Started an Auto Mobile Detailing business this year, help

[21elnegocio]

I do just started an Auto Detailing business this year, its slow right now but I am getting what I used to get payed at my job even a little more and in way ! less hours. I have a questions for all you guys that did auto detailing, where can I promote my detailing business I do craigslist, backpage, googlemaps, yellowpages, leave business cards everywhere but this doesnt seem to be enough its still a slow ! Any suggestions ?

 

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[CallMeWonder]

What I can recommend is internet. Not just internet but it is a very good one. Look at this site: NorthWest Auto Salon | Auto Detailing and Clear Bra in Seattle, WA It has a very nice, clean look and is appealing. The site has professionalism written all over it.

Now look at this one: Bright Shine Detail It doesn't look very professional and looks dull, and early 2000's ish. Remember, it only takes 5-10 seconds for out brain to get an impression on something/someone so make those seconds count


Also get your name on Google so that people can find you, when I look for a shop for my car I wen't straight to Google.

 

[Kak]

When i did it i was in high school. My personal trainer knew a bunch of rich old ladys with luxury cars and those old ladys knew other old ladys.

Made a few hundred bucks a week! Great money for a hs student living at home.

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[Kak]

Give customers a half off detail for referrals that buy. I know that this is a very high margin business. Youll still make money.

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[Z5 FILMS]

I would build a website with loads of good pictures of your work. That's what's going to sell, along with word of mouth.

 

[21elnegocio]

I am still trying to get busy, I will try all your guys tips thanks. Ive been slow for the past two weeks

 

[Kak]

Did you try the refferal program?

How about flyers on cars at the grocery store. At least it gets you out there.

See if some small businesses would like you to come by and do all employees cars at a small discount for volumes.

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[Amail]

My son started a detailing business late last year. I had him come to the office and set up in the parking lot to do my car. I emailed everyone in the office telling them to "Go out and talk to Jeremy while he's here if you want your car detailed". By the time I walked out to tell him to bump my car in favor of anybody that wants to pay for a detail, it was too late. There were already two people out there talking to him about it! My car never got done.

He comes once a month and does 2-3 cars here.

He also has been doing motorcycles and semi trucks. Motorcycles are cheap, but they showcase his talent and the owner often asks him to come do their cars as well. Semis take an entire day, but it's good money.

You might try Groupon, Living Social, Amazon Local. The first goal is getting customers. The first-time customer discount is a great idea. You want repeat customers so that after time you spend less time and effort marketing and can focus on the job at hand. Use the first-time job as a sales tool to convert a first-time customer into a repeat customer. Keep a list of your customers, including email. An occasional email blast to your list will generate work for you and keep the relationship fresh.

 

[theBiz]

UPDATE: i see Amil has posting similar thing, and also the groupon is a great idea, defently do that, what most business owners dont understand is even if your break even on groupon that is still a dream come true because you aquire customers which you can keep and upsell (Home powerwashing, driveway, window cleaning, etc)

Aside from groupon, living social, i wouldent focus on PPC or anything like that right now.

You have expenses. Gas.

You waste time driving back and fourth.

How do you reduce both of these?

Do cars in bulk at one central location. Make power moves. Go to offices and try to show up every friday. Randomly go to a nearby office and tell the people you will do their cars every friday and bill them at the end of the month. It surprising how many of you mobile retailers dont do that. If anyone ever complains about you washing cars in their parking lot do theirs once a week for free, and do a good job. That is more thinking outside of the box than going home to home, you can do bulk price reductions which makes people happier and more prone to purchase. Also employees in an office pressure one another without even knowing it, like hey mike do you want to throw in for the powerbowl? No. Why not its only $1. Ok your right. Same with a car, its only $8 and your car is dirty just do it cheapskate.

Go to commercial businesses with fleets of trucks and offer your services every week. And finally you have car dealers but they are harder considering many people all ready do them. Get your license to do commercial powerwashing, if you hook up with a few of the building owners or supervisors (do their cars real good) doing cars you may get the accounts to power wash the buildings and sidewalks as well.

 

[CommonCents]

help other businesses with their current customers or attract new customers. Set up a bulk deal w/ businesses where they can offer their customer a free detail when opening a new acct. Give the biz a good discount for bulk biz. Then you get paid and you have oppty to get the biz of the client as well when they get their "free" detail from you. Turn other sales organizations into your sales people. Banks? Accountants? Realtors? any business that has some higher lifetime value clients would be your targets. Why not put together an employee reward/retention program for any office? Give the company a good deal so they can give their employees a "free" detail as a reward. Again, you then get a shot at the employee as a future customer as well.

 

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[21elnegocio]

These are great ideas guys, I am really appreciating your guys help

 

[Amail]

Another thought. Join high-end auto forums; Ferrarichat, Pelican Parts, Lamboworld, and make informative posts with good high-res photos. Describe the process, talk about the challenges. Get known as the Go-To detailer on the forum. Anybody within a reasonable distance will either bring you their car or pay you to come to them.

Sell the cleaning products you use on your website or get an affiliate commission. Answer any and all questions, and when someone asks where or what to buy, direct them to your website. Put your website in your signature ASAP.

Do a quarterly road-trip and alert the forum members. You can arrange detailing jobs with members along the way to fund the trip. You'll get lots of good press within the forum for jobs well done, which will further enhance your authority and sway people to either use your services if convenient or visit your website to buy your products if they feel like giving it a go themselves.

There are more ways to make money besides physical labor.

 

[21elnegocio]

Another thought. Join high-end auto forums; Ferrarichat, Pelican Parts, Lamboworld, and make informative posts with good high-res photos. Describe the process, talk about the challenges. Get known as the Go-To detailer on the forum. Anybody within a reasonable distance will either bring you their car or pay you to come to them.

Sell the cleaning products you use on your website or get an affiliate commission. Answer any and all questions, and when someone asks where or what to buy, direct them to your website. Put your website in your signature ASAP.

Do a quarterly road-trip and alert the forum members. You can arrange detailing jobs with members along the way to fund the trip. You'll get lots of good press within the forum for jobs well done, which will further enhance your authority and sway people to either use your services if convenient or visit your website to buy your products if they feel like giving it a go themselves.

There are more ways to make money besides physical labor.

Trust me im definitely trying to build my way up to work on High End cars, thats where the good money is at. Its a matter of practice and getting everything perfect on a detail. Thanks for everyone's help this week was a really busy week for some reason, for now it gets my bills payed and have more free time to focus on other ideas etc.

 

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[vipervin]

High res photo journal of each detailing job you do. Post it on your website and make a thread on the car forum related to the car brand.

I've noticed a lot of well known retailers on high end car forums have threads showing off their work. I'm not talking about 1-2 pics, but 10-15+ pics of their whole detailing process. Their rep spreads quick when people can see and talk about their work.

edit: here's a sample http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=80165

 

[CommonCents]

In college I ran some pay parking/valet lots. I did a car detailing biz on the side. Just had valet boyz hand out cards to car owners and talk to them. Got tons of biz booked up to keep busy during the week. Go visit car valet companies and give them a stack of 10-20% off cards and have them put their stamp on them. Give them a commission of 10-20 bucks a car, depending on what you charge....

I had car owners have me pick up their benz's, porsches, bentley's at work, drive them home to detail them and bring them back. I was shocked how many didn't mind me driving their cars around and I had no commercial location.

As mentioned, take several photos of each car you do, post them to your facebook page and have the owner like your page and have them share their photos on their profile. they'll want to show off their shiny car and brag you up to their friends. Referrals don't get any better than that. If they arent on FB, email them the photos so they can post them to their car enthusiast forum sites. You might even want to put your site/phone number on the bottom of their photos, instant online brochures.

A detailing biz just did a $49 groupon/living social/ etc...for a car detail. they were swamped. They did an upsell on other services such as engine cleaning, carpet shampoo, tinting etc...

 

[21elnegocio]

In college I ran some pay parking/valet lots. I did a car detailing biz on the side. Just had valet boyz hand out cards to car owners and talk to them. Got tons of biz booked up to keep busy during the week. Go visit car valet companies and give them a stack of 10-20% off cards and have them put their stamp on them. Give them a commission of 10-20 bucks a car, depending on what you charge....

I had car owners have me pick up their benz's, porsches, bentley's at work, drive them home to detail them and bring them back. I was shocked how many didn't mind me driving their cars around and I had no commercial location.

As mentioned, take several photos of each car you do, post them to your facebook page and have the owner like your page and have them share their photos on their profile. they'll want to show off their shiny car and brag you up to their friends. Referrals don't get any better than that. If they arent on FB, email them the photos so they can post them to their car enthusiast forum sites. You might even want to put your site/phone number on the bottom of their photos, instant online brochures.

A detailing biz just did a $49 groupon/living social/ etc...for a car detail. they were swamped. They did an upsell on other services such as engine cleaning, carpet shampoo, tinting etc...

Damn thats insane man ! Owners have you drive rides to your place is just trust in a good detailer. Ive just had guys have me drive their rides in their garage storage just move them around, they give me the keys and tell me yeah help yourself move them wherever you need them. Good guy had more than 10 cars in his storage. Commoncents tell me more about that parking/ valet business you had ? how exactly did it work ? did you rent a parking lot ? I have a friend wanting to do the same thing he is still tryign to figure stuff out.

 

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[CommonCents]

I was kinda surprised as well how many people didn't care about someone picking up their car at work and bringing it back later. I did have insurance to cover it though. I'm sure it would be hit and miss. Today I'd look at mobile rigs and do several at an office complex or even target hotels to offer the service to their guests to do several in one spot.

Parking lot biz was at first traditional valet, then I went to other parking lot owners (office/retail) that were in a nightclub area (at atlanta at the time) and told them I'd clean their parking lot for free ready to go monday morning, and have a person monitor the lot over the weekend. The lots were either open getting trashed with litter/bottles etc or the owners closed them for the weekend w/ gates or cable but still got trash thrown in them. They'd have to pay lot sweepers weekly. I offered to do it free in exchange for using their lot over the weekend. I just started charging for self parking(gotta be right area for supply demand). Later on people started to try to cut in and offering $$ to rent the lots and I had to start paying up. They caught on after I was running a few hundred cars a night.

Damn thats insane man ! Owners have you drive rides to your place is just trust in a good detailer. Ive just had guys have me drive their rides in their garage storage just move them around, they give me the keys and tell me yeah help yourself move them wherever you need them. Good guy had more than 10 cars in his storage. Commoncents tell me more about that parking/ valet business you had ? how exactly did it work ? did you rent a parking lot ? I have a friend wanting to do the same thing he is still tryign to figure stuff out.

 

[PatrickP]

High res photo journal of each detailing job you do. Post it on your website and make a thread on the car forum related to the car brand.

I've noticed a lot of well known retailers on high end car forums have threads showing off their work. I'm not talking about 1-2 pics, but 10-15+ pics of their whole detailing process. Their rep spreads quick when people can see and talk about their work.

edit: here's a sample offyourmarks - my ongoing project - Detailing World

GREAT advice!

Especially those high rez photos where the reflection is so good you can CLEARLY see the person taking the photo.

This is how to really help the business in my opinion.

 

[21elnegocio]

I was kinda surprised as well how many people didn't care about someone picking up their car at work and bringing it back later. I did have insurance to cover it though. I'm sure it would be hit and miss. Today I'd look at mobile rigs and do several at an office complex or even target hotels to offer the service to their guests to do several in one spot.

Parking lot biz was at first traditional valet, then I went to other parking lot owners (office/retail) that were in a nightclub area (at atlanta at the time) and told them I'd clean their parking lot for free ready to go monday morning, and have a person monitor the lot over the weekend. The lots were either open getting trashed with litter/bottles etc or the owners closed them for the weekend w/ gates or cable but still got trash thrown in them. They'd have to pay lot sweepers weekly. I offered to do it free in exchange for using their lot over the weekend. I just started charging for self parking(gotta be right area for supply demand). Later on people started to try to cut in and offering $$ to rent the lots and I had to start paying up. They caught on after I was running a few hundred cars a night.

Thats definitely a good business as well, a parking lot. Hows rent on that man ? I was talking to the detailers suppliers they told me google adsene was great to get your business out there. They charge you every time a person clicks on your link so not bad at all, I will be trying that as well.

 

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[Entrepking]

My car never got done.

lol....

I think your experience is a great inspiration to start with. Begin with the people you know, and eventually your market will increase not only by number but with reliability and reputation since your first line of clientle are trusting you and are with loyalty to you. Personal referals are the best way to go and establish your business.

Just had valet boyz hand out cards to car owners and talk to them.

Referral programs would also be great, they will be extra eager to spread the word about your business especially if it is as easy as handing out cards.

Personally I feel growing your business in number of clients served should go hand in hand with the expertise you are growing too. Goodluck to your business I hope all goes well.

 

[21elnegocio]

lol....

I think your experience is a great inspiration to start with. Begin with the people you know, and eventually your market will increase not only by number but with reliability and reputation since your first line of clientle are trusting you and are with loyalty to you. Personal referals are the best way to go and establish your business.




Referral programs would also be great, they will be extra eager to spread the word about your business especially if it is as easy as handing out cards.

Personally I feel growing your business in number of clients served should go hand in hand with the expertise you are growing too. Goodluck to your business I hope all goes well.

Thank you, I really appreciate peoples help on the forum. Lots of advice, tips, etc. This is one of the best forums to stay motivated and get some help. Lets continue being a good internet community

 

[PatrickP]

Hey 21elnegocio Check out the Cherry app it is a company that does mobile detailing via phone

I believe they are only in LA. Maybe you can get some good ideas.

cherry dot com

 

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