'll be able to point to your work and then people will come from further away to have you do their vehicle. But growing a business takes time and so it won't happen overnight. So you'll have to have confidence in your abilities and know where you want to focus. We know you can't compete with the automated washes but do you want to be middle tier or do you ultimately want to have high-end clientele? You'll need to define that too, which is really part of marketing, know who your customer IS and ISN'T. Good luck!

 

[Coatingsarecrack]

Just go around to random nice cars and do a waterless on the trunk and then a test spot. Leave a business card.


For real though get all customers to leave a review on google. How did you find those detailers around you and in the surrounding city? Google?

This is how alot of people will find you se get alot of pictures on your google page and get as many reviews as you can.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mosin55]

You are going to have to be a good judge of potential future work with this but if you see somewhere with a lot of potential business then pick one of their cars and give them a big discount or a free be to show your work off. After that they can take it or leave it when you tell them your hourly rate for the appearance/ final product you just provided.

Thank you, for the advice Ill keep that in mind and may have to give it a shot.

 

[mosin55]

Just go around to random nice cars and do a waterless on the trunk and then a test spot. Leave a business card.


For real though get all customers to leave a review on google. How did you find those detailers around you and in the surrounding city? Google?

This is how alot of people will find you se get alot of pictures on your google page and get as many reviews as you can.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Coatinsarecrack, they were mainly through facebook or people would tell me about them and I would give them a call up and see what they offered and priced at.

 

[mosin55]

Worrying about the competition's packages and prices will drive you crazy and possibly out of business, as Mike says Keep It Simple Simon.

I understand where you are coming from, we're in a fairly rural farm community here, a little larger at 12,000 though. Before we converted our used car reconditioning department to a detail department open to the public, I looked at the competition, all of it automated tunnel washes, some with people at the end of it slinging drying towels all around, others not, everyone was fighting over that $20 to $50 wash. One of them offered to have the attendants vacuum or apply wax for certain minimal upcharges. So when I came out and said I'm going to charge $210 for interior and exterior, everyone thought I was crazy, but it worked, because people inherently understand quality costs money.

Paint correction should be done on a quote basis, way too varied to get yourself cornered in at a price, only advertise that paint correction is X dollars per hour. Instead, lead with a paint enhancement service in it's place (decon wash, clay, AIO), goes along with Mike's Squirrels vs Swirls, your average consumer is not going to look at paint the same way as you, clean glass, shiny paint and tire shine and 99% of your customers are ecstatic with the results, even though when we take our lights to it and get our eyes within millimeters of the paint we see it's "trashed".

Have an exterior wash price, interior clean price and that paint enhancement price and say large SUVs/trucks add $XX to those prices and call it done, don't overwhelm customers with too many options and don't try to get yourself in a price battle with the competition, you know your value, hold yourself to that and learn to pass on work that wants to talk you down on your price.

Thank you, for replying. I appreciate your post, there is a lot of good info in there.

 

[mosin55]

Early in the Instagram days, I saw several detailers start out and they were doing Honda Civics and Accords and a few years later they were doing Lamborghini and Ferraris. Pay attention to someone like Sizzle Chest where he does a great job of taking pictures. If you want to be successful with a business, the business (you) needs to be good at marketing. So take time to thoroughly document your work and find a website or platform where you can show off your work. After a while, you'll be able to point to your work and then people will come from further away to have you do their vehicle. But growing a business takes time and so it won't happen overnight. So you'll have to have confidence in your abilities and know where you want to focus. We know you can't compete with the automated washes but do you want to be middle tier or do you ultimately want to have high-end clientele? You'll need to define that too, which is really part of marketing, know who your customer IS and ISN'T. Good luck!

That is something I need to work on is making sure I document my work. Sometimes I just get going and forget to take photos. Thanks for the advice, dgage.

 

[Coatingsarecrack]

Coatinsarecrack, they were mainly through facebook or people would tell me about them and I would give them a call up and see what they offered and priced at.

Get reviews on your facebook too and start an instagram with before and after pics you can send your possible clients to take a look


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[98CayenneTA]

Another thing that helps imo is if you're going to put a light to it to show the paint damage, put a light on it at the same angle to show the level of correction you got. To many use a light to show how damaged that paint is then they take a angle picture with a reflection for the after...... I'm like O that's cute lol, must not have corrected it very far or embarrassed of the result so its kind of a attempt at false advertisement. Or at the very least explain why it was only done to say 50% correction or whatever the situation may be.

Here is a quick screen shot of a quick advertisement example I do. It's layed out different on my page and I do have a full spread but this is something short and sweet for a customer to look at.

Also here is a couple picture's to show why the light before but not after bothers me....
(Sorry, going a little bit every which direction lol)

First picture is a reflection, a nice looking reflection. You can see my light in my left hand. The only thing I do is turn the light on.... So long story short, reflections are cute but don't tell the whole story like my above 3 pictures

Also I can pm ya my page if you would like to look at how I advertise and take pictures.

Hope some of that helped, just got on a bit of a roll

 

[dgage]

That is something I need to work on is making sure I document my work. Sometimes I just get going and forget to take photos. Thanks for the advice, dgage.

I’m a consultant and have always hated doing status reports. I worked it into my standard workflow and now they are no problem and I get kudos for them now. Make pictures a part of your workflow. Your life(livelihood) depends on it. . Good luck.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I'm not sure I can add anything that hasn't already been shared by others.

I will say that the most important pictures is the BEFORE pictures. After you work your magic you can never go back in time to get the before shots.

 

[psnt1ol]

First let me get this out of the way. I dont work on vehicles fulltime but with the pandemic in 2020 .... i find myself doing more than before to supplement my income. My background is in retail management but i was studying to be a mechanical engineer when I was in school. Why I didnt continue in the engineering field is another story for a later day.

What I learned and observed while in retail management for the last 3 decades may add value to this conservation. I ran both high end,mid end, and low end retail stores in my past and the secret of success for all was simply this. Know who your customers are and cater to them specifically.

Customers who only shops for a price generally dont care about quality or value. They just wants to pay a certain price. A high end customer is still concern about the price but they understand value as well as quality and if both key determining factors are check ... many would spend the money.

When I ran a mid end store, I would hear customers telling me how outrageously overpriced our products were then another customer would come in and wanted to know why its so cheap and what's wrong with it. Our products were aimed at the segment between these 2 extremes. We were hugely successful partly due to the products we sell but what really kept customers coming back was our level of personal service. A high end shop is a different animal all together. Its all about exclusivity. That customer want a product not anyone can have. We sold a $10K jacket because we informed him that it was a runway piece. We didn't lie...it was a runway item for a major designer during fashion week in NY.

Figure out who you want as customers and proceed from there. Trying to please everyone generally would ends up pleasing no one.