New detail shop pricing.

[Jakerooni]

Well we did just get some good news. The camero we did last week was so impressed with us he told a few people and right before close of business today a friend of his stopped in told us we came highly recommended and set up an appointment for first thing in the morning and after that he's got a truck he wants us to do. So I guess word of mouth is still the best form of advertising. I think I'm going to mail the camero guy a thanks for the recommendation here's a coupon for 20% off your next detail service.

[PRB]

Best of luck to you.

I feel the same kind of frustration in your post that I felt for years in business. It irked me that the hacks were busy and I coudn't get more than a few people a week in my doors.

When I started, I had friends and family who promised to do business with me. That amounted to about nothing. I had no business referral base. Dealer business was fleeting since we had so many different detail shops and cash-under-the-table workers doing their vehicles.

Reputation takes time to build.

If you want something to do, realizing that breaking even or losing LESS is better than doing nothing and losing more, approach some car lots. Offer them a package deal for doing cars cheap. Say, $50 per car is your introductory rate. The thing is, tell them it's for 3 cars at a time.

This ensures you are getting $150, it keeps your guys working, and brings in a bit of money. For $50/per car, most dealerships won't think twice unless they are locked in with a vendor already. Some will even sell them out for the $50 job.

I do NOT like working cheap. I also don't like going broke. If a shop faces strong competition, as you seem to, you have to resort to more desperate measures to get your name out or you'll go nuts with lack of any work (and income.)

[PRB]

Well we did just get some good news. The camero we did last week was so impressed with us he told a few people and right before close of business today a friend of his stopped in told us we came highly recommended and set up an appointment for first thing in the morning and after that he's got a truck he wants us to do. So I guess word of mouth is still the best form of advertising. I think I'm going to mail the camero guy a thanks for the recommendation here's a coupon for 20% off your next detail service.

Excellent! Congratulations: this is how it starts.

[Flexin]

My shop just started its third year this past April. Its tough. The best advertising I ever had was word of mouth. I did jobs for people that didn't even want to look at their car before paying because they seen my work and they said they knew it would be good. The only problem with word of mouth is that its only good if your doing work. Do 0 jobs and you get 0 word of mouth jobs.

IMO do not price your work to low. Its hard to get it back up later. Offer specials so at least they know the regular price and are not shocked next time they come in.

A lot of people turn their nose up to dealer work but I don't mind it. Just don't do it too cheap. If your like me it will piss you off later because you feel like your giving your work away. And its hard to raise your prices later. I have picked up dealers the first year by offering to do one car for free. We did that with 4 or 5 dealers. Only one didn't use us again but they did say they loved the job. We get a lot of referals from dealers. In the last 2-3 weeks I had about 5 referals from one dealer. It turned into about 3 jobs. Another dealer sells our services. We give them our dealer rate and they charge what they want. That started this year so I will see how that goes.

I agree with finding local car clubs. Look for local car forums and advertise there. We just started doing that this year and it has more then paid for it self so far.

Newspaper ads did nothing for me. Flyers did ok. I'm going to try more of them.

I had a guy walk around and hand out flyers one day. When he came back we were slow so I asked him who seem most interested in our sevices that had a good number of employees. He named off some companys. I sent him to two different ones to offer the ladies at the front desk a free interior detail ($114.95 value) They both went for it and they both were really happy with the job. One hasn't directy turned into other jobs but I think people have heard of us from that job. With the other job we ended up getting 5 more cars from that company over the next year. One car came back twice and another came back 2 or 3 times. They are very happy with us. This is something I want to try again.

Try to do some work for some people at auto related stores. They get people asking alot for detailing. We haver recived a lot of referals from a truck performance shop. One customer they sent us turned into 7 more jobs because of his truck. One of those cars comes back 4 or 5 times a year.

One last thing I can thing of is to really talk to the people on the phone and find out what they really want. Some have no idea what buffing is. Some have asked for a full detail in and out and all they were really asking for was a basic clean in and out. Others have asked for the same and were looking for an interior detail and a wash. Find out what they really want done and give them a price based on that.

This post is way to long so I will put an end to it now. This was all things that came to mind when reading this thread.

BTW work on getting that website. I have done jobs for people that have heard about us then searched our website looking at pictues. These people told them that the pictures helped seal the deal.

Good luck

James

[WCD]

Why give a customer that values your service 20% off a detail? He already paid and knows how good you are. I know the logic you are using, but instead tell him that if he books his next appoitment with you that you will upgrade his paint from a premium wax to a superior paint sealant- It will last much longer, but you won't be out 20% of a detail cost.

What is your current program for marketing your biz? Who is your market and are you hitting it consistently?

Over the years I have seen many detailers complain about the less expensive car wash being busy all the time- I was guilty of this at one time. However, ask yourself why that is the case? Is it really cost? I found many times that it was perception, not cost. The car washes use direct mailing consistently, have working capital up the gazoo, and maintain a clean and friendly atmosphere- nothing related to actual quality of work. Read the E-Myth Revisited. It might open your eyes on how to look at your business, rather than how you think it should run.

So many detail techs think because they know how to detail that they will be successul. Not the case at all. I've seen plenty of crappy pizza shops do well and great pizza shops close for good.

If you do not have the capital to pay your salary and the bills for at least 3-5 months without a customer, then you overestimated or under financed the situation IMO.

Maybe the car wash is busy because the customer only waits 15 min. and they have a "clean" car. Maybe the customer never has to leave the car (express exterior), or maybe after receiving the fifth ad or mailer, they have the logo stuck in their head and when the drove by- they remembered and that was all it took.

My advice: Read that book, rethink your market and how you can reach it, do NOT get into a verbal sales game with the competition (never downplay the quality of a competitor with customers), and make a gameplan and stick to it. Do not panic and start to offer price discounts (your prices should be set on paying bills and making a salary. As soon as you discount to get a sale, you are working for money that won't pay bills).

I state these reasons with experience and education. I was wrong in many ways back in '98 when I had a small shop- it was in the parking lot of a gym and I thought it was a goldmine. Had I the knowledge I do now, I know it would work, but I didn't and see nice guys on here all the time that mean well, but go about it with the technician thinking and not the business owner's mind in control.

Good luck!!!

Feel free to PM me anytime, Rob

[Ivan Rajic]

Just to repeat one thing Rob said (although everything was well said) that I forgot to mention earlier... you have to think like a businessman, not a great detailer... your detailing skills will sell your service to a very very low percentage of clients, because those will be the few who are picky about their cars and really want to see what you can do...

[Jakerooni]

Yea today turned around alot. Had 2 completes (which I will be posting pics of when I get to work tomorrow) and a walk in that set up an appointment for tomorrow. So things are definatly looking good. I found a couple more before and after pics of some of the stuff I get. a little gross but people know I'm good and can get these kind of things back in shape so I always seem to get stuck doing them. (I probably could've dyed the carpets for a more perfect result but the customer really didn't care it was just an S-10 work truck)

[Jakerooni]

Ok well I took your guy's advice and created a website for the business. Still need to ad a few more pics and such And some more pages. But I think it's a good start in the right direction. Let me know what you guys think. What else should I add?

B&D Detailing

[Ivan Rajic]

Ok well I took your guy's advice and created a website for the business. Still need to ad a few more pics and such And some more pages. But I think it's a good start in the right direction. Let me know what you guys think. What else should I add?

B&D Detailing

Ok... as I look at the website, I'll just post my opinions...

-instead of welcome to our site.... just say welcome!... they know they're online
-the "home", "pic", etc.. on the left side seem to small.. make the font a little bigger
-instead of "before after pic" name it "gallery" or something similar since it seems more professional IMO
-add a "reviews" or "comments" section on the left where clients can leave some feedback
-add a "calendar" section if possible to allow people to see available dates/times
-I like the "meet our staff" page since it really helps see who you're talking to, online or on phone, but I feel like you should write that in 1st person just like the "about us" section...

A few of the things above are purely subjective, so I just posted my opinion.

The reviews and calendar pages IMO are very important and they allow a potential client to see what others have written about you and also know you're availability.

I made this free page HERE just to have a place for a gallery and reviews section and also provide simple info, until I can design a real page and host it somewhere.... I did however buy the domain name and linked it to the free page... which leads me to my question for you, what program did you use to design the page, dreamweaver ?

[Coupe]

Im not liking the term *wheel the paint*, kinda old school, like really old school. I would put something more the the affect of *machine buff/polish paint to/a high gloss*.

I would definately change your before and after pics to something else and definately get some better pics. Engine looks great but you cant see much of the truck in the after pic.

[Jakerooni]

Good tips there. I have to still get onto my other computer to get more of the before and after pics I have stored over there. I'll revise a couple of things as well.

As far as the site goes I just went to Free Website Hosting - Tripod free website templates to make your own free website I get like 300 gigs of bandwidth a month plus 3 gigs of picture space and such for about $5 a month I think. Not a bad deal. They have pre made templates like the one I used or if you're good with dreamweaver,frontpage, html and the such you can just upload your pages as well. I tend to keep this technical stuff as simple as I can so I just found a customizeable template and went from there.

[Coupe]

You missed a word on the front page:

"Or just stop in to say to the new guys in town."

I think your missing "hi".