Scaling my car detailing business

[Dockid]

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 $50 ad spend!

I'm booked out for the next 3 days in a row and have $750 coming in. I also made $340 today and $300 yesterday. Things are going great. If my ad keeps performing like this I'll be over the moon.

Heres a detail I did a couple months ago and heres my new and improved work:

Finished detail I did 2 months ago:
View attachment 55107


Detail I did this weekend:
View attachment 55108

Detail I did today:
View attachment 55106

I’m still improving my skills and trying to get better every time I detail. I need to provide as much value as I can to my clients so I can get that $.

Well done Perch, great work! Second detail is a massive improvement, keep going and stacking cash. Make sure to collect those five star reviews for your GMB.

 

[perchboy]

Quick rant…

The first week I got my drivers license an 80 year old man rammed into me (he was completely at fault) and now I don’t have a car. This guy made up some whole story to put me at blame and now it’s gonna take months to get my car fixed since I need to find security footage, get it checked by insurance, and argue against this guys claims.

I’ve been allowed to drive my sisters car but she has work now so for my weekday jobs I need to beg my grandparents who hate on my business to drive me there. It’s so awkward and it looks like I’m getting pimped out for some child labour when they drop me off at the job.

But I’ll probably look back and laugh in the future and it’s a good story to tell. Shit, I used to take trains to other cities to do jobs.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[perchboy]

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.

Lmaooo I never even thought of that.

Im gonna change the generic greeting to “Hi (name)! What is your phone number? We’ll give you a call to get you all set up.” That should have a bit better conversions.

If nothing changes I’ll try out a text sequence and forms and etc.

If I tag leads as unqualified and qualified will Facebook start showing my ad to more users who are similar to the already qualified leads?

 

[perchboy]

My pov:
You are targeting cold traffic that means people are seeing your ad for first time in they life. And you are trying to convince them that they are needing pro car detaling for 200$. Most of people that you are targeting are washing their cars on automatic car wash for max 10$. Ask yourself why Joe Sixpack would buy something that is 20 times more expensive.
This is the first thing that affects the high cost of your ads Your product is high ticket and is really hard to convince one that your product is valueable.

Think like your customer.

I have to solutions to you

First one: remarketing
Your ads are so expensive because you are trying to sell to people that don't know even that they have to clean their car. So my piece of advice is to:
first create a commercial, e.g. a roll, where you show how you clean the car, the before-and-after effect. Make it so that it goes viral. Set up data collection so that the purpose of the ad is, for example, for the person to see 30 seconds of the ad. Why? So you can collect people who are actually interested in cleaning the car.
use "traffic" or "engagement" as a target for this ad, it will be much cheaper, mean that it will reach a large number of people and build your brand recognition.
THEN
gather a group of people who will watch your roll as you tell them to (I'm talking about the 30 seconds of exposure)(30 seconds is just an example depending on how long the roll lasts) and only to this group of people use the target "Leads". This will be a small group of people who like car detailing and there will be a greater chance that they will buy your high ticket from you. This is a very simple explanation of how remarketing works

the second piece of advice is: create cheaper product
You could try adding a cheaper product to your offer which will be a 'lead magnet'. It will be easier to encourage people to buy the cheaper product first and only then to trust you and buy the expensive one.

Other important advices:

Check that you are using the target "leads" to advertise, this is a very specific advertising target which is difficult to configure correctly.

Check frequency of your ads if is above 2/2,5 (for cold traffic) that means people from your ads are not interested in buying something and you are reaching to same people. You are simply burning money

Getting lead from messenger always was hard for me so i prefer to make some landing page to convince client and get phone numer and call to them but its diffrent for every niche.

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?

 

[The-J]

Will my audience on FB Ads burn out?

Probably not. Your budget is probably not big enough. Your audience is several hundred thousand people and your service is (likely) seasonal. Demand for your service isn't static though so you can run the ads to the same people a bunch of times and they'll call on you when they need their car detailed.

Your creatives, on the other hand, WILL burn out at some point, but you know that.

Maybe find a way to get MRR from your current customers? Are there people out there who want car detailing done at regular intervals? Is there some regular service your customers want that you can effectively deliver without undue strain on the business?

 

[StrikingViper69]

You can show ads to you entire audience quickly, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Have a new ad “in the pocket”. The new ad will probably attract interest from different people to the first ad. Some people will react to ad 1, some of them and others will react to ad 2.

set your budget so you don’t burn through your entire audience in a day.

You could also try changing your marketing channels. Move from FB to YouTube. Possibly even physical media - I used to hire a company to do door to door flyers and those performed great.

If your ads are performing and you can book clients… can you consider hiring people to do jobs in different areas?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[perchboy]

You’re thinking way too much.

i just have to figure out how to market my biz to the right people and i guess make my brand feel premium by providing big value in someway.

Nope. That can come later. Focus on getting 1 job THIS WEEK and you’ll be 10x better off.

although i feel that i need to validate if a mobile detailing biz is really needed, since i don't want to start buying equipment just for the biz to fail.

Easy. Start marketing to validate the idea and only buy equipment once you get bookings.

I've looked at google trends and the search term "mobile car detailing" has no results in my country, but the search term "car wash (my city)" or "car wash near me" seems to have at least some people searching for it.

Same here for me. My city gets like 30 searches a month for mobile car detailing since no one really knows about mobile. This means you have the advantage of separating yourself from normal car washes.

I know probably the best way to know if this will work or not is to just start

Correct

, but I can't really afford to fail.

If you knock 100 doors today offering your services what do you lose?

also d2d sales isn't really a thing in my country, its hard to explain but most of the people who have an average looking house are considered rich and almost all of them have helpers (which is basically a maid/butler) who answer the door for them instead of the actually owner.

A loser will give the reasons why he can’t do something and a winner will give the reasons why he can. It seems like your default is saying why X won’t work. Instead ask yourself “how can I make this work?”

“Everyone is rich and they already have helpers answering the door.” This proves that these home owners want to hire people to help them with things. This is perfect for mobile detailing. Contact the homeowners through the helper, online, or through their mail. No more excuses.

 

[ErickMendez]

You’re thinking way too much.


Nope. That can come later. Focus on getting 1 job THIS WEEK and you’ll be 10x better off.


Easy. Start marketing to validate the idea and only buy equipment once you get bookings.


Same here for me. My city gets like 30 searches a month for mobile car detailing since no one really knows about mobile. This means you have the advantage of separating yourself from normal car washes.


Correct


If you knock 100 doors today offering your services what do you lose?


A loser will give the reasons why he can’t do something and a winner will give the reasons why he can. It seems like your default is saying why X won’t work. Instead ask yourself “how can I make this work?”

“Everyone is rich and they already have helpers answering the door.” This proves that these home owners want to hire people to help them with things. This is perfect for mobile detailing. Contact the homeowners through the helper, online, or through their mail. No more excuses.

Thanks man, really appreciate your perspective on this!

 

[wyattnorton]

Great stuff man. I'm assuming this is a mobile service?

Inside and Outside detail? How many customers do you have? Are they recurring?

A cheap option for business cards is printing out 6-inch by 6-inch cards on paper and handing those out for now.

 

[CanadianTrucker]

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

I like where you are headed, I'm glad to see you starting to focus on quality of service and providing more value. Best of luck to you and congrats on starting the journey this early on!

 

[Spenny]

Absolutely killing it. You've earned yourself a follow.

 

[piano]

just got into a 1 hour argument with my mom


i have a late start for school tmw morning so i booked someone for tmw morning and planned to make it on time for school after the job.

she was offended that i scheduled them in and turned automatically furious.

she told me i cant go tmw morning and that i have to focus on school.

i told her i have As in my classes (thanks ChatGPT)

she started screaming "why do you even want money!" "what are you gonna do with it?"

i said "everyone wants money. that is why you play the lottery"

she started lecturing how i must focus on school because my deceased father always wanted me to go

i said i dont want to live the same life that he lived

end of convo

my mom will always find something to shame me for. - not just my mom, but everyone will.

i charged a guy $200 and she called me a scammer because its too expensive
i charged a guy $100 and she called me retarted because its too cheap

when i was failing in web design she said i should get a real job and im lazy
now im booked every day with this business and she tells me im overworking and should only work on weekends


but i dont let it phase me anymore.
i dont take advice from people who i wouldnt want to trade lives with

making money is all about your mindset. dont adopt the same beliefs as failures. the failures im talking about account for 99% of people

i still love you though mom. ill retire you in the future

I feel you, although your situation seems more intense than mine.
I think you got the right head and I'm quite honestly pretty proud with you. The last 2 sentences are great and your will is great.
Keep it going!

 

[Raoul Duke]

How to Start a Mobile Detailing Business: Zero to $6k a Month

Demand for mobile detailing is growing, and is a low cost business to start. Here's how a couple brothers built theirs to $6k a month.

www.sidehustlenation.com

 

[perchboy]

How to Start a Mobile Detailing Business: Zero to $6k a Month

Demand for mobile detailing is growing, and is a low cost business to start. Here's how a couple brothers built theirs to $6k a month.

www.sidehustlenation.com

25 Ways to Make Money Online and Offline - NerdWallet

We rounded up 25 real ways to make money online, at home or offline so you can find a side hustle that fits your situation.

www.nerdwallet.com

 

[Raoul Duke]

25 Ways to Make Money Online and Offline - NerdWallet

We rounded up 25 real ways to make money online, at home or offline so you can find a side hustle that fits your situation.

www.nerdwallet.com

https://rb.gy/v5wwn

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[2legit2quit]

just got into a 1 hour argument with my mom


i have a late start for school tmw morning so i booked someone for tmw morning and planned to make it on time for school after the job.

she was offended that i scheduled them in and turned automatically furious.

she told me i cant go tmw morning and that i have to focus on school.

i told her i have As in my classes (thanks ChatGPT)

she started screaming "why do you even want money!" "what are you gonna do with it?"

i said "everyone wants money. that is why you play the lottery"

she started lecturing how i must focus on school because my deceased father always wanted me to go

i said i dont want to live the same life that he lived

end of convo

my mom will always find something to shame me for. - not just my mom, but everyone will.

i charged a guy $200 and she called me a scammer because its too expensive
i charged a guy $100 and she called me retarted because its too cheap

when i was failing in web design she said i should get a real job and im lazy
now im booked every day with this business and she tells me im overworking and should only work on weekends


but i dont let it phase me anymore.
i dont take advice from people who i wouldnt want to trade lives with

making money is all about your mindset. dont adopt the same beliefs as failures. the failures im talking about account for 99% of people

i still love you though mom. ill retire you in the future

damn, if only i had this mindset when my mom used to destroy my soul lol

 

[savefox]

You should get Andy's course on google ads! That'll help you get started and be profitable

 

[Vasudev Soni]

I'm 15 years old going to highschool in Canada right now and have a car detailing side hustle going on.

I started detailing cars a couple weeks ago and last week I made $800 profit.

I've been finding my clients by spamming posts on the Nextdoor app but there are only so many people on there who need their car detailed so its starting to die down.

Right now my plans are:
- getting my website built by @AlexYega so i can run google ads
- test out facebook ads again (not profitable last time i tried running them
- send out ringless voicemails to everyone in my city and hire a receptionist to answer the calls back and schedule bookings while im in class
- get some business cards printed so i can get referrals after i do jobs
- test out doorhangers

Eventually i want to be so booked up that I have to hire other people to do the jobs. I will get there by putting all my profits back into the business

At just 15 years old, I think you have a great mindset and pretty good business experience. Keep it up dude.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

I dont really understand it that much but I think I have the basic idea.

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.

 

[perchboy]

My mom works for free so this doesn’t apply.

She doesn’t take orders from me though which does make me lose out on some revenue. She does follow a script for the phone which is good. It’s still better than not answering the clients calls at all.

 

[savefox]

Focus on one thing and get good at it. Do you know how to seal a driveway or pressure wash properly? Do you have 10k laying around to get the equipment and another 10 for a truck?
You just need to get more people to see your ad. You're only running google ads. Get on google local service ads, google maps, Facebook ads, nextdoor, thumbtack, yelp, go door to door, send something to your previous customers and get referrals, make youtube videos, shorts. Maximize your opportunities to get leads for the service you're already offering.

 

[perchboy]

Focus on one thing and get good at it.

You're in a different position than me. 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.

Do you know how to seal a driveway or pressure wash properly?

Yes

Do you have 10k laying around to get the equipment and another 10 for a truck?

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

You just need to get more people to see your ad. You're only running google ads. Get on google local service ads, google maps, Facebook ads, nextdoor, thumbtack, yelp, go door to door, send something to your previous customers and get referrals, make youtube videos, shorts. Maximize your opportunities to get leads for the service you're already offering.

Ill check these all out. Thanks

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Fasted]

You shouldn’t be paying your friend 50/50 when you’re doing all the leg work to book jobs only for him to turn up late. Sack him. Basically just stop telling him about the jobs your booking and go yourself until you find someone that will work for an hourly rate.

 

[Andy Black]

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

How many times do you contact them? Do you have automations to send a series of messages if they've not responded?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[perchboy]

How many times do you contact them? Do you have automations to send a series of messages if they've not responded?

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.

 

[perchboy]

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

smart.

i just tagged them into different categories. hopefully facebook uses the data to attract more customers that actually convert

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[The-J]

If I tag leads as unqualified and qualified will Facebook start showing my ad to more users who are similar to the already qualified leads?

Only if you optimize for it at the ad set level

 

[perchboy]

The only thing bothering me is control. Will my audience on FB Ads burn out? I don't know if I can rely on it; especially to get me 3 jobs a day consistently.

What do you think? @The-J @szalek ?

I need to get my Google Ads to a good ROI consistently as well for the next two weeks. Once I have FB + Gads right, I'll turn up the ad spend, pay my friend 50% to do it, and then once I prove the system to work I'll hire an hourly worker.

 

[The-J]

You get easy tax money you can keep since you’re unregistered

Wrong. You gotta remit it regardless (unless you're making under $30k which you won't be by EOY)

 

[Bounce Back]

Wrong. You gotta remit it regardless (unless you're making under $30k which you won't be by EOY)

Even if you don't remit it - charging it and keeping it seems fraudulent.

Otherwise I like the hustle so far!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.