Signed a lease on a shop (Service Shop in the Auto Industry)

[Carlitos]

I been putting off this thread for a while already. All though I do keep a diary on this business journey, ideas, issues and solutions that comes along mostly everything gets documented in it. It would be nice to also have an execution thread here in TFLF.

If you go back to a few of my threads I have started in the past, none of them got completely followed through till the end. All of them were ideas that I started and gave up along the way. Ever since my last thread here, I have gone through more crazy situations where I finally grew a pair and decided that it was time to pursue my dream I had since I was 16, I am 30 now. Got tired of working for someone else, from helping others achieve their dreams, but now at least I can say I have full time job doing what I enjoy doing which is in the auto industry. This full time job is giving me more experience, and also helping me grow so that I can offer more services in my shop.

This journey is different, is not as easy as to give up and let it sit like i did with the other ideas. I finally signed a lease, got my shop keys this morning, and starting tomorrow I can officially go to my shop and start working on it getting it visually ready and aesthetically looking how I wanted to be.


As of now, and from the beginning I knew that my biggest problem would be advertising and marketing due to the new ways of doing business. With having that in mind, I did chose a location that has no street view so again my business would at first rely heavily on Digital advertising and marketing, and then it would be referrals. Another thing to consider is in my location a lot of businesses are sort of hidden or have very little street view. The shop I work at has street view, and every work order we get from a client has the question of "How did they hear about us" and about 10-20% are drive by. The majority are online presence or referrals.

My short term goal is to Be able to at least make back my overhead cost, so that I can stop injecting money from my own pocket or from my full time job. My long-term goal which is the next 2 years or by Dec 2023, To be generating at least from 150K to 250K a year.

As of now my overhead monthly cost approximately is: $1,100
Rent is $800
Business insurance is $150
Electricity is around $50
Internet around $50
Misc. Expenses $50

As of right now I have redesign my website completely, integrated a lot of features that would be more accessible for mobile device users. So far 90-95% of potential clients are finding my services or seeing my ads from a mobile device. I am working on landing pages, learning and hiring someone to do SEO, learning how to work with Google ads, and trying to create brand awareness and a reputation for myself and business name. I am very determine I can at least get this business going relying heavily 100% on digital marketing and advertising, before I go out there and network with business cards in hand the old fashion way.

As for the shop, I still have a few equipment to order, as well as supply. Get better lighting in there, paint the walls, get some graphic work for the walls, and move some of the equipment I already have but have it in a storage. Another issue I am debating is, if is best to start offering and advertising the service which I already have the majority of equipment taking a smaller investment in order to deliver it, or purchasing the equipment I would need for another service which is very popular but would take a bigger investment to be able to deliver that service.

My shop would be providing at least 5 different services which they are all correlated in a way. Sort of becoming a one stop shop for these services.

To be Continue...

 

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[Empires]

Congrats! Great job on pulling the trigger. I have been in the auto industry my whole life. My dad owned his own shop for 30 years, my day job is as a diesel mechanic, and my own business is in the auto industry.. so I am happy to help if you have any questions.

My 2 cents: referrals is the MAJOR key in the auto industry. You need to become the go-to guy in everybody's circle. Don't focus too hard on the digital marketing.

Everyone "knows a guy" who can do car repairs. You need that to be you. Start telling everyone you just opened a shop and do auto repair. People need oil changes every 3 months, some of the people you talk to are bound to need an oil change soon and you'll bring it up at just the right time.

Online advertising is definitely worth it, but the search volume is going to max out pretty quickly because auto repair is so local. And since most people "know a guy" they often don't search online for a repair shop and just ask their friend who knows a guy...

Your repeat business will come from referrals.

If I was you I would take @Andy Black's Google Ads course, get some ads up and running in the next week or two and get the ball rolling. Start covering that overhead. I think you should spend more time focusing on letting everyone know that you just opened a repair shop. Hand out the business cards, talk to people. Tell your friends, post on facebook, post on craigslist, post on facebook marketplace, leave flyers in people's mail boxes with a discount. Anything to get people in the door. It will snowball from there.

Looking forward to your success!

 

[Carlitos]

Very happy to share that we close 2022 at 165K! To know that March 1 2022 was the day I went full time, with only $200 in my personal bank account. To closing end of March of 2022 I had made 10K and the rest was history.

Also recently found out I was top 5 high seller dealer nationwide on the film brand I use! That right there was motivation! Aiming for that #1 Seller nationwide by the end of 2023!

 

[Carlitos]

Business is good, this month I should be closing close to 180K in gross sales. I am trying to see if I can close 20K for December! really trying to push for that 200K mark.

I am very happy to see we hit a tad bit above from last year numbers, without spending in advertising. I can say I have finally done the last biggest investment i needed on equipment for a while. This equipment was 10K, and in order to justify the purchase, I had a 12K ticket job brought in for it.

The average ticket job to be done with this new equipment would be $2,500, now is time to focus in bringing in more leads for it.

I am also happy to say I am a Dad to be for the first time we are pretty excited, and next year is going to be an amazing one, I am excited to see how far I can push it myself, but I am looking to finding my right hand man, I need someone whose going to stick with me and help me grow more to where I can step back and focus more on sales which is what I really enjoy.

I still need to figure out Facebook and Google ads. I think is time to see what investing 5% of our budget can bring us in sales. Is time to add fuel to the jet to reach that Milli goal, with the most efficient small team possible. If we can be extremely efficient, profitable and with a small payroll expense.

 

[Johnny boy]

View attachment 47001


The GMB is something i worked my a$$ off to build it where we at today. Yes, I agree most of my customers comes from Google. Being found isn't the issue anymore, the issue is maintaining that spot at top 3. Not that I am having an issue, but is also work that my call girl can been doing, especially following up with clients we already serviced. I am ranking top 3 for most main keywords, and cities. At the beginning of this year I hired another person to optimized a lot better my GMB. We are expecting to be ranking top 3 in some new local cities before the summer hits. I already know organically we will be getting more calls this year than we did last year. Which is why I also plan on running a google ADs for them to call, and get estimates right away.

Yes quotes can be automated, I would be interested to see how can that be done. Yes pricing can be transparent, but I also feel like the fill out form where I get their basic information such as name, email and phone number in return for a free quote. The last thing you want is giving out quotes for nothing in return, data today is extremely valuable.

Currently I have fill out forms in all my pages, home, and all service pages, when they fill it out it goes to my current CRM I am using. I am actually using High Level, but I hate the fact I have to pay someone in order to use it. I am really considering having my own CRM created very close to what I am using but adding additional stuff.

My bigger question to you was how you have set up ringcentral, I was watching videos today on VOIP systems and now it all makes sense. I am now in between OpenPhone and RingCentral. I am now leaning more toward OpenPhone as is seems easier to set up.

I am surprised you haven't built your own CRM for your own company.

Why would I try to do anything better than hubspot? It's F*cking awesome and integrates with everything so smoothly. Just like how I don't try to build my own trucks, I let Ford do that.

Ringcentral call quality is amazing. Openphone has mediocre call quality and customers are always unable to hear us clearly.

Our ringcentral setup is this:

Call comes in "blah blah press one for sales and two for support"

*press 1* call goes to our office gal. If she misses it or can't answer or doesn't answer after like 20 seconds it forwards to our answering service number which has a script and a web form so they collect customer info, and its automatically put into our crm even if you call at 2am.

*press 2* call goes to same office gal, but if she doesn't answer you get a voicemail or if it's outside of business hours it's automatic.

Any support customers trying to be sneaky and call the sales line at 8pm and try to complain about the 3 leaves still on their lawn and how they're going to sue us and call the better business bureau because of it...our answering service is trained to immediately transfer them to our support line where they'll get a voicemail and reminded they can use our app/customer portal to make requests.

Every single lead ends up in Hubspot.

1. Form on our website for scheduling an in person quote puts them in hubspot.
2. Form on our website for getting an instant quote with our chat bot and property measuring system puts them in hubspot.
3. Calling us, our office gal puts them in hubspot.
4. Talking to our answering service, they put them in hubspot.



It's a Kanban board. The leads show up. The office girl's job is to make that list of leads disappear.

When customers fill out and sign our online contracts which take only a minute to send out, it automatically updates their lifecycle stage in hubspot as a customer. So if leads signup on the instant quote, that's one way for them to disappear from the leads view.

If they call and want a remote quote, our office can use our software to send them a quote and then set their lifecycle stage to "quote" that's another way.

If they want to get an in person quote she scheduled an in person quote with one of our sales reps and it pops up on his google calendar, she sets their stage to "quote" and it gets rid of them.

Any quotes with a quote date that has passed without signing up is in "follow up" automatically, without doing anything.

Her job is to clear the leads out by placing them in the correct place. Then she clears out the follow up. If they aren't interested they are marked as a dead lead and disappear from the active views.

No texts, no emails, no bs. It's all in one place, the objective is simple and easy.

Make it easy for your customers. Make it easy for your employees. Ensure nobody falls in between the cracks of your systems.

I am always chasing the dragon trying to bring harmony, simplicity and peace to my business with systems, but it is extremely tough when you want to combine that with trying to scale quickly. In less than 9 months we've gone from writing down leads on a piece of paper and texting me the quote information every day and no crm, to having 4 locations, an app/customer portal that I built, sales managers and a company office, registering as an official franchisor, rebranding, forming 5 LLC's and 4 S-corps, and filing trademarks.

 

[Carlitos]

D**N has been a while since i have updated this thread lol things have been going well will update tonight.

 

[Carlitos]

MAJOR UPDATE COMING AT THE END OF THE DAY

I know I have not posted updates for a few months, but in the middle of the time I was out from posting here I did caught Covid and that held me back a few weeks or a month at least. Work has been picking up little by little.

 

[Carlitos]

We have officially hit 200K in gross revenue! Already booking more work for 2024, we are going to close 2024 close to 500K lets go! Lets manifest this together!

 

[Carlitos]

Congrats! Great job on pulling the trigger. I have been in the auto industry my whole life. My dad owned his own shop for 30 years, my day job is as a diesel mechanic, and my own business is in the auto industry.. so I am happy to help if you have any questions.

My 2 cents: referrals is the MAJOR key in the auto industry. You need to become the go-to guy in everybody's circle. Don't focus too hard on the digital marketing.

Everyone "knows a guy" who can do car repairs. You need that to be you. Start telling everyone you just opened a shop and do auto repair. People need oil changes every 3 months, some of the people you talk to are bound to need an oil change soon and you'll bring it up at just the right time.

Online advertising is definitely worth it, but the search volume is going to max out pretty quickly because auto repair is so local. And since most people "know a guy" they often don't search online for a repair shop and just ask their friend who knows a guy...

Your repeat business will come from referrals.

If I was you I would take @Andy Black's Google Ads course, get some ads up and running in the next week or two and get the ball rolling. Start covering that overhead. I think you should spend more time focusing on letting everyone know that you just opened a repair shop. Hand out the business cards, talk to people. Tell your friends, post on facebook, post on craigslist, post on facebook marketplace, leave flyers in people's mail boxes with a discount. Anything to get people in the door. It will snowball from there.

Looking forward to your success!

Thank you for your wishes! But I am not in the mechanic industry either I am more on the enhancement side of the auto industry.

I do have a potential client I met a few weeks back, I would have to go pay him a visit to see if he is still interested, and see if I can place some of my business cards at new business he just opened as well (Vape Shop) I met him, due to we were installing some graphics at his business.

I did buy Andy Black entry course in Google ads, so far it has helped, but I find myself youtubing alot of things to make sure I am following the process right.

From past experience I have learned that, the way you market and advertise you will attract certain clients. For example, I am building a high-end brand shop here, and by no means I will be the cheapest. I also work in a high end shop and is about 20-25 min from where mine is going to be. We do live in a upper middle class and wealthy area as well. Marketing in Craiglist and FB Market place has been a hit and miss. You could get lucky where you attract the right clients, or you could be attracting the lower end of the spectrum clients that are looking for a cheap service.

I am very aware in order to get referrals my customer service, as well as Quality of service and a bit of a wow factor has to be there so that I can over deliver what I promised them.

I am planning in running a limited discount offer on Google ads to get people in, and be able to take more marketing content such as picutres, videos, etc... I plan on starting a Youtube channel as well. Another way I plan on documenting my journey.

 

[Paydette]

View attachment 37001
Day 1 at the shop, I have an awesome landlord by the way. This business needs to work! There's no reason for it to not work. I have over 10 years of experience in the industry.

First addition to the shop was a sink, landlord actually bought it and had it installed for me. I purchased a one stage water filter station is a must for one of the services il be providing. Landlord will also be installing it for me.

The shop is 1,000 SQFT 50x20 here are some pictures of it how it looks as of now.

View attachment 37002












View attachment 37003













Clearly there's a lot of work to do, out of everything the floor would be the last thing I would invest money in to it. This would be hopefully a few months down the road, once I have some positive cash flow coming in.

The following are the main things that needs to get done. Probably a cost of around $500.

• More lights
• Paint the walls
• Add Trim molding in between sheetrock and floor
• add graphics to wall

So moving on to what I have going on with 2 campaigns on Google ads, as I am trying to understand what I am doing and if I am throwing money away which seems like it.

So the first campaign was based on targeting a specific service so the keywords were all correlated to the same service.

As far as location targeting, I added every city close by from a 10 miles radius. Now at first I didn't have my state location added, so the targeting was very specific, but I was not getting any movement no clicks or impressions. I then decided to add my state location and from the data shown I got 100 impressions and 9 clicks avg click cost $1.89. Interaction percentage was 10%.

Now my second campaign was more of a brand awareness. It brought me 5K impressions, and 39 clicks avg click cost $0.30. But the interaction percentage was 0.70% extremely low.


Am I doing something wrong, or why is there 0 clicks coming from the specific locations that I have added close by my shop. Most clicks are coming from the specific state location alone instead of the more precise locations i added.

I am working on a 3rd campaign which would be a service with a landing page, adding keywords and the same with the locations.

Forget advertising. Focus on Google 3 pack. That will drive 80% of sales.

 

[Carlitos]

March 1st was my second year anniversary in business, while that's awesome there's still a lot of work to do. I am also happy to say that @Havox has come on board in my company. He is basically my VA and manages the CRM for my shop now.

This guy is Godsend, has done an amazing job, and has done far more work in less time than other guys that I have hired in the past to run my CRM. The key to finding the right person was finding someone new to this industry. He was eager to learn, and was ready to put in the work.

Will be update more later, busy day today.

 

[Carlitos]

Day 1 at the shop, I have an awesome landlord by the way. This business needs to work! There's no reason for it to not work. I have over 10 years of experience in the industry.

First addition to the shop was a sink, landlord actually bought it and had it installed for me. I purchased a one stage water filter station is a must for one of the services il be providing. Landlord will also be installing it for me.

The shop is 1,000 SQFT 50x20 here are some pictures of it how it looks as of now.




























Clearly there's a lot of work to do, out of everything the floor would be the last thing I would invest money in to it. This would be hopefully a few months down the road, once I have some positive cash flow coming in.

The following are the main things that needs to get done. Probably a cost of around $500.

• More lights
• Paint the walls
• Add Trim molding in between sheetrock and floor
• add graphics to wall

So moving on to what I have going on with 2 campaigns on Google ads, as I am trying to understand what I am doing and if I am throwing money away which seems like it.

So the first campaign was based on targeting a specific service so the keywords were all correlated to the same service.

As far as location targeting, I added every city close by from a 10 miles radius. Now at first I didn't have my state location added, so the targeting was very specific, but I was not getting any movement no clicks or impressions. I then decided to add my state location and from the data shown I got 100 impressions and 9 clicks avg click cost $1.89. Interaction percentage was 10%.

Now my second campaign was more of a brand awareness. It brought me 5K impressions, and 39 clicks avg click cost $0.30. But the interaction percentage was 0.70% extremely low.


Am I doing something wrong, or why is there 0 clicks coming from the specific locations that I have added close by my shop. Most clicks are coming from the specific state location alone instead of the more precise locations i added.

I am working on a 3rd campaign which would be a service with a landing page, adding keywords and the same with the locations.

 

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[BizyDad]

This is more of a personal post, but I wanted to share being that I can't hold it and not rant out. I am going all out on this and spending all of my free time on getting this business going, and working full time as well that is costing me my relationship with my girlfriend. Seems like we may stopped being together, she is not bad gal. But is hard to juggle all those things and give her the time and affection she wants, when my mind is always thinking in "This needs to work" "How can I start getting customers" "How am I doing so far" etc... She doesn't understand that, and I am also a Capricorn so I am stubborn AF.

At least I am glad I am not married yet, I don't want to get married until I reach the financial freedom I want. Is time to make this work, I waited too long for this. Being 30 gets you thinking where I am going to be in 10 years, when I am 40.

My 20s were trial and errors, trying out as many things as possible, finding my passion and knowing my weakness and strengths. Now that I am 30, i know what I love enjoy doing, and I believe I am in a great position to finally make it happen.

That's hard truth right there. The right person will support you in your goals though. I hope it works out for you.

Another thing I am focusing on is continuing to grow my blog section in my website.

Waste of time.

Do you see any of your big competitors out ranking you because of blogs?

Educating the community, and sharing valuable information not only makes it easier to gain the community trust but to also position myself as an authority

You know what positions you better than a blog on your site?

Getting them articles published in local magazines. Write a guest blog for local car clubs.

And then link those things back to your website.

Also, those links pointing back to your website to help your rankings too.

Now that's a good use of your time...

So with that being said, I been researching a lot on the upcoming electric vehicles that will be pouring in soon as of next year 2022 and the next 8 years. By 2030 EVs will be the new normal, and automakers are pushing hard for it.

It's always good to be staying ahead of the curve.

I'm curious, are you currently doing auto detailing in addition to the window tinting? Or did I misunderstand something?

 

[Carlitos]

So far things are picking up, a little more than when I first started. Just reached a small milestone with GMB 5 Stars reviews. I have finally collected 10 of those reviews, and cant wait until I reach 50, and then 100 and so on. I try to post a new picture or a small blog post in my GMB to stay ranking higher. Little by little I am being told I'm the only shop by far in my city. That's because I been focusing in really dominating my online presence in my city, and is working. I have not run another Google or Facebook ad in 2 months, and instead focusing on the long term game which is continue to work on my website SEO and continue to optimize my GMB. Once I have my city locked in, I will continue to focus on locking in the rest of the surrounding cities.

Apparently a landing page I did a while back has actually gotten me a few customers to request a quote and converting to being a paying customer. I might see how it can be better or perhaps adjust and maybe run a paying ad with a good copy. Is a work in progress but really looking to dominate my area and create my branding well known, to where we can grow to a bigger shop in 2-3 years.

 

[Johnny boy]

She doesn't understand that, and I am also a Capricorn so I am stubborn AF.

First of all we have to address this. You should not be a 30 year old man who ever says those words unironically.

Okay back to business.

Top of funnel you need to do two things

1. Be found when people are looking
2. Do some hunting of your own

That means 1. GMB page optimized and get all your friends to write reviews. Make social accounts and link to it and make sure name, address and phone number are all matching, search up directories to post to and post your info to get some authority and backlinks, don't spend too much time on this.
2. This will help organic ranking too but GMB will be your biggest source of customers ideally.
3. PPC campaign don't do the shitty updated stupid mode, enable expert mode.
4. Try other strategies like leaving business cards in the vehicles, give them discounts to give to their friends, ask them for a post on their instagram of the car and to tag you when you're giving them the car back. Gotta do all this stuff at the point of delivery when it's top of mind.

Are quotes custom or can they be automated? Can people order your services and can pricing be transparent? If so I would have an immediate booking system which is easy to set up.

They enter their info, next page is questions that helps calculate their options, then they get a list of options/add-ons on a checkout screen where they can pick their date, and they can pay right there. Then if they don't buy you can follow up with a call when it's convenient. You could actually not even have someone on the phones and it can just be a message that says "we have an amazing, convenient, fast instant quoting and scheduling system so you can get a price and schedule your service instantly" and it sends them a link right away. You can probably set up a crm to create a lead for every call and if they fill out the online form it populates the rest of their info assigned to that number, marks them as either a phone lead, or they filled out the form and didn't buy, or they bought. Then you'll know who to call back.

The general idea is 1. get found, cast a wide net, optimize for when people are looking for you. 2. reduce friction and make people think "wow, that was super easy!"

If you cannot automate scheduling or quoting in the way I outlined above, and you have to have someone on the phones, you can set it up in a couple ways. You can assign your girl a number and she puts people in the crm when she's on the phone. I had my girl doing that. She would put them into hubspot at the beginning of the call. You can also get on ringcentral and set it up to where customer makes a call, it rings your girl, if she doesn't pickup it forwards to answering service number (for when customers call during dinner time, or she's on the phone or at work). And answering service can have a script, input them into your CRM with a lead form, try to forward the call to you and take a message if no answer.

 

[Carlitos]

We are closing in very very close to 190K just need 10K additional to close the year at 200K at least, doing everything I can, even already collecting deposits for big projects for 2024, already have my first job for Jan 3!

 

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[Tiago]

Keep up the progress!

I have a client that runs a pilates studio and it's always full. She has 68 reviews and 5 stars on Google, and she says a lot of clients are finding her through Google. So the key here is to provide above excellent service, and not be afraid to ask for a review.

One thing that you could do, is to start creating some joint ventures with other related, non-competitive service providers.

I'll leave you this video for you to take a look:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTE9HFYoCDc


Think "Who has my clients are their clients, where if I would provide them with my service, would mean a win for them, their clients, and lastly me?"

For example, I'm working with another person, and she's a running technique specialist. She's one of the best at it. One of the strategies she's doing to grow her business is creating partnerships with shoe stores. For every shoe that the store sells, they'll insert a voucher for a "Free Running Technique Analysis". She does a 30-minute video call commenting and giving feedback on how each person can improve their running technique.

Now let's break this down, what is exactly happening here?

1. The store wins by providing something unique to their customers, at NO cost to them. This will create better brand loyalty, thus making the runners more likely to purchase their next pair at the same store.

2. The customer wins by receiving a gift, and ultimately learning how to run better, making it more enjoyable and mitigating the risk of injury.

3. She wins by providing value to shoe store's customers, and if their clients want more support, she can then enroll them into a running program.

It's a way to think a bit more tri-dimensionally about your business, and see who else might win if you win.

 

[Paydette]

Never heard of Google 3 pack, definitely going to look in to this!

You know when you Google something and google gives you the top 3 locations near you? That's Google 3 pack. It converts better than ads, including google map ads, and better than top google position.

 

[Carlitos]

3/8 Day 6
I got a lot done today, but still a lot of work to do with the shop. I finally dropped off my athletic polo shirts with my screen printer and embroider guy. He is going to charge me $100 for 5 Polo shirts to embroider my logo in the front next to the chest, and screen print my logo small version at the top center of my back, list my main services ,with the city my shop is in and phone number. It will be screen printed in white, being my shirts are dark colors. This is another step toward branding.

He also need his King Ranch Serviced, which I will be taking care of him, more than likely he will be the first customer so far.


So 95% of my walls are going to be Onyx Flat Black. This is to minimize the light reflection from the walls. With so many lights I will be adding, this will give the focus on the cars when I am working on them.

Also keep in mind my brand colors consists of Black, Gold and Red.






So today the plan was to work on this wall today, install the set of 4 lights and paint the wall. But it was getting late, and I was hungry AF. I was very excited and happy with the outcome, I am not really a DIY person, but the techniques and ideas I used today were from previous job experiences. Only got as far as installing the lights, prepping for paint.











Keep in mind I still have yet to order the rest of the lights I am missing. I ordered these to play around with them and get an idea before moving forward with them. More lights and more lights are needed is extremely important to have enough lights here.



I was also able to find someone, who has the right equipment, professional cameras, drones, editing software and has a great portfolio of his past work to do a short promo video of my shop, brand what we have to offer to the city we are operating at, our services, etc... We going all out on this video, I am here to take over my competition and make this happen. He is also charging me a great price.

To be Continue...

 

[Carlitos]

So I was finally able to see the Keynote Tiago posted above, and my mind went crazy. Because I was also brainstorming a similar idea except mine was to give it out to customers as an appreciation gift after purchasing a service from me. It was a really nice gift bag idea that occur to me. I researched where I could get what I needed to fulfil them, and the cost I believed average around $5-$10 can't remember exactly. Inside along the goodies I was including, it was also going to include a card with a QR code to MyBusiness Google in order to try to get and remind them to give us a 5 star reviewed, and if they wasn't satisfied enough to ear a 5 star to contact me ASAP to see what I can do to better their experience in order to get the 5 star review.

Now I am looking as giving them away to kind of mimic the idea on the video. But in my case or industry Dealerships are our worst competitors. Most of them now provide the same services I am in house.

So with that being said maybe look in to partnering with for example Salon Shops, Nail Salons, Mechanic shops that specialize in European cars. I am building here a brand, a high end shop, so I would like to target or partner with businesses that have the same mentality structure. Just like another video of the speaker I saw where he mentioned "If you hire talent, you can attract a great clientele, but if you hire a staff member they may not put in the same dedication as you and may attract the wrong clients."

Once I talk with these locations perhaps come up with what's the average spending their customers do at their location, and every time someone spends that amount they get a free bag. The bag will obviously contain my information to where perhaps they grabbed interest and purchase a service from me.

This definitely got me brainstorming, Tiago I will be PM you.

 

[Carlitos]

This is more of a personal post, but I wanted to share being that I can't hold it and not rant out. I am going all out on this and spending all of my free time on getting this business going, and working full time as well that is costing me my relationship with my girlfriend. Seems like we may stopped being together, she is not bad gal. But is hard to juggle all those things and give her the time and affection she wants, when my mind is always thinking in "This needs to work" "How can I start getting customers" "How am I doing so far" etc... She doesn't understand that, and I am also a Capricorn so I am stubborn AF.

At least I am glad I am not married yet, I don't want to get married until I reach the financial freedom I want. Is time to make this work, I waited too long for this. Being 30 gets you thinking where I am going to be in 10 years, when I am 40.

My 20s were trial and errors, trying out as many things as possible, finding my passion and knowing my weakness and strengths. Now that I am 30, i know what I love enjoy doing, and I believe I am in a great position to finally make it happen.

 

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[Carlitos]

3/16 Day 7

Another update here, over the weekend I had an awesome Zoom call with Tiago. Awesome dude he is what I like to call a Gold nugget that we have around here in TFLF. We talked about strategies I can implement in my business, how to put myself out there by making cold calls etc... A lot of great ideas that are going to be implemented, and I will share here as we put them in to play and I see how it plays out.

I have not been able to go back to the shop since the last time I went. But I did received finally the rest of the lights I needed to be able to finish with the walls and finally paint them very soon. Keep in mind ever since Covid companies delivering packages has been extremely crazy, to where amazon drivers are claiming packages get lost very often lol

There's a lot of things that have been falling in to place that is hard to believe but at least I'm glad things are sailing smooth, I obviously don't expect the whole journey to be smooth lol

Keep in mind I had mentioned here that I was already planning a gift bag idea I was planning in giving away to clients that would spend money in business, in hope to push for 5 star reviews in my Google business, and for more referrals or the spread of word of mouth. One of the goodies included in this gift bag is a liquor bottle.

So as soon as I got off the zoom call with Tiago, I was looking in to the process of putting these bags together running some numbers, and putting 200 bags together will cost me around $400-$500 an estimate.

Well come to find out while searching on Instagram for something, I came across a friend of a friend I met a few weeks backs visiting a friend shop. He recently started his liquor brand, so I asked for his number and we spoke over the phone briefly and set up a time and date to meet up. We were both shocked and excited. He will be giving me some taste samples before placing an order from him, and we will run some numbers to see if I can lower the liquor bottle cost. Not only will this benefit me in many ways, but it will also benefit him in hope my clients grabbed interest in his liquor.

The gift bag idea will not only be given to clients who spend money on my business, but will also be used to attract potential lead clients. This is a work in progress.

I also hired someone for 30 days, who will be reporting to me with what work has been done so far and the progress of doing SEO on my website.

I am also working on doing a professional promo video where it will be 30-50 seconds we haven't decided on this yet but it needs to be the perfect length in order to advertise with it. The video will be shot with professional gear and also including some drone shots. It will show all of our services, and I have also found someone who can get me a few cars together to use for the video. In exchange of some free services for them.


To be Continue...

 

[Carlitos]

UPDATE 4/11/2021 Major update as I haven't had time to come to the computer and update you guys, I apologize for that. Right now I am in Chandler Arizona, doing a training for an additional service I been wanting to learn to add to my services I already offer. It has been an awesome opportunity, and really learned a lot and removed any fears of trying it out now on my own and continue practicing.

I was also fortunate to be able to attend a few short car shows here locally in Arizona and it was an awesome experience as it been a while since I attended one, and got so many ideas flowing!


Ferrari is by far one of my favorite cars I love and would love to own one or several one day. It was also awesome to see a Ford GT in a very nice red which is my favorite color.





























































So as you can see back at my shop, the walls has been painted, and lighting is almost done i did run in some issues but doable and fixable. Also recently I was able to finally get approved my paperwork in forming my LLC and assumed name (DBA) I was running with some issues with that, but I am glad things got resolved. I also got my polos in embroidery with my logo and it looks sick!!

One of the issues that hasn't been resolved yet, but I heard yesterday that perhaps this week coming up I can finally verify my Google my business with google. Since my shop is located in a fairly new plaza that hasn't been registered with the post office, I haven't been able to verify the business in Google which will help tremendously!!

SEO has been on the work's for the past 3 weeks and is coming along very well!! I want to be well recognized and established a great reputation in the State of Texas, I am going with full throttle ahead!!

Little by little my dream from when I was 15 is coming together. I do promise to let you guys know what exactly or kind of business I am running here once I get my breakthrough. But for now it will remain as it is. Things are coming along very well! I will be flying tomorrow back to Texas, as tomorrow will be my last training day here in Arizona.

 

[Brethawy]

MAJOR UPDATE COMING AT THE END OF THE DAY

I know I have not posted updates for a few months, but in the middle of the time I was out from posting here I did caught Covid and that held me back a few weeks or a month at least. Work has been picking up little by little.

I've been following this thread and curious to hear an update! This is a current dream of mine that I may act on shortly, would love to chat sometime. Always love hearing what progress was made when people go silent.

 

[Carlitos]

With some of the biggest Tech giants being down, (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Facebook Business suite, )I am preplanning a different strategy when it comes to digital marketing and advertising. So many things have drastically changed or looking to change in the future. Major update coming soon.

 

[Carlitos]

2022 is around the corner and I am very excited. A lot of things are kind of paving in a way where I know I must follow in order to continue growing this business. 2021 is closing and we are closing the year by moving to another location which will be a lot better to continue growing, and the best part is I will have a small waiting area which helps tremendously.

I'm not sure how next year the economy and the market will react with the new virus coming along, what I do know is that I need to continue focusing in marketing and advertising to the right market. So therefore we will be rebranding a bit. Mainly changing the business name in order to continue to dominate my city. The new location where I am moving to will be in the same city, I will also be cutting my overhead cost in half as I will be sharing the space with someone who will rarely be at the shop and understands my business concept. This was a tough decision, but i have to accept work did slow down when winter came, I was having a hard time paying the shop rent plus my personal expenses such as apartment, car insurance, phone bill, etc...

I have also been thinking that this will be the perfect opportunity for me to continue growing, focusing in quality while staying lean. I am still seeing a lot of businesses closing, and struggling with hiring. So when the time is right I will be able to move in to a big shop, and be able to hire right away. My issue was I wanted to grow fast, so I need to have a steady healthy growth while still having a baby business. I think is better to stay lean and mean right now, until we can see a clear view of where the market and the economy is heading to.

My lease was supposed to be up by the end of February. My landlord again has been completely supportive and if it wasn't for him not wanting to renew my lease due to not paying rent on time, I would have stayed there struggling to grow. The thing with this location is that is very hidden, you drive through a road about half a mile where's there's completely nothing before you see the small plaza where my shop is.

I told him that I am still grateful and I completely understand his decision, so he is letting me opt out of the lease 2 months early where I get my deposit back, and don't have to pay him. I need to move my stuff out by the first week of January. Tomorrow I will have my last customer who booked in last week, and then I will start moving stuff little by little to get a head start.

So I am excited, a lot of learning lessons here, and is crazy to see that in the few months I was in business I was able to bring in close to 10K, with no profits yet. But I also feel like 2022 might be the year i get to quit my full time job.

 

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[Carlitos]

I recently found out that I was not tracking data properly with my site and social media accounts. So I hired someone and they were able to set up all of my tracking codes properly, and I can now track data, and retarget or target better with Facebook or Google ads. This is extremely important before you even start advertising online. It was a 1K mistake I ended up learning the hardway. I say a 1K because thats how much I spend in total advertising in Facebook.

So we are tracking data properly, I will be changing the business name to something a little more appropriate such as adding the city name to the business name. This will help a ton ranking in my city faster. The old website we will have it pinpoint to my new website whenever is ready which more than likely will be at the end of the year of 2022. SEO takes time, and I am aware a new website will take time to rank. But no worries my current site is #1 in my city and we will continue to use it once we feel comfortable using the new name.

Now that we are tracking data properly, I hired someone who will be working close with me setting up a campaign to generate leads. I have been reading and practicing copywriting and this is extremely important and helps a ton.

My google business review has grown little by little. I have more of Google and SEO presence due to the phone rings a bit more, yes it has slow down because we are in winter but I always ask when I get new customer how did they found me, so that I can better focus when it comes to marketing and advertising purposes.

The new shop will have a waiting area, so I won't loose business because the customer can't drop it off. To me it works better. Words can't describe how excited I am, I will also be able to display my services better in the waiting area by using proper displays explaining my work.

 

[Carlitos]

2022 Has been a Blessing so far!​

I have surpassed my gross sales from my entire year of 2021, which was my first year in business with everything being new, opening a shop in a hidden view location, is still is but not as bad as before BUT there's also other businesses next to me that are similar but not the same services I provide. I surpassed my 2021 gross sales in the first month of 2022.

This client was a God send, he has recently gotten 2 brand new Range Rover which the first pic is the Wife and the second picture below would be his. He has originally taken the wife Rover to another shop looking to get Paint Protection Film, Ceramic Coating and Window Tint services. He has gone to another shop who is about an hour drive from us, (he is local to my shop) that shop has over 20 years of experience in the industry, and provided a really bad PPF install service compared to his Rover which we did in my shop. When he saw the way his wife Range Rover was done he was extremely unhappy, and immediately started looking for another shop, he decided to search local, and he was referred by someone who knows me (I still don't know who this person is lol but I am extremely grateful) we spend an hour and half on the phone before him deciding he wanted to have his second Range Rover done by me.


Long story short, this was honestly my biggest high-end project that was definitely a learning experience, and I took on the job while I was in the middle of shop transitioning. He needed the car done right away, gave me a week for this to be done, was extremely cool and easy to work with. I of course had some help from a friend of mine who also got compensated for his work, but I was the one managing the whole project. They couples were extremely happy and grateful for the work I have provided so far, as we still have some pending work to be done, and he is trying to get his money back from the other shop to have me do his Wife Range Rover same services except the Window Tint. They both reside locally to my shop which is a wealthy area and are affiliated with a big Golf club which the membership cost yearly is about a quarter of a million. They are saying they will spread the word and help to bring more work, especially more high end cars, I don't really get ahead of myself with that, as us Auto Detailers have heard that many times before, but I do pray they prove me wrong. LOL

Is not my first time handling or working with a High-End vehicle, but it is the first time getting a client on my own through my own business and resources. This moment really almost made me cry, I have been fighting toward making this dream happen since I was in High-School 2005 started with a sponge and a bucket.

Here I am with a $150K Range Rover in my shop getting serviced by me. THIS Client is exactly my market, is the market I am trying to aim for. He wasn't looking for a shop who had the fanciest equipment or plenty of experience under the belt (after having a bad experience with a 20 plus year shop)

I want to be THAT special surgeon who doesn't mind taking these crazy projects, most shops won't do it because they prefer quick jobs and easier ones. I love taking projects like these, as long as the numbers make sense and we are both on the same page. I have a huge passion for making cars beautiful and be able to protect them.







We are working on the new website, the new branding, and I was able to transition my GMB to my new location to continue to grow my 5 stars reviews. My goal is to be able to hit 100 Reviews this year, so far I am at 18 and 2 pending. I am still working on handling FB and Google ad campaigns this has been a big stressed and annoying thing to handle.

 

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[Carlitos]

Major update!
Is crazy to look back to February where I was standing at business wise, 5 Stars reviews, and business gross income, etc...

Remember my goal was to hit 100 5 Stars reviews by the end of the year, and I am happy to say we are at 55 Stars so far! It has not been easy, but we continue to push forward, focusing on the bigger picture and achieving new goals. The business is close to hitting 60K this year so far. We have grown fairly quickly and continue to grow. The new rebranding was a success, and we continue to network and shake as many hands as possible.

Also I have quit my job back in March 1st was my last day as it wasn't a healthy relationship anymore. By quitting my job and going all out on my business has accelerated my success by a lot. We will soon be getting in to the Marina industry where we will be offering similar services to Boats and Yachts. We have an opportunity this Friday, and I will update when I get back with plenty of pictures. Little by little we are building a brand here in Roanoke Texas.

 

[Carlitos]

I know a few guys that have high-end shops that work on race cars and street cars. For some services like yours they do it themselves, but have you thought about trying to align yourself with shops like these to handle that end of the business for them? As you said early on, your goal is to be a one-stop-shop but without a mechanic in-house it may only get you so far. Having your expertise that they can call upon could be an added value for them.

I'm curious, since your business is still a 'time for money' model how are you going to handle staffing challenges that you're seeing across the whole industry? Based on your revenue projections, when do you anticipate you're going to need another body?

I'm not a mechanic, I know the post may seem misleading but we are in business to protect cars and make them glossy. Our services ranges from Window Tint, Ceramic Coating, PPF, Vinyl Wraps and Residential and Commercial Window Tint.

My overhead cost for now is under 1K for my business only, for my personal expenses I need another $1,500 to keep food and a roof over my head. Most of my 2022 was reinvesting back in to the business. I'm projecting this year we wont need to reinvest back so much since we have most of the equipment we need. I would expect my expenses with marketing and advertising to be no more than 20%.

The hiring part is a very good topic which I'm dealing with now. I have window tint dialed in from getting leads, to closing the lead and cashing out. This year im focusing on dialed in the same way with ceramic coating.

Here are the problems that other shops are doing because of how much payroll they have to cover. They are charging a lot cheaper for certain services. For some services is ok, but for others is not. Keep in mind this is a HIGH liability business. You mess up the wrong car with the wrong person, you can be underwater covering the damage and recuperating that loss in capital. I'm having to walkaway from certain projects because the lead can have it done cheaper. I would much rather walk away from it, stick to what I can handle and move on. This year is all about restructuring and building a process. I plan on hiring a kid or my girl to help me at least with the front end. Managing customers and following up with them.

I personally believe now that staying lean for the next 2 years would be ideal. Basically stay in the same shop, continue to save money, continue to build the reputation. Because when hard time comes, a lot of people wont be spending much, leads are going to slow down. for me as long as I can bring in 4K in a month, il be ok. I was planning on buying a shop end of this year and move to something bigger. I think is too soon, and the economy is unpredictable right now.

This is another idea i need help with removing it from my head. I want a healthy growth, I don't want to get ahold of myself and grow to fast. But the idea of hiring someone is there, maybe at least for 2 days out of the week, at least over the summer.