Yellow Pages are worthless

[Scottwax]

Please explain the differences between mobil/fixed in respect to getting and doing disgusting jobs? I'm trying to understand that part of your comment. Thanks.....

I think what he is saying because most mobile detailers (okay, Autopian mobile detailers) are so booked up with details for demanding private vehicle owners that you can pick and chose your customers. I don't outright turn down puke/blood/urine/milk jobs, I just tell them I am so booked up it will be 2-3 weeks before I can work them into my schedule. You have a nasty interior, you won't wait, you will call someone else.



Sort of the same deal when someone calls about a minivan or SUV and I hear screaming kids in the background. My price goes up $50-75. Either they will find someone else to clean their rolling landfill or I will be rewarded handsomely for doing so. Being mobile and only having help (at least currently) in the summer, I can't do the volume a fixed location does but I also don't have the expenses so I can pick and chose whose vehicles I want to clean.



If I had a fixed location with several employees depending on me to scare up enough volume for them all to have ample work, I'd be less choosey about the vehicles I was cleaning because I am not sure there is always the market to exclusively cater to the enthusiast car owner at a fixed location with several employees. Jimmy Buffet is an exception though.



There certainly is nothing wrong with a fixed location catering to a more broad cross section of cars and car cleaning problems. There is a very strong market for it and you have obviously done quite well filling that need.

 

[David Fermani]

I think what he is saying because most mobile detailers (okay, Autopian mobile detailers) are so booked up with details for demanding private vehicle owners that you can pick and chose your customers. I don't outright turn down puke/blood/urine/milk jobs, I just tell them I am so booked up it will be 2-3 weeks before I can work them into my schedule. You have a nasty interior, you won't wait, you will call someone else.



Sort of the same deal when someone calls about a minivan or SUV and I hear screaming kids in the background. My price goes up $50-75. Either they will find someone else to clean their rolling landfill or I will be rewarded handsomely for doing so. Being mobile and only having help (at least currently) in the summer, I can't do the volume a fixed location does but I also don't have the expenses so I can pick and chose whose vehicles I want to clean.



If I had a fixed location with several employees depending on me to scare up enough volume for them all to have ample work, I'd be less choosey about the vehicles I was cleaning because I am not sure there is always the market to exclusively cater to the enthusiast car owner at a fixed location with several employees. Jimmy Buffet is an exception though.



There certainly is nothing wrong with a fixed location catering to a more broad cross section of cars and car cleaning problems. There is a very strong market for it and you have obviously done quite well filling that need.

Scott - Thanks for the explanation and compliment. I've never looked at it from the other side of the fence(mobil). I've got alot to understand. Would you put that nasty job to the front of the list if they were paying you 5+ times your normal rate? Then would you look at it differently? If you could talk that person into your services for that price, would the extra effort be worth it? I'm not talking about being a snake oil salesman, but intelligently discussing, explaning and selling your level of quality and integrity to your product. One that sets you apart from the others. To some, that could be more important than saving money. Forgive me, I'm just doing some brainstorming.