Charging a price.!

Justin -

It was ~55% btw. I used Sub-Contract labor that was strictly paid a set percentage. Product & equipment costs were 100% absorbed by Subs. Rent was dirt cheap for a huge building on a main road surrounded by dozens of dealers that all sold 400-500 NC / 100-150 UC per month. Water & Insurance was cheap. No advertising budget. Squat for office supplies. Mostly used dealer cars to deliver vehicles and always drove one home :grinno: Everything else except groceries & my mortgage was expensed in some way, shape or form. :D
 
Well I have a friend at the moment who is doing a hell of a lot of work just doing dealerships and he is bringing in about $3000-$5500 a week. And this is someone who has no insurance and barely a business licence.
 
David Fermani said:
Justin -

It was ~55% btw. I used Sub-Contract labor that was strictly paid a set percentage. Product & equipment costs were 100% absorbed by Subs. Rent was dirt cheap for a huge building on a main road surrounded by dozens of dealers that all sold 400-500 NC / 100-150 UC per month. Water & Insurance was cheap. No advertising budget. Squat for office supplies. Mostly used dealer cars to deliver vehicles and always drove one home :grinno: Everything else except groceries & my mortgage was expensed in some way, shape or form. :D
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Ah, I thought 45% was what you paid out to operate.



You set up a "Jewelery Exchange" for detailing. I have a friend with one of those. He owns the "skeleton" and does all the advertising, then rents out little spaces in the building to jewelers.



What makes his business model interesting? He runs one check-out area to make the place appear to be one huge store. He also does it to insure he can collect his 8% on top of their rent every month!



He made them Co-op everything. Insurance, phone, internet, cleaning, thank yous, so on... The place is made of money.







If we owned a 500 car per month store, I'd be done for good as would everyone I know. Just like Entourage. We dont have those huge stores in NY. Maybe you hit 500 when you own a few franchises, but not from just one location. The costs just kill us. Most have to store the majority of cars off-site, its just another bill to eat up your profits. If you could gross $40m and walk out with $2m, you were a hero.
 
Dealer cars in my area 150.00 a car. Hire 10 to 15 drunks, mexicans, and drug atticks who work for there next fix and you will be able to pump out 400 cars a week and do it over!! I see it everyday. There is a ton of money in dealer work when done right. Google car detailing Manheim pa 17545 then google Manheim Auto Auction On the average they run 8000 new cars a week someone has to clean them. That would be the 30 + high Volume SHops in my area. Yes you will make money doing high volume dealer work! I know guys who gross millions a year doing it.
 
That is right Justin. The place is insanely huge now! LOL its a hustling business that I gave up. Life got alot eaiser. Now I need to find my own niche.
 
I will respond to the OP, instead of arguing with what others have said. The whole my way was/is better than yours gets old real fast. What you can charge is dependent on your unique market, and the supply and demand in that market. I have heard that, in Florida, everyone and their brother is a 'detailer'. I have also heard that, because of the large supply of fly-by-night detailers, the prices are very low. Sounds like you may be in a tough situation because you are slow. Obviously, if this is your only source of income, you need to make some sales. It sounds like this was more a personal economic decision that you alone needed to make. Personally, I have turned away quite a few people that were not willing to pay my rates. Usually they were people that were not in my target market anyways. Like Scotty said, I prefer not to give my services away, even if it means I do not get the sale. Again, this is more a personal decision, not based on some magic formula. Like some others have said, you could have simply gave her $85 worth of labor; making sure to explain that up front. The problem is, more than likely the car was probably trashed.
 
Well to shed some light on why I posted this. I did the job for the customer. She loved my work and cut me a check :). No tip which is ok. 4 days later I had a check bounce on me. Took her 4 days to pay me back. Once she did she had me wait for about 30 mins outside her office to get paid. After knowing what would happen I still did the job and got screwed in the end! If I would have charged her my normal fee then it would be worth it since I already know what I am getting myself into. From here on out if you do not want to pay my price go find someone else to do it for you!
 
So much for a discussion :). BTW- OFFTOPIC- Mexican is not a race...Mestizo would be. Ergo, not racism. At best stereotyping. And knowing Barry, not that either....he's got real world experience working in Manheim High Volume. Been there, done that, and survived it enough to report what he saw.



Sorry, but being Spanish 1st Gen American, I learned there is a difference between "pulling the race card", not knowing what one is, and not knowing when its appropriate. MaryP, maybe Barry could've powdered his words a bit, but your response was completely inappropriate.
 
David Fermani said:
It probably is. I’m referencing your minimum wage figures.
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I saw that, and you are well over 10% low in your estimate. Anything over 44 hours is overtime paid at 1.5x hourly pay. You also failed to account for rent/heat/hydro/insurance/taxes/accounting/phone/advertising/paying yourself a reasonable wage/profit and so on which by the end of the day would eat up the vast majority of your supposed $250000 profit. That is unless you have miraculously found a way to circumvent paying those expenses.
 
brwill2005 said:
I will respond to the OP, instead of arguing with what others have said. The whole my way was/is better than yours gets old real fast. What you can charge is dependent on your unique market, and the supply and demand in that market. I have heard that, in Florida, everyone and their brother is a 'detailer'. I have also heard that, because of the large supply of fly-by-night detailers, the prices are very low. Sounds like you may be in a tough situation because you are slow. Obviously, if this is your only source of income, you need to make some sales. It sounds like this was more a personal economic decision that you alone needed to make. Personally, I have turned away quite a few people that were not willing to pay my rates. Usually they were people that were not in my target market anyways. Like Scotty said, I prefer not to give my services away, even if it means I do not get the sale. Again, this is more a personal decision, not based on some magic formula. Like some others have said, you could have simply gave her $85 worth of labor; making sure to explain that up front. The problem is, more than likely the car was probably trashed.
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Doing high volume, low cost details like that can be done and yes you can make money under the right circumstances but it would be extremely difficult. We did extremely high volumes of cars between 1998-2002 and were getting $90 for cars and $130 for minivans/trucks and found it just wasn't worth grinding out 20 cars a day for what you were left over with for the effort. I'm much happier doing details between $100-$500 for retail customers and minimum $150 for the dealers that want quality work. The funny thing is all the dealers we used to do work for that we were charging the heavily discounted prices for are still using us 8 years later at the higher price. This year is going to be a heavier year volume wise with our dealers as the used market is heating up here and I'm pleased to be doing them for what I am paid but not for the sub-$100 prices I have seen posted. Waste of time.
 
David Fermani and Shine Shop.



Consider this post a warning to your behavior in this thread. If you can't discuss these things like adults then move on.



Personal attacks and attempts to disrupt this forum will be dealt with according to forum rules.
 
ShineShop said:
I saw that, and you are well over 10% low in your estimate. Anything over 44 hours is overtime paid at 1.5x hourly pay. You also failed to account for rent/heat/hydro/insurance/taxes/accounting/phone/advertising/paying yourself a reasonable wage/profit and so on which by the end of the day would eat up the vast majority of your supposed $250000 profit. That is unless you have miraculously found a way to circumvent paying those expenses.
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I guess you missed the part of my reply were I said TOTAL EXPENSES (meaning Total Operating Expenses) were ~55%? That includes every expense that was deducted from Income:



David Fermani said:
My total expenses were ~55% & we've averaged $500K/yr for well over 10 years. I know many others that produce comparable #'s throughout different markets.
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Again, please do the math and see if the operation is profitable or not? From your brief description, my business model is run (financially and physically) totally different that yours. My operation doesn't have employees and it doesn't pay people hourly. If you do, that’s your decision and really differentiates us very diversely.



_______________________________________







This is a far cry:

ShineShop said:
Doing high volume, low cost details like that can be done and yes you can make money under the right circumstances but it would be extremely difficult. I'm pleased to be doing them for what I am paid but not for the sub-$100 prices I have seen posted. Waste of time.
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From this:

ShineShop said:
This is the main problem with the detail industry. There is NO WAY at that price that you can ever reasonably expect to make any money.
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ShineShop said:
what I said was that work is unprofitable and a loser at that price. Unless you are somehow able to escape the laws of minimum wages and fixed costs doing work at that price is a LOSER.
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I’m glad you’ve changed your view and are now embracing the idea that it can be profitable. :2thumbs:
 
this is some seriously good conversation . . . . . . though there is no need to get crazy or out of hand. Everyone is entitled to a opinion be it wrong or right.



So how is business holding up for everyone right now?



What are everyone's most effective ways of marketing/advertising?
 
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