Questions for you business owners...

jonn127

jonn127

New member
Joined
Sep 27, 2010
Messages
374
Reaction score
0
I'm curious, for all of you out there that actually own detailing businesses, are you actively involved working and operating, or do you just employ people to handle all the actual detailing duties. I understand that if you have a couple shops that you cant be working all of them, maybe working one and somewhat overseeing the others.

Or have you ever heard of someone owning a detailing business but actually doing none of the work or detailing themselves?

I understand this is a strange question, but I'm in a strange situation and just some people answering this may pay huge dividends in helping me make a decision about my future.
 
I got a scenario for you. You can charge people a good price and sub contract it out to someone else. Like if the detail guy charges 100 bucks for full detail. You can charge double or more

Sent from my Chaser using Tapatalk 2
 
Sounds like you don't need to know anything about detailing to make that arrangement. I mean fir the actual brick and mortar business owners out there, are there any that aren't actually involved in the detailing?
 
Actually not a strange question. I own 3 businesses all different, except for one thing, I am involved in all of them! Two of my businesses are service oriented, one which requires a professional degree, licensing and major capital investment. I do have employees but nobody that could do what I do due to the above constraints. The second is my detailing business which is a weekend operation. I work and sweat alongside my 2 employees since any of them could potentially break away and hang their own shingle. To start a detailing business does not take major schooling, professional degrees, super expensive malpratice insurance or licenses, major capital investment etc.... Any employees you have can and will become disgruntled eventually, especially if they are harboring ill thoughts at the fact that you are making the big bucks off of their labor, while sitting pretty in your office..... or while working another job. They will eventually work up the courage to hang their own sign. The only way to prevent that from happening is to have such a reputation that nobody would want to compete against you, however if you do not work and do not build your own reputation then the shop reputation is essentially a reflection off of the worker performing the work.

I hope that makes sense!?!
 
That makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. I made an agreement with a guy to give him a percentage of my revenue in order to work out of a bay and do a dealership that he had landed as an account. An account only able to be done because I was on board. I've hired and fired guys over the passed year, have built aa good Facebook following, repeat customers, etc. He's been off doing his own thing and now thinks he should be able to take all of this over, put me on a small salary, etc. He thinks since he spent all of 10 minutes landing this account that he should be entitled to the same percentage forever, and that this is all a sudden his business.
When I came over, he basically said it was my business to grow, as long as he got his cut of course.
He thinks he can be a hands off owner and make it work, I'm about to let himtry, without me of course. To answer some sure questions, no there is no contact. My fault I know.
 
jonn127 said:
That makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. I made an agreement with a guy to give him a percentage of my revenue in order to work out of a bay and do a dealership that he had landed as an account. An account only able to be done because I was on board. I've hired and fired guys over the passed year, have built aa good Facebook following, repeat customers, etc. He's been off doing his own thing and now thinks he should be able to take all of this over, put me on a small salary, etc. He thinks since he spent all of 10 minutes landing this account that he should be entitled to the same percentage forever, and that this is all a sudden his business.
When I came over, he basically said it was my business to grow, as long as he got his cut of course.
He thinks he can be a hands off owner and make it work, I'm about to let himtry, without me of course. To answer some sure questions, no there is no contact. My fault I know.
Click to expand...

LOL!! So YOU are the disgruntled employee!!!!!! I know you that you are faulting yourself for not having a contract but.... it actually works out best for you. To be 100% honest, you did the absolute right thing in working the business as if it was yours and marketed it through social media etc... as if it was yours already. This will better prepare you to be the boss of your own operation without the puppet strings. Your contractual agreement with him should only be one reflecting the lease agreement (percentage basis or fixed cost). The numbers are totally between you and him to discuss but they need to make sense. Anything related to the service part of it should be discussed in the form of a "finder's fee", definitely not a % basis as long as you hold the contract. Good Faith as it is described in business becomes 100% yours within the first years of taking over a business, so in buy/sell agreement this may equate to 5% of the gross income (for that year). So, at the very most, (IF you feel generous) you could pay him 2-5% of that contract at the end of the year, give him a nice kiss and tell him to kiss your "derriere".
 
Dr. Pain you are the man. That's what is so crazy is that he considers me the employee while I consider myself the boss. Man I love this site, a wealth of knowledge and people willing to share it.
 
I'm a one shop so I do all the work and everything for the business. I would never trust anyone to do the for my business ever. Most people are lazy and only want a paycheck from you. Trying to find someone who cares is to much work and when the I've built a great name for my self not worth some bad employee to ruin it.
 
Pureshine said:
I'm a one shop so I do all the work and everything for the business. I would never trust anyone to do the for my business ever. Most people are lazy and only want a paycheck from you. Trying to find someone who cares is to much work and when the I've built a great name for my self not worth some bad employee to ruin it.
Click to expand...

^^^this, same school of thought here
 
Why don't you speak to an attorney and or an experienced person from the SBA and SCORE? Dr.Pain's advice and info seems very spot-on but, having a the proper legal/business partnership paper drawn up would probably benefit you at the least, whether you walk away from the situation or continue in the business. Is there any paperwork between you and your "partner"?
 
A lot of guys start out as owners/operators but the smart ones quickly move to JUST OWNERS.
 
tigerwash said:
A lot of guys start out as owners/operators but the smart ones quickly move to JUST OWNERS.
Click to expand...

I disagree most of the top detailers still work alone or with one other guy. Now if your doing more production work I would agree with you.
 
ShaunD, we had just a handshake agreement. We were both getting into un chartered territory for the both of us. He landed a dealership account and I was ready to make the step from doing this as a hobby, to doing it for a living. We both agreed to revisit it after 6 months and now it's been a second 6 months. Being that we are good friends, still, we both agree we need to get something on paper sooner rather than later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top