Northeast detailers, how to keep head above water after summer/ trying to transition

Q

quamen

New member
Long story cut short from my previous post. Been detailing about 10 years, owned my own business and was self employed all throughout college as i graduated with my BA degree. Got a job at a jail about 45 minutes away making 17 bucks per hour, but don't enjoy it. I have a great clientele base of customers, but when winters hits in PA, i don't have business for about 5 months because of being mobile.



Have a passion for detailing and cant get enough of it, but so scared to leave my job because every winter i really don't have much work at all. Kinda hard to do it part time, since i have so many customers and not enough time to get them all done on days off, and work keep piling up. Everyone says im dumb for trying to leave my job, because of security, resume experience etc, but i wish i could somehow survive off detailing year round, but it didn't have for 5 years now. Cant really sleep that well for the past few nights, trying to decide what to do.
 
You have to offer up something different in winter that still sells. (maybe plowing snow or something like that) It's easier to switch things when you have a stand alone shop. Being mobile will put it to a dead stop. One option would be pick up some dealer accounts that have bays you can work out of. Winter is not easy at all. You can always pick up a part time job in the winter as well. But you'll be giving up alot of security and insurence. Not an easy choice.
 
2 ideas:



1. Charge more and detail less. Keep the jail job until you are retired, really ready to go, or find something else.



2. Take a leave and sell your *** off for 3 months and build something worth quitting the jail job for.
 
jdoria said:
2 ideas:



1. Charge more and detail less. Keep the jail job until you are retired, really ready to go, or find something else.



2. Take a leave and sell your *** off for 3 months and build something worth quitting the jail job for.
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I dont think they really pay me enough money for have a BA degree, i mean 16.90 is not much at all. I have plenty of customers no doubt that will keep me busy though summer, but i typically average about 150-200 per day for myself detailing.



I took the jail job as a stepping stone into something else, but now it seems i have such a passion for detailing and wanted to create in the future my own detailing school and product line, not easy but i think i could do it. Economy is kinda crazy now,so that does worry me, but feel kinda miserable going to a 7-3 or 3-11 shift.
 
You sound miserable, you gotta get back into detailing. Perhaps there is a fixed-base you can partner with, maybe you can work for him in the winters, or the dealer suggestion above. The dealers are dying, perhaps there is somewhere where you can rent some space during the winter, plenty of guys on here in the past have posted about renting some space in a body shop or something similar.
 
I have been able to sign up around 15 cars or so that I clean bi-weekly or monthly, year round. Because the cars are mostly clean, I can do them in the customer's garage with ONR. This is pretty much guaranteed income year round, which supplements the busy times in the warm months.
 
I'm sort of in a similar situation here in Ohio. I'm fully mobile,have some great clients. LOVE Detailing! I'm not about to quit my job. I have a blue collar city government job. Make a few bucks more and hour than you. Not at a prison. Third shift sucks though,I'm on second. I'll be 52 in June and I have a 12 year old daughter in private school and a mortgage. I believe I could make it on my own,but I want a building and a couple of mobile vans. That way I can still do some work in the winter. I'm leaning more towards the vans first,but then what will they be doing in the winter? Right now I'm ok with working and my business.

Be prayerful in your decision.
 
If you are not happy doing what you do, and are not making what you want to make, whay not jump?





It sounds silly to me. Be young, do it now.





I detail part time to RELAX. I'm 38 and I don't do it to pay bills. Its much better when there is no pressure.



If you have 10k per month in bills, you need to pump 20k per month out of detailing. Kind of takes the fun out and turns it into a machine.



Its all about what you want.

Short term, might be great. But when you have big bills, it might suck.
 
Showroom Shine said:
I'm sort of in a similar situation here in Ohio. I'm fully mobile,have some great clients. LOVE Detailing! I'm not about to quit my job. I have a blue collar city government job. Make a few bucks more and hour than you. Not at a prison. Third shift sucks though,I'm on second. I'll be 52 in June and I have a 12 year old daughter in private school and a mortgage. I believe I could make it on my own,but I want a building and a couple of mobile vans. That way I can still do some work in the winter. I'm leaning more towards the vans first,but then what will they be doing in the winter? Right now I'm ok with working and my business.

Be prayerful in your decision.
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Same position here. I'm finishing up my masters and I'm stuck as well. Luckily I'll be a college prof with most likely summers off so I'll be able to detail summers and do the prof thing the rest of the year. Hopefully I can get the best of both worlds.
 
thanks guys for all the replies, i think im going to make a jump. the last reason i wanted to make the jump, is so that i could also take my police academy training at night part time. I always wanted to become a cop, and more and more places are requiring the act before you take the test, they dont want to pay for it anymore. The money issue i feel the time is to do it now, because my total bills per month is 800 bucks. I have one wealthy customer i talked to already and every year he does about 800-1000 per month on weekly washes and my other regular about 400, so the two right now already committed verbally to taking in over 1k a month, not counting tons of others.
 
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