Hey all!!!
Let me first start off this rant with the disclaimer of I LOVE MY JOB!! After graduating college I worked a cushy corporate desk job for almost seven years before leaving to start detailing as a profession...and no matter what I would not go back. There is something to be said about doing something you love for a living and being your own boss.
That said...
Detailing is hard physical work and mobile detailers in particular have to deal with some aspects of the business that most fixed location folks do not. In the summer you sweat bullets and in the winter you freeze your melons off. There are times like today when it is raining and you still are out there working. Your equipment gets wet, you get wet and in general you have a very soggy day. I was lucky enough to have a regular client that likes their vehicles cleaned NO MATTER WHAT...otherwise today would have been a loss with no money made. Even with my moderate sized client base these types of clients are rare and in most cases bad weather days are wash outs. This is where learning the "business" end of running a detailing business comes in to play. Regardless if you are mobile or fixed you quickly learn to live and budget yourself off the "fat" weeks and months because sooner or later the "lean" times will come...and the bills still need to get paid. As many have said before there is
a lot more to running a successful detailing business than knowing how to operate a PC or rotary. First and foremost you
need to know how to run a
business or you are destined to fail.
Another thing to think about is what I call the "Autopia Syndrome". This is the idea that you will be doing nothing but paint correction on BMW's, Mercedes, Porsche's and the like for all of your detail work. That every car will get a PakShak ultra fine MF and
Souveran. I have seen it brought up in this very forum more than once with folks asking if they could run a detail business without having to detail interiors. Speaking from my business perspective that is a recipe for disaster. While I do have a percentage of my client base with high end vehicles that enjoy getting multiple step paint details done with all the latest and greatest boutique products the bulk of my detailing (and the lions share of my income) comes from soccer Mom's with dirty SUV's and minivan's. While these vehicles are not glamorous by Autopian standards and don't get "sexy" paint details their owners are like gold. All it takes is for you to make the interior of one Honda Odyssey look immaculate and before you know it you are cleaning a dozen of that Honda owner's friends vehicles. I do aspire to one day have a fixed location wash/detail shop allowing me to still be mobile for my high end clientele but that is a long way off. One needs to pay their dues before they can pick and choose which vehicles to clean.
I guess you could see this ranting as a scared straight program. If you are passionate about detailing for a living and have a well thought out business plan then by all means DO IT. If you are enticed by the low start-up costs of a mobile business and think you will be cleaning immaculate high end rides all week...see you in the "failed business" line (and it is a looooooong line)!!
Here are some pics of the detail I did today that got me thinking about all this. As I said before it was raining and the owner is a weekly regular of mine (and has been for almost three years now) getting her '00 C5 washed rain or shine. Today she had her husbands '00 GMC Jimmy with her. I see this truck maybe 1-2 times per year...only when her Vette is in for service or something like that. Her husband is a cigar smoker and they have 4 yellow labs. This is a "typical" detail for me with not a single Maserati in sight
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