A small question, turned into a realization

T

Tassadar

Car Detailing Whore
This is a continuation from a thread that was going off topic. Basically I am weighing using a cheaper product (Megs #66) for use on customer cars against PB's Polish w/Carnauba. The price difference is $24 and $55 resepectively, both in 1 gallon sizes.

Forgive the following if it feels oddly worded, just work with me, I didnt feel like retyping all of it, its all realized after the following was posted:

rhillstr said:
Okay hear me out-

First of all, are you bearing the cost or are you passing it on to the customer? If you pass it on then labor is the predominant issue.

If you do not pass cost on, then here is where it can save you bucks:

The polish is roughly twice as spendy but lets say lasts 3x as long. You don't have to reapply it for two wash/wax cycles and collect your usual fee. Maybe you touch it up with QD+. On top of that you save labor which is also important in calculating your overall cost.
Click to expand...

My reply is as follows:

I do not get that many customers at all, I barely get any at all. Thats mostly due to the fact that I am a student with an extremely busy schedule.

I do not have a constant stream of customers, nor a cosntant stream of return customers (washes/maitenence of work). The area I live in has a customer base for this work, however, they simply do not trust a 17 year old kid who works out of his parent's driveway.

There is a local buisness that offers detailing. They do a decent job, but their product durability is non-existent. The interior is simply sprayed with silicone or just a VERY high gloss dressing. The exterior does have an orbital buffer used on it, however I do not know what products are used.

This place stays busy all the time, but it drives me nuts because they do not offer anything but a $125 detail, and its not any good! The best thing they do is extract the floormats.

I am at a complete buisness loss, now that I think about it. My problem is not the proper product for my work, but rather, the proper method, to attract the clientel.

People always seem intrested in my highest level detail, this is usually inspired after looking at my website, where each package is described in layman's terms as best as I could muster.

However, this has only givn me one customer, and even that was due to word of mouth. I hoped the car club crowd would be intrested in my services, but to them $50-125 means car mods, not shiny paint. So I need to appeal to a different group of people, but I have very little funds to create a huge advertising campaign. I need to get my name out there, but I just do not know how.

Help, anyone...please?
 
My best friend does some detailing on the side. This is a man with a full time job, a family, and goes to school full time. He is extraordinarily busy. He still finds time to bring in about $500 bucks a month detailing on the side. The way he does it is from word of mouth. He doesn't advertise or anything. He even has some business cards made up that he rarely hands out. He gets most of his business from people at his office. They come up to him because they know he does cars and he tells them when he can do it and how much it will cost. I don't think he ever has to go begging for detailing jobs anymore because he has been there long enough that everybody knows that he is the resident car wash dude. I think he charges on average about 60 bucks per car and he does the works. I know for a fact that he has at least 3 weekly regulars who pay 20 bucks a week for him to maintain. It may be hard being a student to get that kind of steady work but I know he does it and seems to be very happy with it. He's been doing it for several years now and is just happy as a dude with no hope of ever growing a mullet can be. :)
 
My biggest problem is a fear of telling people my prices. I am afraid of what they will say if they think its too high (a full exterior runs $100 with no interior except vacuum). No one has told me its too high yet, but I still worry.
 
Try basing it on an hourly rate. Setting your prices as a flat rate is complicated and you'll take it in the rear more times that you will want to. Set your prices based on what you want to make per hour and then adjust your fees per vehicle based on how long you figure it will take you. That will win you way more business and you won't get screwed as often.
 
Take a look around at what other shops are charging and then undercut them. I'd go for a number that is easy to calculate in your mind. $20 or $25 would be a piece of cake. I don't know what my friend has it set at but he told me that he averages $60 per car so maybe he has it at $30 if it takes him 2 hours to do a car. You have to be really good at estimating how long it will take. If you set your price at $20 then you have to realize that it includes cost of materials, time, and labor. You may only make $10 an hour at that point. If you quote a job at $40 bucks and it takes you 3 hours to do then you just got wiped out. You can't do the job without quoting a price. I suppose if the customer knew that the price was based on an estimated time it would take to complete then you could give them a range. Like you could say that it will cost somewhere between $40 and $60 dollars or something like that.
 
But what about customers that you know could provide you a client base, but think that your hourly rates are too steep. If people find out they are paying a 17 year old $20 an hour, they might think twice about using me.
 
Do you question the rate that professionals charge you when you get something done? If an 18 year old came into your house with experience and ability and said that he could put a new roof on your house for X number of dollars would you tell him that you would only pay half that because he was too young to be making more money than you? People pay what the service is worth regardless of how old the person offering it is. The biggest thing about picking up new customers is confidence. You have to sell yourself before you can sell your services. You'll get the hang of it in time. Just be confident that you are worth what you are charging.
 
One other thing.... your customers don't need to know that your prices are set on an hourly base. Just look at the car and tell them how much it will cost them. They don't need to know the breakdown of why it is going to cost them that. If they can get the job done cheaper somewhere else then you have a problem. Just make sure that you know what you are offering is better than they can get elsewhere and tell them why its better. That is where you have to sell yourself and your service at the same time. (Can you tell I was in sales for years? :p)
 
Tassadar said:
But that arises the question of, "Is the work I do and the products I use really worth $20 an hour?"
Click to expand...

No offence, but if your work isn't worth charging at least $20 an hour for then there is something seriously wrong with how you are doing things. Something you have to realize is that your budget is not their budget. What is expensive for you may be reasonable for them. You need to step outside of what you believe the world to be like and look at it from the perspective of a customer who is shopping for a good quality detail job. Is the job that a detail shop who is charging them $150 worth it? When they can crack it out in 1 1/2 hours do you think they consider that maybe they are over charging the customer? I doubt it. You are offering them more than their local touchless car wash is offering them and your prices should reflect it. If you are too cheap then people will think that this kid obviously doesn't have any experience or know how or else his prices would be higher. Don't work for less than $20 an hour. You have expenses to cover with that money. You'll be working for nothing if you aren't making at least $35 or $40 per car. You can make money working for that cheap but you would need to have cars lined up to do one after the other all day long.
 
Well I know I do not really ahve to worry about the better service. To my knowledge there is just that one other detailer in my area, and they really do not do good work.
 
Well, there you go then. Just give them the same advice the Post Office gave me when they shreded one of my letters once. "If you don't like the way the USPS does things then use the other one." :p Let your competition do the selling for you. If they do crap work then people will recognize that after you do their car once. Just remember the details that they usually miss (like door jambs, air vents, wheel wells, etc.) and you'll have to beat the referals off with a stick. Oh, and grow a mullet. That helps. ;)
 
I just checked there are a total of 53 detailers/car washes in the Oklahoma City Metro Area. Quite a few are easily within 10-20 miles from me, thats a lot of competition.
 
Yeah, but are those "detail shops" or just car washes? carwashes suck. A detail shop is a place where you can have things like swirl removal done. A car wash just runs it through in assembly line fashon and does the fastest job they can do. Those kinds of places aren't competition. Your competition are the mobile detailers out there.

There is always going to be competition. Your only advantage is that at the moment you are selling yourself to the customer, the competition is nowhere to be seen.
 
So how do you manage to get a customer convinced and explain what you will be doing? Must people seem to think that the ultimate thing their car can get done to is "polish and buffed" around here. If I try explaining it to them, they act as if I am trying to belittle them.
 
That's where salesmanship comes into play. I've got my animal magnatisim working for me on my side so it may be a little tougher for the average joe, but all it really takes is a good understanding of what it is you are going to be doing. If you can explain your services and products well then that's all it takes. The average guy on the street doesn't know that there is a lot of competition in the detailing world. They are just looking for someone to clean their car for them. Point out what you can do for their car and why it should be done. You need to sell yourself. You need a high level of self confidence to do that. Customers aren't going to be knocking down your door untill you can show that you can walk the walk. Sales skills can't be taught over the internet. Its something you learn as you go. Its helpful to have someone show you how its done, but not necessary. I grew up in a family that was always into sales so it sort of came naturally for me. I expect I'd have had a lot harder job of it had I not grown up in that environment.

They won't feel belittled if you just tell them what you can do and why it will be benificial to them. Don't try and sell the whole package all at once. Maybe just sell them a basic wash and interior detail first and then clay their trunk as a bonus so they can actually feel the advantage of it. Maybe polish out one door so they can see the difference it will make. I like to do just the hood because its something they stare at the whole time they are driving and it makes them think about it. You'll find ways of selling yourself and your products. You just have to be creative. There are no rules in sales that can't be bent. That is why sales is the highest paying profession in the world.
 
Hmm, I should have an intresting Lincoln LS coming up. The guy told me no rush, because I told him that I would like to do the best I can, so I would like to get my "polisher" (PC), and get acustomed to it, so that I can do a better job on his car than I can by hand.

In order to keep him intrested, I am going to do a small section of his car on Saturday night with PBs products (assuming they came in today, im still at work right now) and I will do the whole thing. S&W, Clay, SSR2, SSR1, Pro Polish, EX. I will do the hood perhaps, just so he can see the full effects.
 
Thats a good idea Tass do a half and half Its great to see the Before and After and Half and Half Type showcases he will definelty come back after that.
 
Well that showcase is not going to happen. Steve didnt get my order out till Tuesday, so its not going to get here till Monday, DANGIT!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top