How to Start a Car Detailing Business

Embarking on a detailing business journey requires dedication and strategic thinking. In this episode, we explore ten key principles to elevate your new venture, emphasizing the significance of marketing, education, customer interaction, and operational efficiency.

• Start your detailing business by leveraging your existing network 
• Build compelling marketing materials to showcase your work 
• Use diverse strategies to capture client interest and referrals 
• Invest in your education and skills to stay ahead 
• Implement a forced ranking method to prioritize tasks 
• Track lead sources to understand your customer base 
• Focus on having meaningful sales conversations 
• Enhance customer service by monitoring feedback 
• Solidify operations through streamlined processes 
• Align with reliable vendors to boost profitability

INTRO
Your host is Davy Tyburski, America’s Chief Profit Officer® and Founder BigMoneyDetailer.com.

Go to BigMoneyDetailer.com/referrals to discover how-to double your referrals right now!

Please share this episode with others and be sure to check out BigMoneyDetailer.com for even more resources to grow your detailing business.

OUTRO
Congratulations and thank you for joining us for this episode! Discover even more strategies and tips on how to increase your detailing sales revenue, improve your cash flow and boost your bottom line, go to BigMoneyDetailer.com right now!

Chapters

• 0:25 Jumpstart Your Detailing Business Success
• 10:24 Maximizing Business Success Strategies
• 13:52 Implementing Systems for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Hi, I'm Davey Tyburski and I'm known as America's Chief Profit Officer. And first off, I want to say congratulations to you, congratulations for jumping into the detailing industry. You are off to a wonderful adventure and, of course, myself and the others who share this video series are here to serve you and help you get better. So let's jump right in. I'm going to share with you 10 fast start tips to jumpstart your new detailing business. Now I want you to take your hand. I know you're watching the video, but let's make this interactive. Right, take your hand and go like this there's five key areas of your business. There's marketing. It's the thumb right, it's the biggest thumb. It feeds everything else you do. So marketing, sales, customer service operations. And even though the pinky is the smallest finger, it's really, really important that you get paid for the awesome work you do in your detailing. So again, marketing, sales, customer service operations and getting paid. Let's jump right in. Number one start, start. You probably wash your hair every day, right? It's just as simple as that Lather rinse, repeat. So let's cover that again Lather rinse, repeat. And here's where you start your detailing business. You've got to go to your family, your friends and associates. Tell them the exciting work that you're about to start doing and let them know that you want to start with them because you already have a relationship with them. Next, every step of the way, from the first vehicle you do to the thousands of vehicles you'll do in the future, you always have to be building your marketing material. You always have to be building your marketing collateral. So a couple ideas on that for you. Number one photos before and after Videos of not just the vehicle you're working on, but also a video from the satisfied client after you finish the project. So not only do you want to capture the video from what you're doing in the art of detailing, you also want to capture video from what the result was. So you want that client reaction So-and-so. Just did my car and man. It was fantastic. A, b, c, d. So always grabbing those testimonials.

Speaker 1: 2:17

The next one your marketing. You've got to have a great online and a great offline campaign. It's not all about one. As a matter of fact, in my son's business, which is affluentautospotcom, we market 100 different ways. Yes, I said that right 100 different ways. There's not one way to market In our case. There's 100 different ways to market. So make sure you're always doing new things in your marketing, because that's what feeds your entire engine in your detailing business. Here's what you want people to say you got to call, and right after this I want you to say your own name you got to call. Fill in the blank. So in our case, in San Antonio, texas, we want people saying you got to call Dylan for your detailing needs, and we want that to happen for you as well.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Next one invest in your knowledge, skills and abilities. There's no better investment than what you can make in yourself, and that's what Warren Buffett says all the time. So the best investment you can start making right now as a new business owner, especially in the detailing business, you've got to find the right people, the right mentors, the right coaches, and you want to make sure you're investing in yourself, because there's one thing that folks can never take away from you, and that's what you learn your knowledge, skills and abilities will take you to the next level. Number three you have to focus on suggestion. You should focus on marketing to charities, and the reason I say that is this Charities attract people that want to help others. They want to serve others in the charity. So one thing we do in Affluent Auto Spa is we market to folks that are in the charity business, so to speak. So here's an example. You can see it on the screen behind me here, or maybe it's over there. I haven't looked at the screen yet. But basically, what you do is, when we get a text message from someone that we know we love, to give gift cards to that charity If they do a silent auction. You have the ability to gain a client from the silent auction, but also you get to attend that specific charity event. That's where you can hand out your business cards, your poker chips or, in some cases, handing out your book, and I'll get to that in just a minute.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Next, marketing just like this. Oh, by the way. So you're probably thinking what the heck is Davey talking about? Oh, by the way, I want you to make a list right now of at least five, five other people that are currently getting access to your ideal client. An example might be do you know anybody in the maid business? Do you know anybody in the dog sitting business? Do you know anybody in the home security business? And the reason I'm asking you to do that is you can market to one person. Tell them all the awesome work you do in detailing and then, as they talk to others and because they're already in that person's home, they can say oh, by the way, I noticed you have a Mercedes. Oh, by the way, I noticed you have a Lexus. Have you ever considered detailing for that vehicle? Here's my friend, in my case Dylan. Why don't you give Dylan a call and see if he can help you out? Very simple marketing, low cost, but very, very effective.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Tip number five by now you might be feeling overwhelmed, not only from all the things you have to do in your detailing business, but you might be overwhelmed in just the first few minutes of this video. So I'm going to give you a tool right now, and we'll make sure we include this template for you. It's called forced ranking. One thing that I've noticed in working with clients many clients across the globe is sometimes they get overwhelmed with the amount of things they have to do. So what we do is we created something called forced ranking. I'm going to walk you through that really quick.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Number one you make a list of all the action items that are on your mind. That goes in the first column, and again you can see the sample here behind me. The second column is what was the potential dollar value of that action? So, hypothetically, if you thought you need to create a marketing brochure, I want you to do the math in your head how much money per year could that marketing brochure generate for you? After you fill that number in, I want you to move to the next column and I want you to ask yourself what's the business impact? One, eh, not so much. Ten, huge impact. And then I want you to move to the next column. How easy is that to implement? One, oh my goodness, difficult. Ten, very easy. And then, finally, in the last column, I just want you to total those two columns together and those highest scores should really be the things you start working on right now.

Speaker 1: 7:01

I also want to just share just a little bit more information about me, because here's what I know. You will not hear me until you know me, so let me just share a little more information. You can see my visual resume behind me. I've worked with $500,000 startup entrepreneurs all the way up to multi-billion dollar companies, and here's what I learned Success leaves clues, or you may have heard it success leaves traces. The reason that most clients come to me to do private coaching is not only do I work with detailers like you, but I also work with many other companies and what I'm really good at is, for instance, what's working in dentistry, what's working in healthcare, what's working in carpentry, what's working in plumbing, and I'm able to model that success and teach you that, as a detailer, the benefit to you is you don't just get detailer ideas, but you'll get ideas and strategies and techniques to improve yourselves and your profit from other industries as well.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Number six you have to track your lead flow. You have to track your sales. So what you have to do is every client you come in contact with, you've got to ask them a few questions, and one of the important ones is this how did you hear about me? And in this case you can see on the graphic behind us that it flew in Autospot, which is Dylan, of course, my son's business. This gives you an idea.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Almost half of our business comes from two sources. Number one referrals. Just like when I told you at the beginning of the video, you start working with your family and your friends and then you get them to refer you to others. That's not how you add new clients. That's how you multiply the number of clients you can actually get. So once you get that ball rolling, you want to make sure that you're looking at where your marketing dollars are invested in and, more importantly, what results you're getting. So just to review again, almost half of the referrals we get, or half of the clients we work with, are either from referrals or from the Mercedes Sprinter van that Dylan has in his business. That's completely wrapped. Think about that. Five out of every 10 customers that we get come from just those two sources, and that's something you need to really consider, especially if you're just starting out, because every dollar counts to you and your family.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Number seven, I like to call it this you need to learn how to have a sales versation. Notice, I didn't say you need to learn how to do a sales call. I said you need to learn how to do a sales versation. A couple quick tips for you on how to have a sales versation. I'll use two extreme examples. If your price is hypothetically $250 to do a specific project on a vehicle, and that's your price, but the customer's budget was, let's say, $400, how much money did you just leave on the table? Yeah, it's about 200 bucks. 250 bucks could be whatever. So here's a question I love to ask what's your budget? So when someone inquires about your service, say, hey, you know we do everything from basic detailing all the way up to advanced ceramic coating, by the way, what's your budget? And if they say their budget's $200, then you know you want to guide that sales versation to maybe something on the lower end of the scale. If they say their budget, again, depending on the car they're driving an exotic car or luxury, that's the only thing we work on at Affluent Auto Spa. If they say their budget's $1,500, you know their mindset is leaning towards a higher-end coating and that's where you should drive the sales versation to. Last question it's very helpful what concerns do you have about your vehicle? Let them tell you the problems or challenges they think they have with their vehicle. You don't have to be the one that points it out, let the customer point them out. The reason for that is the more times you get the customer involved in the sales position, the more committed they will be to work with you.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Number eight customer service, very simple one. This has generated millions of dollars for my private clients. Three simple words. Write these down. You want to track your compliments, your concerns and your suggestions. Compliment team member A did a great job. Well, that gives you a chance to go love up on your new team member as you expand your detailing business Concerns. Well, it helps you improve your quality, right? If someone has a concern, you want to know about that from the client. So then you build that into the next process to make it even better. And the last one these are where the million dollar ideas come from Suggestions Whenever you hear a client say, I wish you would have you ever considered, man, it would be great if you would fill in the blank.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Those are great suggestions that you need to take back to your own business and think how would you want to implement some of those? And if you can't do it yourself, go find someone that does it very well so you don't have to worry about that. Great example is man, I wish you guys did window tinting. If you don't want to do window tinting, you should have a relationship with someone in your local area that does window tinting and say something like this we don't do window tinting, but my friend so-and-so does. And let me set you up with them. And guess what? When someone's doing a window tint and they say do you do detailing? They're going to say no, but you should call my friend Dylan, in this case at Affluent Auto Spa. Do you see how that's a two-way street for awesome, awesome referrals? That's the way you want to do it. We've got two left.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Number nine operations You've got to have the right processes, the right people and the right technology. There's a lot of systems on the market. One that I recommend because we use ourselves as you're able. It's a great system that really helps you jumpstart your business, because most of the admin stuff you have to do the emails, the follow-up, the text messages, the tracking, the invoices, and I can make a list of another hundred things you have to worry about You're able takes a lot of that off your plate and automates it, and I understand they have workflow now, which is really awesome.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Last number 10 operations you have to align yourself with the right vendors from the beginning. In other words, think about this as a relationship, right? You don't want to marry the wrong person, you want to make sure they're the right person. It's the same thing with your vendors. So what I encourage you to do is talk to others in the industry, talk to other leading experts like myself and really find out who are those key vendors you should align yourself with, because ultimately, when you get wholesale pricing, that's money that goes straight to your bottom line. So let me give you another example why that's important. Let's say a retail lotion or potion goes for $200 retail but you can get it at a wholesale price of $100. Well, that spread that $100 difference goes right to your bottom line, which means more money for you and your family. So it'll save you money and ultimately, it'll create more profit.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Well, it's been great spending some time with you. Obviously, I only had a short amount of time with you today, but I would love to serve you moving forward. There's five things that we focus on in our business. I gave you the five business ones earlier, but I also want to tell you a little more about Big Money Detailer what we focus on. We focus on family, faith, financial fitness and fun. So if those words ring a bell in your mind, look us up. We'd love to serve you more and I look forward to seeing you on the next video.

Speaker 1: 13:53

But there's one more thing I want to leave you with, and it's really a quote that I've used for many years with my private clients, and it actually works in your business. But it also works in your personal life, and here's the quote the amount of stress you feel in your life and your business is in direct correlation to the lack of systems you have in place. So put those systems in place now around your people, your processes and technology, so you can have less stress in your life. Until next time, I'm Davey Tyburski, america's Chief Profit Officer, signing out Bye-bye.