Triple Wax Transformer Attack!!!

[J Young]

Hello,



My name is Justin or J Young. I have been professionally reconditioning for 13 years now. My experience comes from working for dealerships where I earned a manager position for the reconditioning department. We reconditioned imported vehicles that were pre-owned vehicles for the lot as well as detailed new vehicles for delivery. My dream is to have a touch-less wash system and a detail center to service customers and dealership contracts. I have a business that originated in 2009 in Hilton Head, South Carolina named Royal Finish Detailing. I moved that year and in 2010 started it in my hometown Lansing, Michigan more as a hobby. Recently this year as a student at the local community college I finally made up my mind on what to do with my Business Administration Degree. I have decided to go full on with my passion and vision and offer an understanding of detailing and pricing structure everyone understands and believes is fair. I want to do volume, document vehicles, have employees with a facility I'm proud of and comfortably control quality. I currently reside in East Lansing, Michigan and I'm looking for some new friends that share the same interests and appreciation for detailing and reconditioning.



As long as I can remember I have always had a passion for cars and a natural eye for detail. The first time I ever washed a vehicle I remember naturally detailing it. It was my Mother's green Lumina Van (the first one with the electric sliding door). I remember cleaning the rims meticiously with an old tooth brush and washing the exterior a section at a time. My neighbor was a lawyer and observed me cleaning my Mother's van and quickly took advantage of my attention to detail and asked if I would wash his Corvette the same way. This day began my passion for detailing and began my journey of which consisted of accomplishing the basics all the way up to management and General Manager titles and skills that come with all accomplished positions.



I hope to share my vision here, offer assistance if possible, change some perspectives and have mine changed as well. Currently I have a website Welcome to Royal Finish Detailing - royalfinishdetailing.com, and social media. I use FaceBook primarily to post my pictures where I have 50+ documented before and after shots. Please join my community facebook page at www.facebook.com/royalfinishdetailing where you will find some great documentation.



The current services I'm interested in learning about are specifically window tint application, dent removal, interior repair such as leather and upholstery and finally paint services. I would like to learn and implement those services someday into my detail shop as upsells and to keep and gain dealership contracts. The reason I would like to learn about these services in short is because they're the missing pieces to my empire I would like to build. I plan on taking an automotive painting class here in the next semester or two because the community college here has a great paint program. However for window tint, dent removal, interior repairs...I will need some direction and help.



Hoping to make a few friends,



J Young

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Hello, neighbor! I've seen your ads on Craigslist in the past.



Feel free to hit me up sometime.

 

[J Young]

Hey Charles! Nice to meet you neighbor! I'm glad you caught my craigslist ad. Have you had any success off craigslist? I've had recently 3 cars from craigslist last month. I'd like to hang and see your shop some day.



J Young

 

[Thomas Dekany]

Welcome J Young! You are most definitely very lucky, because there are many very talented detailer from your neck of the woods here on Autopia. They are all extremely helpful. I am sure you will learn from them and it sounds like that they may learn a few tricks from you as well.



It would be great if you could post some of your work here.



Again, welcome.

 

[J Young]

Thank You Thomas!! I'm really, really, really lucky, I win things all the time so this is another great surprise! I'm glad I found a community of like-minded local individuals. I hope more speak up and introduce themselves as well. I really want the community to check out my facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/RoyalFinishDetailing) where I'm proud of my volume and organization of documented vehicles. My pictures really do sell my work as well as illustrate the night and day difference my services provide.



Feeling the love,



J Young

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Hey Charles! Nice to meet you neighbor! I'm glad you caught my craigslist ad. Have you had any success off craigslist? I've had recently 3 cars from craigslist last month. I'd like to hang and see your shop some day.



J Young

I've never run a CL ad; pretty much all of my business comes from either word-of-mouth or through forums. Volume work isn't my focus, I prefer to deal with specialty and high-end detailing projects beyond the scope of what volume shops typically offer.



Noticed you're an LCC student, are you just going for a Business Administration Associates, or transferring somewhere for a Bachelor's? I recently transferred into the BA program at Ferris through the UC as well.

 

[J Young]

I'm sorry to hear you haven't taken advantage of Craigslist. I should be more specific in my dealership experience which was from 1999-2008 where I earned Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Subaru, and Volkswagen pre-owned reconditioning certifications. Charlie, I religiously do a Bentley every year that's about as exotic as I can find here in town. I wish you would share with me more specifics on what you define as specialty and high-end because imports are pretty high-end to me for the area. With the process I learned from Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche I can humbly say my services and process exceed an at home learner because I have been trained in the correct process and procedure of reconditioning these vehicles to showroom new condition for re-sale repetitively with a monthly range of 50-90 pre-owned cars accomplished. I too have the same vision about offering a higher-end service however in volume because I want dealership contracts (for slow time). So when I say volume I mean dealership and customer catering.



Yes I'm an LCC student. I currently have 70% of my Business Admin Degree accomplished with a 3.42 GPA. Because I have worked for dealerships and other detail shops I now want to work exclusively for myself and towards my vision. With that being said, after my associates is accomplished, I probably will re-evaluate a bachelor's or work towards classes that will broaden my craft as well as gain more entrepreneurial skills to support myself.



Every seen Kitchen Nightmare with Chef Ramsey? Believe it or not as one that has worked for a successful dealership detail department and one that has worked for a busy mismanaged hand wash tunnel. I know the difference in operating a successful process to a business and an unsuccessful process and attitude to business. I have had great experiences to take with me and some to make sure to omit in my business.



With doing specialty and high-end detailing how do you estimate or charge a job? I was a sales agent over the phone last year part-time in the evenings. I learned sales and since then I have formulated a pricing structure and simple way of explaining detailing services with a great presentation. Once again humbly saying this year I have accomplished selling details in rainy weather, completing, and shipping in the rain. For that I'm grateful and ready to get busy with my network of friends, looking for allies.

 

[togwt]

Any information you care post on marketing / salesmanship would be more than welcome - http://www.autopia.org/forum/detailing-business-management-marketing/

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

I'm sorry to hear you haven't taken advantage of Craigslist.

Oh, no need to be sorry; I'm currently booked two weeks out and have a list of loyal clients waiting patiently for appointments as my time becomes available, so I can't complain.

I should be more specific in my dealership experience which was from 1999-2008 where I earned Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Subaru, and Volkswagen pre-owned reconditioning certifications. Charlie, I religiously do a Bentley every year that's about as exotic as I can find here in town. I wish you would share with me more specifics on what you define as specialty and high-end because imports are pretty high-end to me for the area. With the process I learned from Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche I can humbly say my services and process exceed an at home learner because I have been trained in the correct process and procedure of reconditioning these vehicles to showroom new condition for re-sale repetitively with a monthly range of 50-90 pre-owned cars accomplished. I too have the same vision about offering a higher-end service however in volume because I want dealership contracts (for slow time). So when I say volume I mean dealership and customer catering.

It seems to be a pretty common misconception that when one states "high-end" they are universally talking about high end automobiles. This is in reality a bit of a misnomer. To put it simply, there's high-end detailing, and there's detailing high-end cars. The two can be totally separate things, or they can be one and the same.



No question, high-end cars are nice/fun to work on, especially if you're a true "car guy" or "gear head" like I am, and you can typically be assured the owners of such vehicles have the disposable income available to invest in luxury services like detailing. However, high-end detailing can be performed on any vehicle whether it's a Yugo or a Rolls Royce.



What I'm referring to entails a more meticulous approach than the typical production/volume reconditioning process, taking vehicles to a higher level of detail. Depending on the nature of the work a vehicle needs (or based on the client's goals and budget), this can translate into 20-40+ labor hours on a single vehicle in some cases -- particularly in cases where the paint system is delicate due to significant abuse or neglect making great care and a gentle approach best to prevent permanent damage or excessive material removal that will eventually result in premature paint system failure. There are certain things a lower volume, higher end detailer will do that production and volume shops simply can't and/or won't do because it isn't realistic within their business model and requires a somewhat different skill-set and mentality. There are markets for both types of detailing, it just comes down to what customers you're after.



Just as an example of the type of projects I'm describing:



1956 Chevrolet Corvette | C. Charles Hahn



2005 BMW M3 (SMG) Convertible | C. Charles Hahn



1999 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet | C. Charles Hahn

Yes I'm an LCC student. I currently have 70% of my Business Admin Degree accomplished with a 3.42 GPA. Because I have worked for dealerships and other detail shops I now want to work exclusively for myself and towards my vision. With that being said, after my associates is accomplished, I probably will re-evaluate a bachelor's or work towards classes that will broaden my craft as well as gain more entrepreneurial skills to support myself.

Nice. LCC's business program is really quite good; I took the vast majority of the prerequisite classes there before transferring to Ferris.

Every seen Kitchen Nightmare with Chef Ramsey? Believe it or not as one that has worked for a successful dealership detail department and one that has worked for a busy mismanaged hand wash tunnel. I know the difference in operating a successful process to a business and an unsuccessful process and attitude to business. I have had great experiences to take with me and some to make sure to omit in my business.

Not sure what you're getting at/trying to imply here? I don't recall seeing anyone say you don't know how to run a business...

With doing specialty and high-end detailing how do you estimate or charge a job? I was a sales agent over the phone last year part-time in the evenings. I learned sales and since then I have formulated a pricing structure and simple way of explaining detailing services with a great presentation. Once again humbly saying this year I have accomplished selling details in rainy weather, completing, and shipping in the rain. For that I'm grateful and ready to get busy with my network of friends, looking for allies.

All of my pricing is based on an hourly rate; by listening to what each potential client is looking for and inspecting their vehicle I am able to determine roughly how long a job is going to take based on my experience. My tendency is to quote on the higher end of the spectrum because it is far easier (and more pleasant for all involved) to tell a customer I've come in under the quoted amount than it is to call and ask them for more money after the job has already started.



When it comes to selling services, I view my job as being to calibrate client expectations to match what is realistically achievable within their budget and the condition of their vehicle, or help them to reassess the situation responsibly before proceeding.

 

[J Young]

Hey Charlie! Read this yesterday (Father's Day). After relaxing on a great day because I'm a great Father I'm responding today

Oh, no need to be sorry; I'm currently booked two weeks out and have a list of loyal clients waiting patiently for appointments as my time becomes available, so I can't complain.

Nice!! I'm more of a moment to moment guy. I have existing clients however they contact me throughout season. I wouldn't complain either

Agreed, however I'm aiming at always doing a high-end job. I'm programmed by unconscious intelligence at this stage in the game to always do the best. So in short, when it comes to a Honda, or Cavalier. I do the same process on those as I do to my higher end vehicles by default. It's just my work and what I was trained and have trained others too do.

Yes, trying to find these customers with "disposable income". The Bentley owner I speak of won't spend over $200 for detailing services. As a salesman I find myself always dealing with objections on price. I have to transition, value build, and close off the probing questions I asked. I personally don't charge over $200.

I like it!! I like that you're local as well. Would you say that all your work is the higher level of detail? On average how long do you spend on a vehicle? I vest no more than 10 hours. Keep in mind that I'm doing late model cars though and rarely touching vintage or dealing with super picky clients that want extra services above what is offered.



Talk to you soon,



J Young