Is the real money in lower end detailing??

[art72]

All of that behind the scenes stuff like business names,websites, insurance,uniforms,talking with accounts, ordering equipment, setting up accounts withh suppliers, yea you know all those steps a lot of guys that do it on the side skip over are very time consuming. I was hoping to be fully operational by now but for me It's important to really have a professional and legit ament business right out of the gate. This has been a great thread for showing me that I have a good plan and am targeting the right market segment. As soon as I have all the business end stuff out of the way I can finally start using all the toys ( I mean professional equipment) that have been filling my garage over the past few months.

Know that feeling all to well... I can't wait to put to use everything I learned, bought, and intend to buy... but won't start until it's an official business!

I've already met a few locals running around here doing $10 car 'quickie' car washes out of 'un-marked' vans & trucks, and it's obvious they are NOT licensed, insured, or legal...and they probably don't care to be.

*It doesn't bother me, as I imagine they are doing this part-time for some extra cash, but it's not how I want to run my business. To me, skipping those few steps... just doesn't seem appropriate, as inexpensive as it is to become a legal business entity.

Perhaps, by spending the extra costs and committing to these simple legalities is exactly what sets apart the $10 quickie 'guy/gal' from the 6-figure plus business owners and those invested for the long haul? ... I dunno.

My biggest problem is being too meticulous as a die hard "do-it-yourself'er", - So, trying to be patient and waiting for all the pieces (*tools especially) to come together is very challenging! -I can foresee this mentality carrying into every job I do, and having to 'throttle-back' on the production type jobs or risk spending more time on a project than the customer is paying for.

I once had a Pastor say to me; "At the end of the day we are all prostitutes, it's simply a matter of determining "How much you consider yourself worth?" - Naturally, he meant metaphorically, but it really sunk in hearing it put that way.

[bigdriver4u]

Bryan, I agree with 100% of this above post, you've ID'd your customer base and have nailed it, I bet your business is very sucessful based off of this post, you GET IT Not only do I not have the money to get into the business myself but I know I care more about other people's car more than they do and I would get caught up thinking everyone picking up their car would be looking at the paint with a magnifiying glass, that's my problem but then again, I do this on the side and know what I can and can't do to a given car based on my current skill set and equiptment.

Good luck to you and everyone else here who GETS IT!

Thanks for the feedback.. Again, great people on the forum to learn from and share with.

[Mobile detail]

Everyone is pretty much spot on with everything they are saying. Its about supply and demand. Granted there are some people who love their car and want it perfect and know about what goes into a detail. The flip side to that is, there are WAY more people who just want a clean interior, and MAYBE care/know the difference between the spray wax the tunnel washes use and an actually paste/liquid wax. I can't tell you the amount of people who's vehicles I detail that tell me they get it waxed all the time at the car wash. I do a lot of high end cars that the owners trash. I personally don't understand it, but hey its business and job security.

With my business, I'd say the backbone/easy money is the interior detail with a wash and tires dressing. Maybe some will want it waxed (with interior only detail I use spray wax) but for the most part they want the interior clean. It usually takes me 3-4 hours and I charge $125-$150.Ya, I do some great looking cars that the customer wants the paint corrected and cares how much protection is in the paint, but the STEADY money is the wash/interior.

Its all about what the customer wants, and sometimes they want less then what we know the car should have. I had a hard time with this when I first started. I would charge way too little and end up doing a full on detail because I wanted the car to look amazing but I wasn't getting paid for it and the customer wouldn't even notice if I dressed his door jam trim lol. Ask what the customer wants and provide it. Plain and simple.

[Vegas Transplant]

[Love's Auto]

At our shop we offer production as well as high end details. Don't sell yourself short money is money. When a customer walks in our shop I greet them and walk around their car with them. I "nit pick" all the defects on their car and go over the options to have everything fixed. At that point I give them the price for each individual concern followed by a grand total. If a customer wants their car to look it's best they will drop $1200 easy and our paint corrections never take three days. We do 2 maybe three in a 12 hour period while working on other cars as well. Our shop easily pulls in $2-$3k on Friday and saturday. Just my partner and I working. Some of you will probably think there is no way possible for this to happen but we do it and it does. We do interiors all day everyday. Vans, trucks, SUVs you name it and that's where the money is. We do 4-5 $300-$600 details everyday. Interiors are money makers and they don't take long. Intact check out our website and price list. Www.eadhawaii.com.

[jankerson]

At least during the winter I'm doing a LOT of interiors in a LOT of minivans. Learned to hate the words "minivan, kids, dog" when used in the same sentence.

That's what nightmares are made out of......

[jankerson]

This might lead to an annoying customer coming back and back for the same service at the same price and you will be loosing profits from giving up other jobs.

Lowballing generally attracts nit-picky, annoying customers (my experience) and are generally not worth the time and energy to please.

Same for any type of business, they are the ones that nobody needs or wants and should be avoided no matter what, they just aren't worth the effort.

You can run them off with pricing as they are usually cheap too.... So set the price above that level.

Red Flags are generally balking at the price and or looking for a discount or a deal, bang for the buck types.... Pretty much across the board in any business.

That's if one wants to be successful and enjoy what they are doing.

[Pureshine]

I could never do production work but that's just me. You can make good money doing it for sure. You need to decide what kind of shop you want to be and stick with it. I do feel you can't really do both as a one man shop you will kill your self. That said I also feel you can't do both at a big shop ether in my opinion.

[statusdetailing]

This is something I've put a lot of thought in to. I've looked at a lot of detailing sites, especially "high end" detailing sights and have found a lot of guys just don't make the kind of money that they appear to be making. I'm guilty of some of these same things so I'm not bashing anyone in any way.

The guys that are really not making money are the ones that think they are charging a lot for paint correction (usually in the 300-600 range) but it takes them 2 or even 3 days to do the work. That's only 150 to 200 a day at best, which sucks!

I've been working really hard this year to make over $200 a day. . .If I can't I'd almost rather not open my shop. That time would be better spent marketing and going out and making better contacts. I think a $1000 week should be a standard in detailing and it's sometimes harder to reach than one would think. If you aren't making $200 a day, forget it.

I never charge less that $40 an hour anymore. So I try my absolute best to push packages that are in the 6 to 9 hour range. Right now, these are the most profitable for me. That doesn't always happen, but I do my absolute best to make sure it does. 4 of those jobs a week plus my maintenance day on Friday, can make for a pretty nice week.

Paint correction is tricky. IMO it's impossible to do "high end" paint correction in one day. I'm talking about claying every single square inch, iron x...the works. This includes taping all trim and doing multiple step paint correction (preferably 3 steps which IMO is optimal, especially on black cars).

I've found that in detailing, there is a $500 wall, at least in my area. So, if I only charge $500 for a correction and it takes me 2 days, I just lost money. I really could have made more money doing a 1 day job.

This is a HUGE problem in detailing. When it comes to correction, a detailer CAN NOT back off the price in the form of discounts. I firmly believe that 2 day jobs should never be done for less than $600 and 3 day for $900. . .bare minimum!!!!

Anything less than that is a waste of time, because easier jobs would be more profitable. My goal for this coming season (starting in spring) is to not charge less than $640 for 2 days of work. That is 16 hours of work at $40 per hour.

Perhaps I won't work quite 16 hours on the vehicle, but it's the income potential I would have had if I took on 2 separate vehicles.

I'd like to be at $50 per hour within 2 years. My long term goal is the $60-$75 per hour range (probably the ceiling for my market).

Don't forget, guys like Larry Kosilla, charge around $100 per hour. They are good business men. They know how to market and do extremely good work as well.

I hope that makes sense.

[statusdetailing]

I'd also like to ad that some of the best detailers make a ton of money on upselling things like coatings, fabric protection, etc. It could literally be 10, 20 or even 30k per year if done right.