Scaling my car detailing business

[perchboy]

GMB has been performing well lately. I got 2 leads despite being ranked 5th or so. Lots of tough competition.

I dont want to run google ads for "car detailing" because people who search that up aren't specifically looking for mobile service so it would be much harder and much more competitive.




My main priority right now is finding a way to get steady customers. im scheduled to make $1000+ this week but then next week i have 0 bookings. ideally, i would be able to put $100 into ads and get $400 back in bookings like it was a booking generator machine.

im just trying to find that thing right now. i dont want to have to pray that my previous clients will refer me for bookings next week.

FB ads sounds promising. I did it in the past and failed but I just learned about "lookalike audiences".

I have a couple thousand to invest so hiring an agency does sound promising. However, if i just do my research then I can have an extra couple thousand ad budget instead.

 

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[Yula]

First of all congratulations on seeing your first results! Especially at such a young age (I was still busy playing video games).

I have a couple thousand to invest so hiring an agency does sound promising.

Be very cautious on which agency you're hiring as there are plenty of so-called "cowboys" out there right now. They're only looking to make a quick buck out of your hard earned profit and go on to make the next life miserable.

I suggest taking the time to research this skill yourself as it will benefit you greatly in the future.

 

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[perchboy]

Started charging way more for the service for the past week but every person that called I couldn't close.
Im going to have all calls that I dont pick up forwarded to my mom while shes at her office job so I can sound more professional which will increase perceived value.

For the past few weeks, I've gotten lazy. I've had my unreliable friend go to do the cars and we would split the cash 50/50. I hate doing the car detailing. I hate bringing my 3 bags on the bus or asking my grandma to drive me and I hate having to explain that yes I (a kid) am capable of doing the job.

For now, Im going to have to suck it up and just do the F*cking work.

What this taught me:
- dont hire family or friends because you will never have a boss and employee dynamic. They will only ever see you as a friend so they wont take orders from you. I want an employee who does whatever the F*ck I want. On top of that, they wont be satisfied if you pay them $25/hour CASH because they dont want you making profit off them so they will demand a 50/50 split.
- people will only show up consistently and punctually if you have them on a payroll. paying anyone cash means they do whatever the F*ck they want. these guys will constantly cancel on you leaving your business to go to shit. - unless you hire a desperate teen looking for money

Let me rant real quick:
MY FRIEND IS ALWAYS F*ckING LATE FOR THE JOS. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. HOW TF CAN YOU BE 2.5 HOURS LATE TO A JOB IN THE EVENING!!?? IM NOT F*ckING JOKING WE HAD A JOB FOR 6:00 AND IT WAS 2 HOURS AWAY SO HE CALLED THE GUY AT 7:00 AND SAID HES TAKING THE GO TRAIN AND HELL BE THERE AT 8:30. THAT SHITS F*ckING HILARIOUS TO ME I COULDNT STOP LAUGHING. I SET IT UP SO THE CUSTOMER THINKS WERE COMING IN A TRUCK LIKE A PRO AND THEN HE TAKES MATTERS INTO HIS OWN HANDS AND CALLS HIM TO SAY HES TAKING GO TRAIN!!!!! - go train is just our train system here. AFTER MY FRIEND TOLD THE CLIENT THAT, THE CCLIENT CALLED ME TO INSTANTLY CANCEL AND WE LOST OUT ON $200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I take full responsibility for this though since Im the one who decided to have him do the jobs. I must learn from this mistake for the future.

Two things I can do:
Charge $200 per car and probably make 6k/month but Ill be tired asf doing the work with no scaling.
Charge $150 and dominate everyone else on pricing and I can hire a full-timer with a truck and make 6k/monyh with scaling and no labor
Or maybe I can do both?? Will be hard as F*ck to do.

It really takes a certain type of guy to run business. Shit is not easy. It messes with your head. At least for me. One day Im panicking and stressing about how Im gonna grow it and make sales for this week and then the next day everythings going nice and i feel like im on top of the world. maybe its just this business and its different once you establish proper systems and reccuring revenues but the mood swings are crazy. this business is like having another girlfriend to deal with

I love all of it though. I love how theres something to push me and wake me up in the morning. I love the challenges. What I would hate is to do the same thing everyday like a F*cking robot not having any goals or next level to work towards.

I'm kind of lost on what to do right now. Do I want to play long term or just stack up cash? How can I remove myself from the equation and stop trading time for money?

Do I keep the end goal in mind or take it one step at a time?

This may sound crazy but I feel like im pushed for time. "WTF! you are only 15 years old and have your whole life ahead of you!". I know but I feel pressured to have a 4 hour workweek 20k/month profit business by when im 18. that way i can gtfo of this city and move to the other side of the world with ABSOLUTE FREEDOM.

Again, I love the pressure. Im full of ambition. I dont understand how some people can just sit there wasting time. Killing time until time kills them. How tf are you gonna play imessage game digital 8 ball for 6 hours a day? nothing compells you to conquer the world?

Anyways, shit has been lonely. Cant wait until im out of school and can meet people like me. Just gotta put my head down and grind.

Ok. that was a long post. i just dumped everything i thought since my mind was full and i needed an outlet. i feel motivated asf to make things happen now. i will setup a proper google ads campaign and my call forwarding now. thanks

 

[perchboy]

Amazing.

I am a total snob when it comes to car detailing. Most people fail my standards. Ironically, that makes me somewhat of an "expert" in some parts of detailing, like paint correction.

There is a slow and a fast way to get these jobs done. But I can't imagine how hard it is to do it with just a car. Equipment matters. Proper lights matter. And it would be too expensive to rent a warehouse and do jobs out of there, few people make it that way.

That said, and it's hard to admit but like some people find gardening soothing, I've always thought car detailing to be soothing too! Now with a family and crazy schedule I just pay for it, but for years I did all my own work. And when the weather is nice, or there is a garage, the best "bang for the buck" is to show a mirror like paint.

For example, about once a year I spend $1k on a paint correction for my cars with nano-coating. I am sure the profit margin is high. Looks like this:

View attachment 55125

You’re completely right.

The goal is to expand into doing exterior work since it’s much higher ticket than just a $200 cleaning.

I don’t have a garage in my house so I’ll be getting one of my friends in on it and using his garage to do the jobs. Ceramic coatings, paint protection films, paint corrections, etc.

But now that I’m thinking of it, it shouldn’t be that hard to start. I’ll just need:

- insurance since I’m dealing with nicer cars and they’re easy to mess up
- knowledge on how to do it (YouTube and I can learn in a week)
- equipment
- a garage to work in (or maybe I can just do in peoples driveways still I gotta research)
- sales (should be easy)

 

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[perchboy]

Pro tip for @piano @Subsonic @Danny Dobrota @Chet Shen @Atona and any other guys with a small non registered service business.

I changed my avg job price from $199 to $240 by doing this:

Instead of taking cash, make an account with square and take card payments for all jobs. You don’t even need a real card reader and you can just send a link to the customers phone that they can pay with.





You get easy tax money you can keep since you’re unregistered and almost everyone tips since it prompts them. Charges are only like 3% for processing and it automatically goes into your personal bank account.

 

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[Kokaka]

I MADE $620 TODAY

Today I did 2 clients who each had 2 cars and I charged $300 each client for a total of $600. Got a $20 tip as well

Word of mouth advertising is crazy! I gotta focus on doing a good job now and not just trying to hunt down clients. If each customer refers me to one person, I will have an infinite amount of clients and it will keep doubling.

I’m gonna invest into real materials now so I can do a good job. I’m still going to be running google ads and Ringless voicemails though for some quick cash and clients.

I made in one day what I would be making per week if I worked full time at the grocery store

You have a good head kid. Keep it up! The things you learn now you cant learn in a classroom. It will lay the foundation for something big for you in the future.

 

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[Andy Black]

Handing out 300 door hangers gave me 1 $200 jobs and i got a couple of leads that didnt close.
Worst case scenario 500 door hangers will generate $125
Printing + delivery costs $0.17c per hanger
Worst case scenario I will get a $125 job for every $85 i spend

Don't forget to add in the cost of delivering those door hangers.

Word of mouth advertising is crazy! I gotta focus on doing a good job now and not just trying to hunt down clients. If each customer refers me to one person, I will have an infinite amount of clients and it will keep doubling.

Skimming through your recent updates I saw you repeatedly mention the quality of your service sucks. I was about to bring it up but see you figured it out.

A well respected business consultant here in Ireland by the name of Blaise Brosnan says "The most important formula in business is R+R=Profit, where R+R is Repeat Business plus Referrals." You get both by doing a quality job.

 

[perchboy]

Great work man! This is going to be an awesome learning experience for you.

Having experience previously running a service business, heres a few pieces of advice:
1) yard signs can bring in a lot of money - if you can pay some classmates $10-$15 an hour to put out signs, they can be just as effective if not more than digital marketing
2) google my business is free and will bring in lots of leads. Post photos and get about 20-30 five star reviews and its essentially a lead machine that keeps going with very little backend management/maintenance
3) hire a VA for $4-$6 an hour from the phillipines once you get some more $$ coming. Have them handle the basic tasks like optimizing GMB, research, etc while you focus on the business and work.

Good luck!

got 10 lawn signs for free from my mom's printing company she works at.

please elaborate on it. are you saying to put in on clients' lawns? put it at busy intersections?

I can put one on my yard and one on my grandmas yard for now. At least I know that no one will take those down

 

[mamamargaux]

your business is really up and down. Some weeks are busy, while some weeks are 0. I suggest on these lull days, you can do some cold calls or emails to your previous clients. Give return customers a discount. Work also on getting your customers to like your page, if you have social media. This way people see the quality of your work. In my opinion, you can do all these by yourself without the need of an agency.

 

[biophase]

GMB Success
I'm now the first business that shows up when someone in my area searches "mobile car detailing"
I've been getting at least 1 call per day just from my Google my Business profile. I've booked 3 appointments today alone from it!

Fulfillment Problem
However, now I'm having a fulfillment problem. My business is supposed to be located in only my city which is an 8 mile radius from me but I'm getting people who are 20 miles away from me. Uber costs $50 one way and the bus takes 2 hours to get there. 2 hour commute for $125 is so not worth it.

I have a few options:
- hire a worker who is able to drive - ill need to get insurance and register my business and all that shit or i need to trust them collecting cash
- send my unreliable friend to these appointments where he is always late and sometimes doesn't show up. we'll split 50/50
- say no to bookings that are far and lose money and chance to scale
- start calling my driveway a "shop" and getting people to come here instead - that takes away the whole appeal of "mobile detailing"

I think hiring someone will be the best but there are so many complications. I need to supply them with a truck and the equipment, make sure they're insured, make sure i have enough jobs for them if im paying them for every day work.

I'm going to have to register my business one day anyways if i want to open a shop and hire. Maybe I should just do it now and get a VISA processor so my worker doesnt run off with the cash. Maybe if hes legally working for me he cant steal? Im clueless about this stuff

Charge the people 20 miles away an extra travel fee. Tell them that they are outside your regular service and it will be an extra $50 if they still want to go it. Then take Uber and pay the $100. You make $50/less per job but will gain many new customers.

 

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[savefox]

Charge $150 and dominate everyone else on pricing and I can hire a full-timer with a truck and make 6k/monyh with scaling and no labor

You can't compete on price. That's a race to the bottom. There's always going to be someone cheaper. And you don't want customers who hired you because of the price. They don't care about you and the quality of your service. And they won't hire you again next time because they'll choose Jose who can do it for $99. Your goal should be charging as much as possible while providing the best quality of work and customer service in your area. Do you think someone who owns a Lambo will pay $150 for car detailing? That would be TOO cheap for him

 

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[2legit2quit]

Started charging way more for the service for the past week but every person that called I couldn't close.
Im going to have all calls that I dont pick up forwarded to my mom while shes at her office job so I can sound more professional which will increase perceived value.

For the past few weeks, I've gotten lazy. I've had my unreliable friend go to do the cars and we would split the cash 50/50. I hate doing the car detailing. I hate bringing my 3 bags on the bus or asking my grandma to drive me and I hate having to explain that yes I (a kid) am capable of doing the job.

For now, Im going to have to suck it up and just do the F*cking work.

What this taught me:
- dont hire family or friends because you will never have a boss and employee dynamic. They will only ever see you as a friend so they wont take orders from you. I want an employee who does whatever the F*ck I want. On top of that, they wont be satisfied if you pay them $25/hour CASH because they dont want you making profit off them so they will demand a 50/50 split.
- people will only show up consistently and punctually if you have them on a payroll. paying anyone cash means they do whatever the F*ck they want. these guys will constantly cancel on you leaving your business to go to shit. - unless you hire a desperate teen looking for money

Let me rant real quick:
MY FRIEND IS ALWAYS F*ckING LATE FOR THE JOS. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. HOW TF CAN YOU BE 2.5 HOURS LATE TO A JOB IN THE EVENING!!?? IM NOT F*ckING JOKING WE HAD A JOB FOR 6:00 AND IT WAS 2 HOURS AWAY SO HE CALLED THE GUY AT 7:00 AND SAID HES TAKING THE GO TRAIN AND HELL BE THERE AT 8:30. THAT SHITS F*ckING HILARIOUS TO ME I COULDNT STOP LAUGHING. I SET IT UP SO THE CUSTOMER THINKS WERE COMING IN A TRUCK LIKE A PRO AND THEN HE TAKES MATTERS INTO HIS OWN HANDS AND CALLS HIM TO SAY HES TAKING GO TRAIN!!!!! - go train is just our train system here. AFTER MY FRIEND TOLD THE CLIENT THAT, THE CCLIENT CALLED ME TO INSTANTLY CANCEL AND WE LOST OUT ON $200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I take full responsibility for this though since Im the one who decided to have him do the jobs. I must learn from this mistake for the future.

Two things I can do:
Charge $200 per car and probably make 6k/month but Ill be tired asf doing the work with no scaling.
Charge $150 and dominate everyone else on pricing and I can hire a full-timer with a truck and make 6k/monyh with scaling and no labor
Or maybe I can do both?? Will be hard as F*ck to do.

It really takes a certain type of guy to run business. Shit is not easy. It messes with your head. At least for me. One day Im panicking and stressing about how Im gonna grow it and make sales for this week and then the next day everythings going nice and i feel like im on top of the world. maybe its just this business and its different once you establish proper systems and reccuring revenues but the mood swings are crazy. this business is like having another girlfriend to deal with

I love all of it though. I love how theres something to push me and wake me up in the morning. I love the challenges. What I would hate is to do the same thing everyday like a F*cking robot not having any goals or next level to work towards.

I'm kind of lost on what to do right now. Do I want to play long term or just stack up cash? How can I remove myself from the equation and stop trading time for money?

Do I keep the end goal in mind or take it one step at a time?

This may sound crazy but I feel like im pushed for time. "WTF! you are only 15 years old and have your whole life ahead of you!". I know but I feel pressured to have a 4 hour workweek 20k/month profit business by when im 18. that way i can gtfo of this city and move to the other side of the world with ABSOLUTE FREEDOM.

Again, I love the pressure. Im full of ambition. I dont understand how some people can just sit there wasting time. Killing time until time kills them. How tf are you gonna play imessage game digital 8 ball for 6 hours a day? nothing compells you to conquer the world?

Anyways, shit has been lonely. Cant wait until im out of school and can meet people like me. Just gotta put my head down and grind.

Ok. that was a long post. i just dumped everything i thought since my mind was full and i needed an outlet. i feel motivated asf to make things happen now. i will setup a proper google ads campaign and my call forwarding now. thanks

hey man. im twice your age, so take what i say with a grain of salt.

you are 15 - if i read this post correctly. you are already smashing it. your other friends are on tik-tok checking out girls and probably bating a little too much.

and you're destroying these kids with running a detail business. just remember to be humble, this does not make you better than them or vice versa. it just makes you wired a little differently than them. if you let your ego get in the way it will cause problems later down the line. i would guess most of your friends don't have single moms, and perhaps, have less pressure from their parents.

your situation is a little different; single moms tend to be tough on sons, that's just how it is. they overcompensate for lack of a father around.

so i just wanted to say - you are 15 - pace yourself. also, try to stay off social media as much as you can outside of your work. that shit is not healthy for you. you may see ppl flexing on social media and not feel good enough.

dont do that. focus on yourself and focus on improving a little bit each day. its a cliche but so true the tortoise wins the race. if you try to be a little bit better than yesterday, you can go VERY FAR. focus on getting better at whatever you do.

scaling will come with time. take your time, pace yourself. build your detail business to where you have a couple vans, hire a few people. LEARN THE BUSINESS INSIDE OUT. the opportunity to scale will present itself.

you already have the type of personality to sell and run a business. i guarantee, you are outperforming most ppl signing up on this forum. you're probably in the actual 5% of ppl on this forum that actually take action.

so, again, pace yourself, and keep going. don't focus so much on how much money you can make yet - that is an aspect. instead, focus on the value you are providing and how you can help someone.

 

[perchboy]

Hmm. Sounds like I didn't do a good job explaining it. I'm happy to have a quick look at how you've set it up and see if it's how I explained how to do it.

Way to go getting you mom onboard. Love that she chats to the clients who are also moms.

Here’s what I did from the top of my head:

- created a search campaign focusing on clicks
- did keyword research
-added negative keywords
- made 2 campaigns. One targeting Scarborough and “mobile car detailing near me”. One targeting my whole country and “mobile car detailing Scarborough”

Is that right? That’s what I got from it.

 

[Spenny]

@EthanH take some notes, this sounds similar to a problem you're facing ^^^

Cheers perchboy, it's dope to see your progress

 

[Antifragile]

Fb Ads were off last week due to snow but its getting warm again in my city so I turned them back on today.

Today I booked:
$199 job from Facebook
$199 job from Facebook
$199 job from Facebook
$249 job from Facebook
$100 price shopper from Facebook who I gave a discount to
$249 job from my Google Page

All on $60 ad spend!

Amazing.

I am a total snob when it comes to car detailing. Most people fail my standards. Ironically, that makes me somewhat of an "expert" in some parts of detailing, like paint correction.

There is a slow and a fast way to get these jobs done. But I can't imagine how hard it is to do it with just a car. Equipment matters. Proper lights matter. And it would be too expensive to rent a warehouse and do jobs out of there, few people make it that way.

That said, and it's hard to admit but like some people find gardening soothing, I've always thought car detailing to be soothing too! Now with a family and crazy schedule I just pay for it, but for years I did all my own work. And when the weather is nice, or there is a garage, the best "bang for the buck" is to show a mirror like paint.

For example, about once a year I spend $1k on a paint correction for my cars with nano-coating. I am sure the profit margin is high. Looks like this:

 

[Antifragile]

This pic I took from 10 years ago, almost to the day!… time flies, *sigh*.

This was done all by hand, no tools and no “nano coating”. Old school. And still it worked great.

As you get better, I hope you get a team trained and charge for a proper detailing job for collector cars. Sky is the limit for people who know how to do it well without damaging the car.

But now that I’m thinking of it, it shouldn’t be that hard to start.

100% this. You may not have high profit margins, but learn on the cheaper cars. You'll get to know how paint works between flat black and other colours. Just start and you'll eventually get there.

Regardless, looks like you are crushing it at your young age. Kudos! Keep up the great work.

 

[perchboy]

This pic I took from 10 years ago, almost to the day!… time flies, *sigh*.

This was done all by hand, no tools and no “nano coating”. Old school. And still it worked great.

As you get better, I hope you get a team trained and charge for a proper detailing job for collector cars. Sky is the limit for people who know how to do it well without damaging the car.


100% this. You may not have high profit margins, but learn on the cheaper cars. You'll get to know how paint works between flat black and other colours. Just start and you'll eventually get there.

Regardless, looks like you are crushing it at your young age. Kudos! Keep up the great work.


View attachment 55127

Sheesh that’s a clean pic

I’ll test out on my own car first and then I’ll start doing it on cheap cars and work my way up to the big boys.

For car detailing, I’m kinda scared that if I hire someone they’ll take all my clients from me. I talked to a lot of detailing business owners and more than half of them started working at a dealership and stole the clients to start their own biz.

I’m kinda lost with the direction of my business but all I know is that I wanna make 20k/month with time and location freedom.

As for now, I need to just get the ball rolling so the goal for April is 4k profit. I have $1.7k+ booked for this month already (if no one cancels) and made $340 so far.

In May Ill reinvest everything and start the exterior work.

 

[Andy Black]

I manually follow up every day for a couple of days but they just end up ghosting me. After that I follow up once a week.

Are you able to somehow feed back to Facebook which leads converted into a sale? So it can optimise for sales rather than leads?

 

[The-J]

Facebook ads question:

I’m running an open in messenger ad where it automatically asks the client if they’re interested in my $199 special when they open it. Once they reply, I instantly respond to them asking for their phone number.

1/6 leads send me over their phone number but so far I have a 100% closing rate when I get on a call with them. When I ask for phone number, some people don’t even read my message!

Using Facebook form leads in the past, I’d get a bunch of phone numbers that people don’t pick up.

What do yall think I should do? If I can get 1/3 people’s numbers instead of 1/6 numbers then I’ll double my ROI.

@The-J
@Andy Black
@szalek
@Johnny boy

View attachment 55124

Test different messages for asking for phone numbers? Your message seems generic & automated, there might be better messages you can use.

Ask them if they want to get set up through FB messenger (and get a deposit from them once you give them the quote)?

Ask them if they'd rather do call or text?

Sounds like something you'll need to test out. The progress so far is excellent and you should be able to scale up soon.

 

[szalek]

Thanks for all the input.

I don’t really see my offer as high ticket and I’m not in the same category as a $10 outside wash at all. I’m not selling anything fancy, it’s just a deep cleaning of the inside for people with dirty cars who are too lazy to spend hours cleaning it.

So to be clear, if I were to do the remarketing I would:

1. Run a car detailing video ad with the goal of views
2. Compile a list of who engaged with my video so I now have a list of warm prospects
3. Run another ad targeting warm prospects with my offer.

These warm prospects will trust me so it will be easier to sell to them which makes conv rate skyrocket and ROI skyrocket as well.

Is that right?

Yep. Remeber that fb ads is all about testing and testing no one know what is going to take off. So don't turn off yours previous ads because we don't know what is going to work better. I like to start new ads with small budget and compare.

In your warm group is very important to check freqency of your ads bacuse is easy to overwehlm your audience. I think for warm traffc max freqency is 3.5/4. If freqency is more than that means these people don't want to buy from you.

I think that's all I can say in preparation. write to me if you have problems with configuration, I will be happy to help

 

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[The-J]

The problem is I don’t really know my customer LTV since I’ve only been encouraging referrals and doing good jobs for like a month now.

You won't know LTV for a while so don't worry about it, estimate it using a spreadsheet of all your customers, what they bought, & how often they bought

How far can you realistically drive to make a job worthwhile? GTA isn't big but traffic is a real bitch. What other pockets of customers look like your East York customers? Could you have employees who live in other locales & you just send them to jobs while you collect the money online before the job is done?

 

[perchboy]

DONT LISTEN TO GOOGLE'S GOOGLE AD CONSULTANT EMPLOYEES! IT IS FREE FOR A REASON: THEY WANT TO DRAIN YOUR MONEY! THEY DONT GIVE A F*ck!

I had to learn the hard way and spend $250 on it. Now when I think about it it is clear as day that they just want your money.

I thought it would be better for them to run it since I know absolutely nothing but they proved me wrong. My clueless google ad skills is way better than their "expert" skills.

Im so stressed now to get a steady flow of clients. I need to get a steady flow so I can hire.

I've also been doing window cleaning on days off after school. Yesterday evening i went with a friend and we made $385. Split in half though so we made $190 each. I can have a worker bringing passive income from car detailing everyday while I make active income from cleaning windows! I JUST NEED A F*ckING STEADY FLOW! THATS ALL I WANT.

 

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[Andy Black]

DONT LISTEN TO GOOGLE'S GOOGLE AD CONSULTANT EMPLOYEES! IT IS FREE FOR A REASON: THEY WANT TO DRAIN YOUR MONEY! THEY DONT GIVE A F*ck!

I had to learn the hard way and spend $250 on it. Now when I think about it it is clear as day that they just want your money.

I thought it would be better for them to run it since I know absolutely nothing but they proved me wrong. My clueless google ad skills is way better than their "expert" skills.

Im so stressed now to get a steady flow of clients. I need to get a steady flow so I can hire.

I've also been doing window cleaning on days off after school. Yesterday evening i went with a friend and we made $385. Split in half though so we made $190 each. I can have a worker bringing passive income from car detailing everyday while I make active income from cleaning windows! I JUST NEED A F*ckING STEADY FLOW! THATS ALL I WANT.

I'm happy to hop on a quick call and take a look at your account. Yeah, the Google Reps are appalling. Don't go there except to find out what new features are coming down the line, and to find out what they recommend to everyone - so you can do the opposite.

 

[Tiago]

What this taught me:
- dont hire family or friends because you will never have a boss and employee dynamic. They will only ever see you as a friend so they wont take orders from you. I want an employee who does whatever the F*ck I want. On top of that, they wont be satisfied if you pay them $25/hour CASH because they dont want you making profit off them so they will demand a 50/50 split.

- Hired a Customer Service Rep and Weekend Helper:
This new hire is my mom. I wrote about how she disapproves of the biz but now she is okay with it and always offers to help me. It's because now she sees that I'm really getting results and I'm legit.

 

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[Andy Black]

Here’s what I did from the top of my head:

- created a search campaign focusing on clicks
- did keyword research
-added negative keywords
- made 2 campaigns. One targeting Scarborough and “mobile car detailing near me”. One targeting my whole country and “mobile car detailing Scarborough”

Is that right? That’s what I got from it.

Sounds good.

There might be other locations you can bid on, such as areas within Scarborough. They won't bring much volume but it could help.

 

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[perchboy]

Google Ads
Got my Google Ads running properly now thanks to Andy.

I'm at the top of the space and seeing a 5x ROI on my ad spend.

Things are going great and I wish I could just increase ad spend and keep getting a 5x ROI but I can't. I'm capped out at about 3 leads per week as there isn't that much search volume.

Change of businesses
I can't do mobile car detailing in the winter which lasts from December-March. I'm not trying to build a huge corporation right now I'm just trying to get experience making a lot of money.

Summer is right around the corner and I'm gonna die of boredom if I don't have at least 5 jobs scheduled per week.

I'm already dominating Google Ads so I thought why don't I just run multiple service side-hustles like car detailing? So I crafted a "home service" website in a few hours and now I'm going to be running Google Ads for pressure washing and driveway sealing.

I'll still be doing the exact same thing running the car detailing but since I have more time now in the summer I need something to do with that time.

 

[savefox]

How about when winter comes? I'm going to have to switch businesses anyways unless I rent out a whole garage shop and do it in there. Maybe I should be working towards that.


Yes

I can't even drive and the equipment is $500

Ill check these all out. Thanks

Almost every service business is slow in the winter months. But it's only a couple of months. Just focus on your marketing, improve your website, create new offers, automate your processes, learn how to drive and so on and you'll be ready for the next busy season. You'll have one successful business instead of 3 failed businesses

 

[Manasseh Pawlos]

For anyone interested in this - Nextdoor is a great place to search for customers.

Last autumn I made ~5 short posts there offering to clean the interior of people's cars at their own home, whenever they were available.

The posts would reach anywhere from 200 to 600 views over the span of two weeks. I had 4 people inquire about the price. (I intentionally didn't mention the price so I could experiment with it).

I offered to do it for anywhere from $150-$80 CAD. I didn't close any of the prospects.

In retrospect, I would have a much easier time finding clients and charging more if I marketed to a nearby, much wealthier neighborhood by the beach. I currently live in a lower-end part of the city.

Some great suggestions I've seen are doorknob flyers, cards placed on the windshields / doors of cars, and yard signs. Off the top of my head, a thousand flyers costs you $200 CAD. Two thousand is nearly the same price.

I think there's a lot of potential for interior car cleaning - I still 100% intend on executing this over the rest of the year.

In the meantime, thanks again @perchboy - you're an absolute inspiration.

 

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[Andy Black]

1. Run ads to acquire premium clients
2. Provide awesome service
3. Get referrals

See if you can turn this into a flywheel:

CHAT - Figuring Out Flywheels

Thought I'd create a thread where we can discuss flywheels and how we're applying them to our businesses. I'll keep this opening post updated with a summary and insights. A simple flywheel to get more clients: One of my friends has a simple flywheel to grow the small carpet cleaning business...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[StrikingViper69]

Right now I’m leaving the customer with an air freshener, hand sanitizer, and a $25 off first-time booking coupon so they have incentive to share me with their friends and family.

For repeat bookings, I have a CRM and I’ll call with special offers for holidays and call asking if they want to book every 3 months. Car detailing is awesome for repeat business since cars get dirty again quickly and people have a personal attachment to their cars.

View attachment 55080

I’ll implement the QR code for reviews too as right now I only have a few real ones and like 60 fake ones from my friends

I love the thought of loads of teenagers commenting about how you did a great job detailing their lambo

Great progress though

 

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