Time for a career change!

rydawg · 09-26-07, 12:35

Hi guys!

As winter is coming soon to me in New England, my retail detailing comes to a slow season. I do have a couple of dealers that I did do work for which I did get paid good money and they absolutly love my work. I normally charge them $150 a car and they come out great! I pretty much de-swirl the car and Z8 it and do a clean on the interior. It keeps food on the table for the winter months and they do not have to be as near perfect as my high end work. Plus I usually will grab retail work from the customers in the shop too so it works out perfect.

So, I go around today just trying to get some contracts early and they now all have detailers that come in and do them for $50-$75 a car. While the dealers know they do not come out perfect, they know they are saving a ton of money now. They are all saying they have people every week coming in looking to sell their services for $50-75. Last year all the hack detailers where charging $100-$125 in and out. So I go over to this detail shop and ask them what their wholesale price is and they say it is now $74.95 for a car. The guy tells me he lost close to 50% of his dealers this year to other cheaper guys. He also said he use to make a ton of profit and he is now soon to closing the doors and is loosing his house soon. He told he he is losing an average of $5000 a month from the loss of the quick dealer work.

The high end of the business is great, but not that steady around me sometimes and the winter is slow for me. I either might be traveling to different states which is costly, which I have had some great opportunities or just get out of this business once and for all.

I was even thinking of getting into product sales and a distributorship too with my extreme product knowledge.

What do you guys do in the slow winter months?

Thanks
Ryan

10bballer · 09-26-07, 01:43

Hi Ryan,
I'm not in the business yet.I but I thinking of do so.So I know you may not listen to what I think since I'm not in detailing,But I hope you can stick it out.May try some boat detailing.Also I;m not sure if your mobile but you can offer interior detailing or even carpet cleaning for home and auto.I see alot of guys here in Ca.do that i know the weather is different here but we have so many detailers its aot of compertition.So just of thought.I currently have a jantorial business.But detailing is what I relly like.I hope my 2 cents help.
Robert

kompressornsc · 09-26-07, 01:56

I'm not a pro, but I've always thought that snow removal would be a good winter job for a detailer. You have a client base already that you know own cars (and most likely driveways), you won't be getting any jobs while it's snowing anyways, chances are your clients are a little better off than most, and your clients already trust you. I figure that a lot of detailers (especially mobile) already have a truck-just add a plow. You could kind of sell it as auto related.
The landscapers around here (Indiana) all do snow removal in the winter and make a killing. They do it with contracts that say they plow your drive when 'X inches' of snow falls...and then you pay. No phone calls, no scheduling, etc. They have a route they run and when the snow starts flying, they just follow that route. I know my Mom does this and has an average size driveway that she pays $40 each time. They do probably a dozen driveways on her block alone. And sometimes, it's 3 or 4 days in a week long period.

rydawg · 09-26-07, 03:33

Thanks for the replies guys!

I would get into snow plowing, but there are so many guys around me who do it and they normally charge $20 a driveway. Some guys might even go as low as $10. That's for an averege driveway too. I also know that the past couple of winters have been very mild and has snowed maybe 5 times. I do have a few friends that do it also and I sometimes will help them. The funyy thing is that most of his customers that have contracts will not sign anymore contracts cause they want to keep the option of having other guys come in and do it cheaper.

Years ago when I had a dealership, I normally paid $150 each storm to plow the lot. I would have tons of people coming in looking to do it cheap cause they had no money or gas and would do it for $50.

I am really considering traveling doing full corrections for car clubs.

I do a bunch of bikes in the winter too and am going to get heavy into chrome and aluminum polishing. I now have some amazing products that I finally like that are not messy. The Harley owners pay great money to have their bikes taken down and done right. Plus the word of mouth is excellent with bikes.

TH0001 · 09-26-07, 04:16

Hey Ryan I think you should write a book on polishing/detailing personally. You have forgotten more then most of us could hope to know, and we would all benefit from it!

rydawg · 09-26-07, 04:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by TH0001

Hey Ryan I think you should write a book on polishing/detailing personally. You have forgotten more then most of us could hope to know, and we would all benefit from it!

Haha.. I was thinking of doing that.

If I had the money and a chemist, I would develop my own line of true correction polishes. I would make sure they would excell in every aspect of the whole process. I have the strongest passion for true correction and it is a bad disease I have. I just love to be in the garage for 20 hours making a stock paint job turn heads when done.

sealionbeast · 09-26-07, 06:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by rydawg

Hi guys!

As winter is coming soon to me in New England, my retail detailing comes to a slow season. I do have a couple of dealers that I did do work for which I did get paid good money and they absolutly love my work. I normally charge them $150 a car and they come out great! I pretty much de-swirl the car and Z8 it and do a clean on the interior. It keeps food on the table for the winter months and they do not have to be as near perfect as my high end work. Plus I usually will grab retail work from the customers in the shop too so it works out perfect.

So, I go around today just trying to get some contracts early and they now all have detailers that come in and do them for $50-$75 a car. While the dealers know they do not come out perfect, they know they are saving a ton of money now. They are all saying they have people every week coming in looking to sell their services for $50-75. Last year all the hack detailers where charging $100-$125 in and out. So I go over to this detail shop and ask them what their wholesale price is and they say it is now $74.95 for a car. The guy tells me he lost close to 50% of his dealers this year to other cheaper guys. He also said he use to make a ton of profit and he is now soon to closing the doors and is loosing his house soon. He told he he is losing an average of $5000 a month from the loss of the quick dealer work.

The high end of the business is great, but not that steady around me sometimes and the winter is slow for me. I either might be traveling to different states which is costly, which I have had some great opportunities or just get out of this business once and for all.

I was even thinking of getting into product sales and a distributorship too with my extreme product knowledge.

What do you guys do in the slow winter months?

Thanks
Ryan

Come on out to California. We need more good detailers like you out here!!

David Fermani · 09-26-07, 06:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by rydawg

So, I go around today just trying to get some contracts early and they now all have detailers that come in and do them for $50-$75 a car. While the dealers know they do not come out perfect, they know they are saving a ton of money now. They are all saying they have people every week coming in looking to sell their services for $50-75. Last year all the hack detailers where charging $100-$125 in and out. So I go over to this detail shop and ask them what their wholesale price is and they say it is now $74.95 for a car. The guy tells me he lost close to 50% of his dealers this year to other cheaper guys. He also said he use to make a ton of profit and he is now soon to closing the doors and is loosing his house soon. He told he he is losing an average of $5000 a month from the loss of the quick dealer work.

Ryan - I realize your level of expertise is no doubt overkill for dealers, but could you tone it down a bunch to concentrate on volume? Even @ $75 per car, there's good money to be made depending on your volume. If you had a helper that you could pay a small reasonable percentage to, you could do 3-5 cars per day. I had a friend that did in-house work at a large Ford dealership that made $80K/year and did it for a long time. Just a thought. *Sometimes* volume operations are overlooked when you disect your profit per car.

JuneBug · 09-26-07, 07:04

David has a good point. I detail on the weekends to put money away for the kids college fund. Last year I concentrated on doing full details for the most money I could get. I learned that around my area, the market for part time guys only pays so much, so this year I'm trying to just do quick jobs, you know - wash & wax, dress tires, clean glass and vac, I figure I can do 2-3 on Saturday and make more money without the pain of trying to make a daily driver look like brand new. I also learned that 99% of my clients have way lower standards for their cars appearance so I quit beating myself up when a job wasn't up to my standard. I'll still do the full detail for those that want, need, and appreciate it.

GregCavi · 09-26-07, 07:10

I too, am thinking of a career change. I am planning on either working @ a liquor store or a bike store and doing the detailing on the side.

Greg

todd@bsaw · 09-26-07, 08:08

I am also trying to turn the detailing into a part time and seasonal job. I don't know if it is just the job market or maybe the northern climates, but it's getting harder to make a living out of it (even with wholesale jobs).

One of the reasons for my move was to start up my other career that I have been working on for a few years (audio recording/production and artist management). The music business picks up a little in the colder months around here because people like being indoors. In a perfect world, I could run two seasonal businesses. Detail in the summer and record in the winter. I'll let you know how it works come this time next year.

Reflectionz · 09-26-07, 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by rydawg

Haha.. I was thinking of doing that.

If I had the money and a chemist, I would develop my own line of true correction polishes. I would make sure they would excell in every aspect of the whole process. I have the strongest passion for true correction and it is a bad disease I have. I just love to be in the garage for 20 hours making a stock paint job turn heads when done.

Im sorry to hear man. Dealers are just not reliable. They are just looking for the cheapest ways possible for anything and dont give a **** about their cars. I do work for dealers and im in and out. The most common is i go in a dealer, show them a demo, they loved it.. then the last guy wants the job back.. comes in, lowball like a sucker, promise this and that.. and he's back in. I only have a few dealers which are reliable and still, you never know.

Btw, Did you detail on the lot? What were you using to get the swirls out? Im having a hard time finding a product that is sun friendly. im using Optimum polish right now but its just taking too long.