How I got fully booked my first month

[Mainaste]

PREFACE
I am in no way a marketing guru or claim to have learned something revolutionary. I aim to document my journey and share my findings as I find them from the perspective of a growing entrepreneur. This is my first ever official business.

PROOF
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Some gaps in the dates are a result of family plans and university

What did I do to get fully booked my first month?
I was an auto detailing hobbyist for the past 4 years and seriously considered starting my own mobile detailing service since year 1. I've poured thousands of hours reading forums, engaging in discussions, testing products/processes, and consuming general business content. It was only last month have I pulled the trigger and announced my service to the public.

I did so by creating this short post on Nextdoor, a social media platform similar to Facebook but localized to your surrounding neighborhoods. I knew I only had one shot to make it right so I made sure that my branding and website was the best it could be (spent 8 months building and reiterating the look). This process could easily be expedited through hiring designers but I had nothing but time on my hands and my standards were high. I cannot stress how much time I spent preparing the launch and accumulating as much knowledge as I could. It goes against the idea behind starting then learning as you go. But I was (still am) stubborn and fearful of failure so I buried myself in the preparation stage.

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Here is the short post on Nextdoor. I also included two pictures of myself. That's it.

Notice that I said I would offer my services for FREE. I believe this is the single biggest factor to the success of my launch. I have no track record, credibility, and experience. Why would anyone hire me to touch their delicate cars and pay hundreds of dollars when they can go somewhere else and get better results? By offering my services for free, it greatly reduces the barrier to entry for my services and also had the side benefit of reducing the chances of my post getting marked for spam and self-promotion.

The following 48 hours after the post, I received about 12 contacts and booked myself full for 1.5 weeks. Every single client tipped me $20, $40, $50, $100+ and allowed me access to their network of other car owners (fancy way of saying they would mention me to their friends and show off my business cards). People would come up to me during the job asking for my business. I get calls and texts from the friends of clients I served during that week. A few people booked me again in the future. I made another post showing off my work and exclaiming that I would extend the free promotion for a limited time which got me even more bookings.

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Post got taken down because it was reported as spam. Fortunately it was taken down on the tail end of activity.

I took advantage of every single free detail I gave out to learn more about detailing and what my process would look like, gathering videos and pictures to post on social media, increasing my network for potential leads, and even asking them to leave a review.

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8 reviews within the first 3 weeks!

MAIN TAKEAWAYS
I've learned so many things that it would be difficult to list every single thing. Here is a list of my main takeaways for my own reference in future endeavors:

1. Offer something valuable absolutely free in the beginning to help get the first few clients and potential leads. Make sure you're offering your services to the right audience to help network to the audience you truly desire.
2. Asking for favors at the point of greatest satisfaction (ex: asking for reviews, booking the next appointment, and acquiring more leads immediately after the client expresses satisfaction from looking at their clean car)
3. Communicate early and often. No one complained about me texting them too often. Almost every single compliment I received included how I was an excellent communicator. They were highly appreciative of me sending reminder, arrival, and progress texts.

 

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[John TenBrink]

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