Progress

[Dunrite]

Hey everyone. Wanted to start a thread to record my progress with my entry into the professional detailing world.

History: I've been doing detail work for myself for a few years and finally decided to expand my knowledge and offer my services to friends and family last year. I didn't receive a lot of work, but the work I did got good results and lots of compliments. That's what started me on my journey to where we are now.

Purchases: I had quite a bit of equipment of products prior to this year, but realized if I was going to do this 100% I would need to invest more into it with the intention of making my business profitable and well received.

My larger purchases were:
5x8 enclosed Haulin' trailer - $1695
Commerical powerwasher, water tank, booster pump - $1300
Trailer vinyls: $450

The small purchased add up very quickly as well. I had initially set a budget for myself of $4000 to get up and running and I think I'm a right at or just past that now.

Legalities: I lucked out and have a buddy who's a lawyer to help me with the legal paperwork. He did the work for free and said it's easy to do without a lawyer, but said he would have charged over $700.

Insurance: To insure my truck commercially, the trailer and to have a $1 million liability insurance policy costs me $275/month. My full coverage truck insurance was 180ish a month before hand to give you a reference. I received a few quotes from other companies that were way over what I ended up going with. Not sure why that is, but I went with Farm Bureau Insurance.

Promotion: I established a facebook page for my services last year and hadn't had any noticeable interest. This year, I created a website through Wix and began promoting on Facebook. I haven't found paying for facebooks advertising options to be effective. What I have found to be effective is promoting my services on local Facebook groups. I offered a $100 gift certificate to 1 random person, and I tripled my facebook likes within a day, along with many people asking about services and showing interest.

While I advertised that I provide fleet and commercial services, I anticipated mostly individual calls, maybe 5-10 cars a month. My Facebook attention caught the eye of a local used car dealer that was interested in using our services. I met with him, and we agreed on detailing 5-10 cars one day a week at $70-$100 per car. $70 for spray wax (hydro 2) and $100 for AIO (D151) I wasn't prepared for that volume of work, but hoping I can make it happen and show my wife some profit.

Future: I still need to finish the trailer. At this point I need to mount everything and add storage for bottles and containers as well as pads and microfibers. I still need to add an air compressor to my rig and that should be my last major purchase.

I plan on hiring 1 or 2 people to assist when doing the volume work. I anticipate 2 people can average 1 car/hour and I'll be able to pay a decent salary. This is going to be a play-it-by ear type thing.

I can't upload pics directly from my computer, but here's the trailer, the vinyl and the flooring. (I can't take credit for the flooring idea, but I cannot remember the name of the member that I seen do it first. I can't remember if it was this forum or another, either)

More pics and updates to comes as I move along here. Any questions or comments please feel free!

[JimmyH5]

Thanks for sharing your ongoing journey; have started out detailing as a hobby/mental therapy.... and have acquired a couple of clients that like my work/attention to detail; not hoping to reach the level you are, but appreciate your effort to say the least; I hope you have great success : )

[dlc95]

Right on! 810. Where are you based?

[Dunrite]

Thanks for the comments. I'm based in St Clair County, serving into Macomb as well

[dlc95]

Thanks for the comments. I'm based in St Clair County, serving into Macomb as well

Awesome! Congrats on the set up, and the gig. Best of luck to ya!

[Souldetailer]

Best of luck! Looks like you're off to a great start. This too is in my forseeable future. Plead add updates to this thread as you progress. I know you will have many folks interested in your endeavor. Best wishes & take care.

Peace,

Darrin

[Eandras]

Wishing you a prosperous adventure. Once you get everything setup in the trailer post pictures

Ed

[Dunrite]

Here's what I've got so far for laying it out. I'll post more info in the water system when I get it finished.

The last picture is where I ran a screw too deep and punctured the aluminum on accident. Something to keep in mind when mounting things!

I'll probably need two more sets of drawers to store everything, or upgrade to a larger style with 5 drawers instead of 3.

Another issue I have right now is our weather is still below freezing at night and the trailer is outside. To protect the power washer and product from the cold I'm running a little personal heater at night and it keeps the trailer at an acceptable temperature.

Thanks for the comments. If anyone has questions feel free to ask. Id like to help as much as possible and have other people be able to do better and have less issues than me!
Thank for looking!

[Dunrite]

Haven't posted in a while here. Been pretty busy between the real job and finding out we have another baby on the way, but here goes!

I've made a few more modifications to the trailer and built a hinged shelf to cover the pump/battery. This shelf also serves as storage for all my products stored in gallon jugs.

The garden hose I used to run from my pump to the power washer wasn't very high quality. This resulted in it leaking from both fittings and made the on demand water pump turn on and off every second or two. I haven't replaced it yet but I will be doing so soon.

I've somewhat determined my water usage per job. I use a foam cannon with CG honeydew with good results. I seem to use about 15-20 gallons of water for a complete wash/rinse and would feel confident doing 3 vehicles with one tank of water.

I spent one day working for a used car dealer who promised 5-10 cars/week along with general washing of all vehicles on the lot (40). After working there one day I detailed 3 vehicles, washed 2 and had absolutely no direction on how in-depth he wanted each vehicle detailed or even which vehicle he wanted to have done next. I don't see this job as being ideal, but for now it's the only work I've gotten.

Advertising hasn't been bringing any attention my way. So far I've tried:
- Facebook 100$ gift certificate giveaway: good results.
- Facebook free detail giveaway: Fair results
- Free onsite car wash: Much poorer results than expected. How hard is it to give away FREE stuff!? I started this event on the business Facebook page and shared it multiple times with groups that serve the community. I've only had 7 people sign up so far and was hoping for 15! It's been up for about 6 days and the event is scheduled to run on Saturday!

I have signed up for Google Ad Words with very poor results, but thankfully they were so poor Google felt bad charging me much! I don't think it's even made it over a few bucks at this point.

Today I am going to be out running errands and plan to pull the trailer all day just to get some visibility as well as place paper ads on bulletin boards around the area.

The website has come together well, but I dislike the long URL. Unfortunately most other similar names were taken already.

I can't think of any other insight I have at this point, but please feel free to ask questions. I'd like to help others out as much as everyone here has been a help to me. I can post model numbers, in depth installation directions etc. Just don't want to do all the work if no one cares!

Mike

[Dunrite]

Hey guys!

Happy to say that I've been receiving more work than anticipated! So much so that km having to schedule services a week or two out!

The thing I still need to work on is: reorganizing my packages to better suit the average customer.

Right now, my calls are about 50% referral and 50% Facebook.

Hopefully this keeps up!