Ray, this an excellent post, and should be required reading for anyone who details for a living. For all of you out there who do this for a living, I’ll add some unsolicited advice from the school of hard knocks. I am not a professional detailer, but I make my living in the professional services industry, as do professional detailers. I charge by the hour which is selling my time (lawyer), and even though professional detailers may think they are selling a “job,” all services are selling one’s time. Even if the service is a flat rate, it still is based on the time it takes to do that service. My time does not come cheap, and if you want to be successful, your time should not come cheap either. We are not in the business of selling physical products to people, so our time is money. Its great that the people on this forum love detailing, and are skilled at it, but you are in business to make money. If you are not making money doing this, then you can spend whatever money you do manage to scrape together to hire my law firm to set your business up as a non-profit entity. It will definitely cost you; I am not a non-profit, and you should not be either.
The absolute 100% most important aspect of any service business that relies on customers to give you money, is MARKETING. And marketing is conceptually simple, it is how well to you communicate to potential customers (1) what it is that you do, (2) why your customers need your service, and (3) why they should pay YOU for that service instead of some other guy. Customer education is key, if they don’t know what they are paying you for, and why they should…then they won’t. As an example, I once saw a mobile detailing van in my area that had a bunch of detailing product stickers on it, and the primary marketing slogan painted on the side was “100% swirl removal.” Mike Phillips had an excellent post/article on the AG site some years back about how the general public (your potential customers) don’t know a swirl from a squirrel. That is absolutely true. Who exactly appreciates the concept of swirl free paint in those terms? Other detailers and enthusiasts on these forums, that’s who. We are are not going to hire you. Ever. We do our own cars. Epic marketing fail.
If I were detailing for a living the first investment I would make is to create a high end brochure that explains the paint correction process, since I’m presuming that’s where you guys make real money, or should. Your website should have the same information and pics. An educated customer is the one who will appreciate corrected paint and will perceive value in giving you money to get it. We all love seeing 50/50 shots on this forum, but your potential customers are the target audience for these pics. Your brochure and website should show customers the tape line with swirls one one side and perfect paint on the other. I would absolutely have a graphic showing what an automotive finish is. Put a horizontal line representing bare metal, with another horizontal like above it representing primer, then one above that showing base coat and one showing clear coat. Scratches in the clear coat can be shown as depressions in the clear coat line. I saw one of AJ (Junkman’s) early videos where he drew this out on a whiteboard, and I think Mike Phillips may have done the same in a video. Easy graphic to understand, scratches can be shown as a series of depressions in the otherwise smooth line of clear. We autopians know that the human eye perceives these scratches as swirl patterns, and your brochure can explain that to customers. When you are meeting with a customer you break out a scan grip light and show the customer that his/her car has swirls. Helping people understand how swirls happen can be huge. Your customers are not autopians, they take their cars through a tunnel wash occasionally, if you make them feel guilty for doing that you will lose the customer. You want to make them feel that they are making a good choice to have you clean their car, and not make them feel stupid if they don’t.
This is the intro to explain that the shiny car that they came to you to get is the result of smoothing out the ridges and valleys in the paint via abrasives. Leveling the paint makes it shine, not a coat of wax. You can also depict a bonded contaminant on your graphic as being a spike into the clear, and the function of iron removers and clay to remove those contaminants; an upselling opportunity. If the customer is following the discussion, you can go into the degrees of smoothing the paint in the form of compounding and polishing, i.e. two step vs a one step, etc. Another upselling opportunity. You might even go into the high end equipment you have and how it makes you more effective.
Once the customer understands corrected paint, you can educate them on the concept of an LSP. Everyone knows about “waxing” a car, and I would guess that potential new customers don’t understand the difference between waxes, sealants and coatings. You can explain that the wax they know about is the old standard, looks good, but lasts a month or two. Sealants are the next evolution, with man made ingredients and last 6 months or more. Excellent upselling opportunity here, it takes you no more time to apply and remove a sealant than a wax, and sealants can cost less than beauty waxes, but you can create perceived value by offering sealants at a higher price point. Coatings are another huge upsell if you offer them, and can explain to customers why they are worth the extra money over a sealant.
Marketing is a funnel. You want as many potential customers into the big end as possible. Not every customer will be a repeat customer, but the good customers are those who respond to your educating them and who will pay you well. Those customers end up in the small end of the funnel, and they are who you build a business on. The more of those that you develop is the single most important factor to determine the success of your business.
The above is geared toward generating new, and well paying customers. The issue that I see with detailing, coming from the point of view of someone who is not a professional detailer, is that we all know how difficult it is to properly correct paint and maintain a vehicle. But a lot of the public sees you guys and gals as just washing cars, which is no different than what they can get for $7 at the gas station, or from some mobile outfit charging $20. If you want to differentiate yourself from these options, it is YOUR responsibility to educate customers why you are worth a lot more than $20. Not every potential customer will respond to this, but you don’t want the $20 customer. If you are catering to that audience you would be better off in the fast food industry. Seriously. Harsh? You bet your ass. But absolute true. We all have mouths to feed and rent to pay, and there is only so much time in a day. You have to maximize the return on the limited time you can devote to work.
Looking back on what I just typed, it sounds a bit like preaching, and I really don’t want to come off that way. Many of you run successful detailing businesses and I respect you for it. If you are on these forums then you are passionate about detailing. But if you do it for a living, then it is a business - you are a businessman first, and a detailer second.
Just my two cents, and worth exactly that.
h34r:
