Detailing for Profit

**Bobby G** · 07-17-2003, 11:48 AM

As many of you know, I`m about ready to release the next version of Autopia Guide to Detailing. I`m working on the last chapter, titled "Detailing for Profit." I have another 6-8 hours of work to put in before it will be complete.

There have been a lot of threads lately about people wanting to start a detailing business, so I thought I`d give a sneak preview of the chapter and get your feedback.

http://www.autopia.ws/articles.php?articleId=30

db

**C. Charles Hahn** · 07-17-2003, 12:14 PM

great article, David.... can`t wait to see the rest (I may just finally buy the book for this one!

)

only one thing I noticed, which is a grammatical error (typo probably):

They them try, while you scoop up all of the high-end work.

Perhaps you meant "Let them try"??

this was under the "Pricing your services" header.

**Bobby G** · 07-17-2003, 01:12 PM

Thanks, Shiny. I hired a professional copy editor to go through the book. She will be done in a couple weeks.

db

**domZ'sp5** · 07-17-2003, 01:16 PM

Wow! Great article, David.

Very informative!

It is amazing how much it takes, both money and work, to start a detailing business and you seem to have covered all bases. (I am not a pro, just a weekend warrior, what do I know?!)

One typo I found...

Under the equipment section-wet/dry vacuum...

you wrote:

In addition to good power, select a quite vacuum and make sure the canisters wonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t cost a fortune or be difficult to find.

I think you mean QUIET vacuum...

Good work!

DomZ

(I am the guy who downloaded your e-book to my PDA-very handy!)

**jonw440** · 07-17-2003, 04:08 PM

Thanks for the sneak peek. Very informative!!Now about the other chapters..............

**Bobby G** · 07-17-2003, 08:17 PM

Sorry, no more sneak peeks... it will all be complete soon!

**chris0626** · 07-17-2003, 08:46 PM

How sad -- if you actually paid a pro editor ... when you have a pro editor on Autopia who has published her own book and would do your job for free.

Originally posted by DavidB

Thanks, Shiny. I hired a professional copy editor to go through the book. She will be done in a couple weeks.

db

**SickOfItAll** · 07-17-2003, 11:04 PM

Looks good! One thing you might want to flesh out a bit more is the shoe string budget section - a lot of college kids do this kind of thing over the summer, and it simply isn`t feasible to invest a couple thousand dollars into various tools and whatnot (extractor, buffers, etc.) - so if possible, you could try fleshing out that section a bit, emphasizing points on where corners can be cut on capital expenditures, and what that means to the business and how to explain that to customers. Another thing for college kids that do this over the summer is, they generally don`t want to buy a work vehicle - so be sure to include that, with lack of tools comes a lack of need for a van - I`ve actually managed to cram enough stuff into a MR2 to do a fairly competent job - anything that requires a buffer is out of the question (I don`t own one), but anything less than that and it`s easily taken care of. And trust me when I say the MR2 suffers from a lack of usable cargo room - we have something like 5 cu. feet of trunk space :p

**jimmybuffit** · 07-18-2003, 06:27 AM

David, I found it to be very informative.

While it doesn`t precisely match my recent startup experience, it is , as intended, a fine overview.

I would stress the importance of location of the fixed shop. To date, my most effective form of promotion has been a `temporary` 3`x10` banner. The 40,000-50,000 per day traffic count has done the rest. A tint shop neighbor pointed out that just 1% of that traffic , per month, would overwhelm me!

Additionally, the zip code of my location is in the 97th percentile of household incomes in the US. That Helps!

While my rent is only $12.50/sf, it could have been less. I view the premium rate as a promotional expense...

My overall startup cost was less than $20,000. I expected it to be higher, and I had more than 6 months of operating capital in reserve. Not only is that important, it really allows a comfort level that wouldn`t be there if I had to worry about achieving a specific sales target every day/week.

Nice job!

**Bobby G** · 07-18-2003, 11:39 PM

Originally posted by jimamary

David, I found it to be very informative.

While it doesn`t precisely match my recent startup experience, it is , as intended, a fine overview.

I would stress the importance of location of the fixed shop. To date, my most effective form of promotion has been a `temporary` 3`x10` banner. The 40,000-50,000 per day traffic count has done the rest. A tint shop neighbor pointed out that just 1% of that traffic , per month, would overwhelm me!

Additionally, the zip code of my location is in the 97th percentile of household incomes in the US. That Helps!

While my rent is only $12.50/sf, it could have been less. I view the premium rate as a promotional expense...

My overall startup cost was less than $20,000. I expected it to be higher, and I had more than 6 months of operating capital in reserve. Not only is that important, it really allows a comfort level that wouldn`t be there if I had to worry about achieving a specific sales target every day/week.

Nice job!

I would like to get feedback from those of you who have recently started a detailing business. Actual costs will vary based on location, size of business and many other factors. Startup cash, which I don`t include in the capital investment, is something many people don`t think about. It takes liquid cash to keep a business operating.

db

**Myles** · 07-19-2003, 02:40 AM

good article David, expecially since u mention the company i work for, R. L. Polk !!!!

**boywonder** · 07-19-2003, 08:13 AM

Originally posted by DavidB

I would like to get feedback from those of you who have recently started a detailing business. Actual costs will vary based on location, size of business and many other factors. Startup cash, which I don`t include in the capital investment, is something many people don`t think about. It takes liquid cash to keep a business operating.

db

I`ll be chiming in about that shortly as a partner and I are getting ready to open up our own shop.

Right now, we are in the planning stages.

**imported_Sqard** · 07-19-2003, 02:28 PM

I thought it was very informative. I recently opened my detailing business out of my own garage. With something like this, you really need to be concerned about representing yourself in a professional way. Starting out is always hard, but you must stick with it. Be prepared to not have many cars for the first month or two. I put put around 500 flyers and only got 3 calls, and this was in an extremely wealthy area. The flyers were really nice too as I do some professional photoshop work on the side. Almost all of my work was from word of mouth. Get some nice business cards made, hand a few out to your customers so that they can share them with their friends. People come to my business because they trust me, and the quality of the work I do. My prices are on the cheap side, because I thought it would be tough starting out with high prices until I get a reputation. I think that if you are confident that your work is far better than the competition you can charge whatever you want. In my experiences, the only people that I detail for are people with 100k+ cars where a few hundred is just pocket change as long as its the best quality work. If you are thinking of starting up a business, I would definately do your research first. I made a mistake by setting my prices to low, but if you set them high you will probably have the same amount of customers and the cars will be in nicer shape because you eliminate the soccer mom van bargain shoppers.