Kleen Car Auto Detailing Blogs

- by Kevin Farrell

Last week I saw in article in the local newspaper and also the New York Daily News that stated that a town about 4 miles from where I live is the wealthiest zip code to live in according to Forbes.com. The median price of a home in Alpine NJ is 4.1 million dollars. That’s the “median” price. There are home son the market and recently sold for about 10-15 million. I enjoy riding through this small town on my way home on my bike. Its proximity to NYC without actually being in NYC is what attracts athletes, movie stars and celebrities. You can get to the city from Alpine in about 10 minutes with no traffic and have the luxury of privacy, tons of property and outlandish houses. Of course many parts of NJ and Manhattan are on that list and probably some neighborhoods close to you as well in different areas of the country. There are wealthy neighborhoods everywhere and expensive cars in all of them.

But it’s funny what you see when you can go through wealthy neighborhoods, especially on a bicycle, so I know it very well. I regularly see Bentleys, Ferraris, Maseratis, Maybachs, and all sorts of expensive stuff. The cool thing is that many of these people use some of these cars as everyday drivers. But even though everyone is beyond wealthy in this town, it’s still not easy to get them to detail their vehicles. Many people will not bring these cars to a shop unless they absolutely trust the person working on the car. Many people will not allow somebody else to drive the vehicle either to bring it to their shop. The only way to market to these people in this town is through direct mail and until recently the town was so exclusive and private that there were no house numbers assigned to the homes. The mail carriers just knew the peoples names and what street they lived on, and that’s how mail got delivered, or many people just had PO boxes. So it was impossible to market to these homes and advertising was treated as junk mail and never got delivered. It’s not easy getting to these very wealthy people to tell them about your services. But I love the town (who wouldn’t) and I need to get back home, so I always ride through various streets to just check the neighborhood out, and check out the nice cars, and sometimes stop and chat to people.

Take for example a Maybach I see almost every day on my bike ride. It’s always parked outside. Sometimes there is a cover on it but most times it’s just out there on display in the front of the property. I always wondered why this car was always outside. It could be raining, snowing, etc but the car was always there. I never saw anybody outside when I passed by and I swore if I ever saw somebody I would ask about this car and of course who, if anybody, does the detailing. One day I was riding by and I saw a guy close enough to the edge of the property where I could ask him this question without him thinking I was stalking the place. I told him what a beautiful car it was but wondered why with a 4 car garage in the back that a $400,000 vehicle was sitting outside all the time. He told him the dealer, the local Mercedes dealer who I know very well, had applied a special “coating” that would last for 5 years. He didn’t remember what they charged him, but on a car this price what’s the difference. I told him who I was and what I did and told him that this “coating” really wasn’t a bulletproof shield and that this car really should be detailed. He said he takes it to be washed at a hand car wash in a neighboring town, but would never let them “detail” it because he didn’t think it needed it because of the special “coating” and because the guys and the place did not look top notch. So he asked me a few questions such as where I was located, how long I have been doing this, but didn’t really interrogate me. He asked if he could stop by one day to see my place before he committed to me doing his car. He stopped by a few days later and I happily showed him some stuff (but he didn’t understand most of what I was talking about). But he did know that I was professional and that he thought he could trust me. He only asked about how much it would cost at the very end of the conversation and did not blink and eye when told the price.

So I lucked out by actually seeing this guy one day and getting to talk to him. The car had typical light webbing and scratches consistent with every day use. And the car was used almost every day. It was a pretty easy detail and fun to work on. It was certainly profitable also and the customer clearly could see a huge difference when it was completed.

So, jobs like these are pretty rewarding and hopefully profitable but not to the point where you are just ripping somebody off because they have a very expensive car and live in a multi million dollar house. But not every detailer is going to get these cars. You have to work for them. They don’t land in your lap as wealthy people are very guarded in who they will deal with. Now my initial visit with this guy was on my road bike. I was in a bike outfit and certainly did not look like a car detailer. However as soon as I started speaking with him, I had him interested. I guess I was playing a salesman, but I really wasn’t looking and hoping to get this car. I was just curious as to why it was always outside and what his reason for that was. I also have a customer in this same town that has 2 Maseratis. He drives one and his wife drives one…..every single day, no matter what the weather. And yes, these cars are also kept outside most of the time. I just love it! He found me one day searching the web. Most of my high end customers however I had to direct market to. This costs more money, but it’s hard to get these people any other way, especially if they are really not into their cars. Many people simply bring these very high end cars back to the dealer for detailing when they get the car serviced because they trust the place and it’s kind of a one stop shopping experience. And many of these people simply will not let the car go to a place they do not trust or that looks kind of shady.

So many detailers, including me, and some top end guys in many other wealthy areas of the country, never get these cars. But the dealers do and many times the customers are not nearly satisfied with the level of work. Now when I receive a call from this town, I don’t name drop (that’s so tacky!) but I street drop!! I will tell a potential customer that yes, I have a client (always use the word client, it sounds more high end) on Rio Vista, and a client on Hoover, and we do many clients on Timberline and Margo, off of 9W. And some of these people are a pain to deal with and some are a pleasure. Some will let you drive a $300,000 car and some won’t. Some want the car done the same day and other tell you to keep it until it’s done perfectly. Some are very picky and some are not. Some will still bust balls on the price and some wont. You have to get to know them and what they want. But working with cars like this and people like this should be profitable. We all want to be high end. That’s always what people coming to my classes tell me. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

So that’s my story of a very wealthy neighborhood and a very high end car. Unfortunately, every car will not be a Maybach or a Bentley, and every job won’t be highly profitable. I will also have a story of a piece of crap SUV I recently had to do because my buddy thought he was doing me a “favor”. I still made some money but I had ZERO fun and cursed my way through the entire job. So be aware of friends and relatives. Stay tuned.

If you happened to glance at a recent entry I made here, I was talking about detailing some really nice, really high end cars, that are really easy to do, and really profitable. But as with everything, there is always a flip side and the opposite of anything. Sometimes you have to eat some crap to keep the peace. This is a tale of doing a friend a favor but hating every minute of it.

In any profession you will always end of doing “favors” for friends and relatives. If you possess a certain skill, you will always have to work on something for very little, or no money, because it’s your friend, brother, cousin, neighbor, co-worker, in-law, etc. Be honest, you know you have to do it but don’t you hate it?? I HATE working on these people vehicles because you have to do your best job for the lowest amount of money…and sometimes possibly for free.

Its sucks more when the car is a piece of crap that should have been traded in on the cash for clunkers program. My buddy who is my printer and who I have known for 30 years, tried to do me a “favor”. His friend has a daughter who was getting her drivers license and wanted a family vehicle cleaned up so he could give it to her. My buddy took it upon himself to get me the job instead of just passing my phone number along. He tried to broker the deal and do me a “favor”. He though I would be happy to do this car. Now I have known him for 30 years and he knows what I do, but he doesn’t really know the detailing business. We don’t discuss detailing at length because he really isn’t a car guy so to speak. He would be a typical customer that thinks every car is the same and the work involved is equal and every car can be detailed for about $150 or less He took it upon himself to tell his friend how good I am and that his car could not possibly be in better hands. So my buddy thinks he is helping me by setting the job up himself. His friend wants to know “how much do I charge” for this type of work. Of course I have not talked to this other guy or have seen the car, or for that matter know what kind of vehicle it is and all the other vital stuff we all need to know before accepting a job and giving a price. My buddy decides to tell him a “ballpark” price of about $150……Now I know nothing about nothing at this point until my buddy calls me up and asks me to do him a “favor”. He tells me this sob story about how the vehicle has been in the family for years and they want to keep the car in the family and the girl really loves this thing and so on and so on. My buddy tells me that he wants me to do the car as soon as possible and has convinced his friend that I am the guy for the job. I still don’t know what kind of vehicle it is and what it looks like, etc. But he has already brokered the job for me

So I am kind of annoyed as I was kind of on vacation for a few days and was doing some fun stuff but now I have to do this job because she gets her license in a few days and she wants a clean vehicle to drive. My buddy just casually asks me what I usually get for a detail….any detail. He says he told the guy about $150 RIGHT????? I almost hit the roof when I hear a price like that on neither a vehicle that I know nothing about nor a customer I know nothing about. I said what planet are you on? Why would you tell a guy some random price when I need to know what it is first of all and second I want to see it. Then, I will give the price or possibly choose not even to do the job if it’s a piece of crap. So just like any other customer, my buddy says the car isn’t too bad. It’s a light colored SUV and is pretty clean. I ask what kind of SUV? What color is it? What year is this thing? Has it been sitting around waiting for her? What kind of job is this guy looking for? And you told him $150???? ARE YOU CRAZY!!!! I have no idea what I am getting into here

So he knows I am pissed and I really just want to give him the number to the cheapo detail guys around here. I tell my buddy that I am busy and I need a day and a half to even consider working on this so I can do other stuff and work on this thing when I want to. So after I calmed down a little, I figured I would just use this thing as a test car. We are working on some new optimum products and I am always testing samples, so I figured I could test samples on this vehicle and at least be productive and get some data on the samples. So I told him I would do it. I figured how bad can it be if it’s not too old, light colored and in good shape like he said it was. So I figured I would put 4-5 hours into it if I had to, get some testing done and make some quick cash. Yes, it far less than what I would charge, but now I am roped into doing my buddy a favor……I wouldn’t have even minded if it was HIS car, and for HIS daughter. But this was a third party who I never met. But a favor is a favor and I am technically doing this for my buddy. So we all have to do favors.

Now my buddy is the guy who is getting the prime SPRINGSTEEN tickets for next months shows. So I have to kind of work with him here. We have seen over 50 shows together over the years and he gets great seats. We have sat next to Bruce’s relatives in the family section. We have been in the first row in front of the stage many times, so favors do get repaid!!! He knows the ticket head of tickets at the Meadowlands in Jersey where Bruce is playing Giants Stadium this month and she also gets us tickets to Madison Square Garden, and basically any other east coast venue that we want to travel to. These are VIP tickets. So a favor is a favor. I just had to remember that

But……this SUV was the biggest piece of carp I have ever seen. It had been sitting under a tree for months so washing it was a pain. The wheels were horrible, the door jambs were horrible. It was 14 years old. All the trim was faded. There were scratches all over it. There was some tree sap also, lost of bugs and tar……You name hard stuff to clean, this truck had it. That’s the outside. The inside was of course horrible as well. The seats were filthy, the carpets, floor mats, etc. all horrible. I found receipts from 1999 under seats and in the glove box. It’s the type of vehicle you curse your way through from start to finish and you never get any kind of satisfaction because the vehicle just had no potential to look good.

So this thing took me a while to get it to look decent. It could never be really good again and forget like new. It was a difficult job that was no fun, for very little money and no satisfaction. These are the jobs that you should pass on. These are the jobs that you let the cheapo, discount detailer work on and let him lose his shirt….and his will to live for that matter. In this case, it was a third party referral, that if I would have talked to the actual customer and had seen the vehicle, I still would have passed on it even if he was willing to pay 3 times the amount. We all have worked on jobs like this and have all had the same experiences with hopeless vehicles. The key thing is to either limit them as much as you can, or eliminate them if you really want to make money.

Even if you say, well I have employees that will do these jobs and I don’t pay them too much money so I will still take on work like this. It’s still not a good idea. Do you think anybody wants to work on a piece of crap vehicle that is a low paying job and will eat time and eat at an employees morale? I generally will never touch a vehicle like this, even if I had an employee working on it.

I know we all have to do jobs like this every once in a while for various reasons. They are never fun, never profitable, and both you and the customer will never get the true satisfaction of a great detail out of these hopeless vehicles. So try to limit these if you can, and let your friends and relatives know that there are only so many favors you can do for them! Unless of course……Bruce Springsteen adds some more shows, and you just have to be there in the best seats!

I was in Las Vegas at the beginning of November to attend the SEMA and NACE shows. It was nice to be there and a bonus was that my brother, who is in the military, is stationed at Nellis Air Force base. He is one of the big wigs and “in charge” as he is a Colonel and that rank comes with a bunch of people always saluting you and calling you “sir”. I thought it was pretty cool that my younger brother (by a year and a half) is in charge of all kinds of stuff and responsible for hundreds of troops and he takes his duties very seriously. I got the grand tour of the base and it’s impressive to see such organization and the precision of which things are run. The place is clean and orderly and well taken care of, and huge! So after seeing countless people calling him “sir” and saluting him…..and sometimes even me…. as we were leaving, I got into his car. After I moved a pile of papers, a GPS, a cell phone charger, a few empty coffee cups and wrappers, I could sit down. This 2 year old car was a complete mess! His wife’s mini van that carts the kids around is even worse. Years ago before he had kids and a much higher rank in the air force, I had given him a “car care kit”. An orbital buffer, some pads, polish, and wax etc. so he could keep up on his cars. I used to give him pointers and he would watch me work on a car and sometimes I would do his car, so he wanted to be able to do this himself. I think he did the car maybe once. And now with kids and more responsibility and all the people calling the “Colonel” and needing something of military importance from him, he doesn’t even fool himself anymore.

His house is beautiful and clean…. but the cars….forget about it! He always plans to get it cleaned but then something comes up and the garbage just piles up even more. Just like a typical NON detailing customer.

So he came back here last week was in town for about 10 days. Since he had a bunch of things to take care of while he was here he rented a car. He came by to see me the day after he got into town and in the one day he had managed to have stuff piled on the seats and the floor and there was garbage in the car already. He gets a hair cut weekly but he can’t keep a car clean for 10 minutes. Go figure. But that’s a typical car owner. Even an organized military car owner. My high ranking brother who is extremely organized and is on top of every detail, but he is one messy dude and treats his cars like crap. His military uniform is spotless, all the creases are perfect, the badges and medals are placed perfectly and the shoes look like a mirror, but the cars are a mess.

Go after this type of customer
He is more than willing to get his car detailed. But when you look at the type of person he is, you see why you don’t get too many of them to actually do it. He is a busy professional. He works long hours. He doesn’t really search out where to get his car detailed and it’s not at the top of his list most of the time. He honestly doesn’t really know what a good detail is worth. He asks me what I would charge and when I tell him he is not at all surprised or put off by a high price. Customers (or right now a NON detail customer) like him need to be found by we, the detailers. He absolutely knows his car is in dire need of detailing. He knows what the service is and what it will do for the vehicle, so he doesn’t need to be sold on the benefits. But he is not actively searching as he doesn’t have the time. He, and non detail customers like him, need to be found. He is probably not going to find you

I am not an expert at marketing by any means. I have made tons of mistakes in advertising over the years. But in dealing with the types of people I deal with now, and working with a wealthier clientele, you have to go after them and recruit them so to speak. When you have a person like my brother who will get his car done if you find him, you won’t really have competition. As I said, he is not shopping for the cheapest price. He isn’t shopping for detailing at all! So if you find him and market to him and make it easy for him to use you (being mobile, pick up and delivery, loaner car, etc) chances are you will get the job. Then, once you have him as a customer he is easy to keep. Just do a good job, keep reminding him when its time to do it again. With my brother, he will probably have the car messy a week later so a couple of months is a good time frame.

I have seen this with the people I deal with in Alpine NJ 07620. These people are extremely wealthy but time is the key. They are always busy. They want to keep their very expensive and ultra luxury cars clean, but they need a detailer to kind of pamper them a little. I know we are now in December and the holidays are here and people are not really thinking about doing their cars. But it’s still a good time to try instead of complaining about how slow it is and how “nobody” wants to get their cars detailed and “nobody” wants to spend any money. I know there are people out there who will be grateful that you found them. Sure you may have to spend a bit of money to go after them, but when you “go after” a person who currently is a NON detail customer, you aren’t competing against the guy down the street or the cheapo guy, or the car wash express detail. YOU are the only one looking for the business buy “going after” a specific customer.

There are many more people like my brother who want to get their cars detailed but either don’t know anybody to do it, or don’t have the time. When you present yourself as the solution, chances are they will stay loyal to you and you will never have to compete with the cheapo guys. Every town, every city, every state has busy professionals that have dirty cars and would love to get it professionally detailed.

I will steal or borrow this last line from Dan Ekenberg who has said this many times to me in conversations. Since its holiday time and many of us may be going shopping a bit more and spending some time at a mall, be perceptive. Dan has done this many times. Check out all the cars in the parking lot. Look to see how many of those cars look perfectly clean and detailed. Probably less than 5% if that, will not be in need of some kind of detailing. So out of the 95% that need to be detailed, “Go after” the ones who may be good customers. I am sure you will see the BMW’s, Mercedes, Lexus, and other high end cars. Why aren’t these cars being detailed? Is it because the customer can’t afford it? Not likely. Now just figure out the best way to make them your customer.

So even though it’s slow for everybody in December and as the weather gets worse in some areas of the country, we can try to figure out how to get the 95% of the cars and NON detailing customers into our shops in some of the down time we will all have.

So thanks to Colonel Tim Farrell for being such a messy car owner in helping me develop this article. And thanks to all the military personnel in all branches of service who bravely serve and protect our country.

I am about to move my training facility to a town very close to where I live in the next 2 or 3 months. It’s an old building that needs a little bit of work as most old buildings do. It needs paint, better lighting, more outlets, etc. The office needs a little work as well. But it’s a great size in a great location, as I know the area very well, so anything that needs to be done will be worth it as I plan to be there for a long time. I know doing the lighting and electric, even if I do some of it myself will be a few thousand dollars. It was already zoned commercial and for automotive use so that’s no problem. The location also is extremely close to the wealthiest zip code in the country, Alpine, NJ 07620. This is my favorite town for many reasons and the proximity of the shop to this town should help pull in the more wealthy detailing clients and their high end automobiles.

Now I have been through this dance before and it’s a pain in the ass. Before getting into a fixed location there are many things that need to be considered. You have to look at the size of the building, square footage, the location (neighborhood, and if it is a good detailing area), rent cost, parking, work that needs to be done, and an often overlooked, but major issue. Does the building have a floor drain and will the owner and municipality allow you to install one?

This is huge. Years ago when I first needed a building and before steam and waterless washing had come into play, it was critical to have a floor drain in the shop, especially in the Northeast. I have seen some detail shops where they wash cars outside or even run a car through the local car wash before bringing it in to detail. There are huge problems in either washing outside or bringing a car to the local car wash. You can easily figure them out so I will continue. I lost out on some nice buildings because either the owner would not allow a floor drain to be put in or the town would not. You see many years ago, before all this new regulation, auto shops would sometimes drain fluids and let them run down the drain like anti freeze, transmission fluid and oil. So any auto related business coming in would sometimes scare an owner. I also ran into shops where the owner had capped off and cemented over floor drains just so there would never be any hanky panky. So a shop that did not have a floor drain was basically a deal breaker for a detailer that wanted to do things right and be compliant.

When I finally found a building (after over a year of looking) the shop sure enough did not have a floor drain but the owner and the town would allow one to be put in….at our expense of course.

Cost and installation of a floor drain
After sourcing out the correct pieces and knowing the law as to what needed to be installed, the concrete floor needed much cutting and digging. This job really sucked. We rented a saw and cut and cut and cut…and then jack hammered and jack hammered and jack hammered…and then dug and dug and dug. It was a huge mess and a big undertaking. Laying the actual drain was easy. The pipes fit together like a puzzle and they laid in the ground and were covered back up and cemented back over. The only thing that needed access was the oil separator which needed cleaning every so often. But…..the job was far from done. The drain was now in the floor in the shop but it had to run into the city sewer line. The pipe had to go through the side of the building and into the ground outside and connect to the pipe that ran to the street and into the sewer system. Once it was correctly figured out where that pipe was, a backhoe had to come in and dig up the ground. Of course, what they were digging was a part of the parking area that had nice asphalt already, but now that was ruined. And of course the city pipe was not a few inches down in the ground, but a few feet….more like about 8-10 feet deep. A licensed plumber had to connect the pipe and it needed inspection by the city plumbing inspector before the ground could be filled in. Then the blacktop had to be re-paved before the job was totally finished

All told it took a month to get it done and a cost of about $8000. That was with most of the concrete cutting, jack hammering and digging done ourselves. And the plumber was a family friend so that cut the cost a little bit. It was also done about 6 years ago so figure the cost now. It’s a job I swore I would never ever do again because of time, aggravation, the amount of work involved, the mess, and of course….the cost!

This new old building…buy a steamer or a pressure washer?
Back to the building we are moving into. Sure enough it does have a floor drain….and lucky enough it has the drain in the exact spot where I want to prep and wash the cars. How lucky! But even if the drain doesn’t work all that well or the water doesn’t flow in the direction I really want it to, I don’t really care all that much. You see, I don’t really need a floor drain. I don’t want to wash cars with high pressure water and regular soap anymore. If you know me at all, you should know I have a steamer for everything and the perfect polymer car wash product. So I won’t even set up a power-washer most likely. In that other building we set up a car wash type pressure washer that needed a dedicated 220 volt circuit and we set it up all the way in the back room to be out of the way. We had to run pressure hose all the way to the front and then and set up 2 hose reels for washing. That wasn’t cheap either.

This new building I wont do that. No pressure washer will be here at all. Even with the floor drain. Even in an area of the country where we are not in a drought or under any kind of water runoff laws, there still won’t be a pressure washer. If this building did not have a floor drain, it would not have been a big deal at all. This time a building with no floor drain is not a deal breaker. And it should not be for you either.

You see there are ways to get a car clean without tons of water. Many of you are doing that already. We all know about the great “waterless” or polymer type products to get a car clean. However it does make sense to help the process along by having some steam, preferably at a higher pressure to help move things along. I know everybody is more in tune with steam and now steam washing and it’s great that more and more people are aware of this. We know the benefits. For those of you who are still a little in the dark we will provide a link to an article I previously wrote on steam washing at the end of this article. So you already know what my choice is. Of course my choice to prep and wash cars will be a steamer. But the questions will still remain….What kind of steamer?

What kind of steamer to put in your shop?
If you are not going to have a floor drain and therefore not going to be using a garden hose or a power washer to wash the vehicles, then your choice of steamer will be pretty important. Of course you should be using a “waterless” product to wash the cars but as I have written about before, you will need some assistance with some steam. We know the small units won’t do a great job on the exterior of the vehicle for obvious reasons. That leaves the larger, more powerful vapor steamers, where the water content is low but the pressure, volume and heat are higher. Or, the other type of higher pressure steamer where there is slightly more water content involved, a propane operated unit with even more pressure and more water content.

I am going to use the propane steamer for this application. I want a little more water content and I want the highest pressure possible. I will be using our LW250 steamer
The floor will only get slightly wet and there will be very little water runoff, but it will go down the drain anyway, so I don’t care how much water content there is with this unit. It’s the perfect way to be green while still having great heat, good pressure and the ability to really blow embedded dirt out of cracks and crevices and get wheels really clean with a longer wand and super heated steam.

I can also advertise the green factor and the use of steam both inside and out. So while a steamer like this, or even the high power vapor unit like the Vapor Chief 180 will be more expensive than a power washer or obviously, a garden hose, I can be green and if the shop didn’t have a floor drain, it would not really matter. I don’t want to spend upwards of $10,000 again to install a floor drain. You should not have to either. There are other effective options.

It’s always about the money

When the New York Yankees, or NY Mets, or any other New York area team signs a big time free agent ballplayer, it’s always an interesting press conference. The player says how happy he they are to be in New York and how he will love the New York media and all the scrutiny that goes along with playing for a New York team. They say “I love New York” and have always wanted to play here. However, they generally also have said…..long before they ever signed the big contract….. That they hated New York and would never play there no matter how much money they were paid. They hate New York traffic, the scrutiny, the high cost of living, the mean cab drivers, etc. Then at the press conference the savvy New York media always asks why that particular player changed his mind. He explains that the “school system” in the Jersey suburbs is great, and the theater in New York is wonderful, and how great the New York fans are. But they never say that they came here because they were paid a god awful amount of money that no other team would come close to. Many times they say “it wasn’t about the money”……You know what…..when they say it’s not about the money……It’s always about the money!!

How does this relate to detailing? Well, as much as a high line player wants all the money he can possibly scoop up in his next contract, a detailer would like to charge as much money as possible (as would any business if they could). But it’s generally about a customer looking to save money and get a deal. Let’s face it; we all want the best deal. We want the best deal on a new car. We want the best deal on that new TV, or the house you may be buying. If we all could buy the best possible product or service and get the price of a mid level or low end product or service, we would all jump for joy and tell everyone we know what a deal we just got.

This is where the problems start for any business. Giving a great deal once in a while can boost sales and lead to happy customers and move excess inventory. However, people from that point forward, now will always expect and think they deserve a great deal every single time. This is also a dangerous way to do business. If you are detailing cars to perfection and know your skills and the end result of a perfectly detailed car deserve a higher price, then you have to charge a higher price. You are entitled to your money and just because a customer asks for a deal (and they will) and just because they demand a perfect job at a low price (and they do), that does not mean you have to cave in all the time.

It’s hard to be more expensive than everybody else in the area. It’s hard to have the best and most expensive product to sell. You will have to do much more educating the customer and of course your work will have to be that much better than the competition. Assuming that your work is top notch and you can make a car look perfect, then the price needs to reflect that. Here’s the issue. We are not dealing with a tangible item. You are not selling a car or a TV. Customers are used to comparing. They compare a TV, model number to model number, and then shop for the best price. It’s the same with buying a new car. They are comparing apples to apples so to speak. With detailing that’s not the case. The customer does not understand what it takes to make a car look its absolute best. They think everything is a “wax job”. This is partly out fault. When we complain that a customer is price shopping and wants to compare you (a top flight detailer) to the low life down the street that is half the price, this is your opportunity to sell yourself, and not complain about the “competition”. In my last article I spoke about making sure you are aware of the right competition. If a customer has gotten a lowball price from the “guy down the street”, they generally do not know the difference between a quality detail job and a “wax job”. It’s your job to educate them on why you are so much better and why the car will look so much better after you are done with it.

You know why you are better. Maybe you have had great training and paid to attend a class somewhere. You use the best tools, equipment and products available. You have the best shop in the area and perfect working conditions. You can properly explain exactly what needs to be done to get that particular vehicle back to showroom new. The other guys have no equipment, have no training, and don’t really know what they are doing….and so on. You know why you are better. You just have to educate and explain why you are better, and why more money has to be charged

But you know what?? This is a pain in the ass. It’s always more difficult to justify why something has a higher value and is worth a higher price. You sometimes become defensive and instead of just being an “order taker” you have to sell something. This is not easy for many of us. The easy thing would be to just book the appointment for a low price because it keeps the customer happy. But in selling quality, you now have to tell them how much more expensive you are and that is intimidating sometimes. But if they understand how much more you know about detailing than the “guy down the street”, and why you can and will make the car look perfect, and the labor involved in doing that, thus adding to the price, in many cases they will pay more. The guy with a super high end car is generally not looking at the low ball detailer anyway. He won’t trust his car to a guy like that and a detailing “connoisseur” will want to be pampered and told how much care you will take and what you will do and he wants that trust that not only you wont screw the car up, but make it look perfect. Again, these guys are tough to deal with also. Most often they are wealthy and a bit intimidating. But remember, you are the expert in this case. I have never….ever….ever….ever….EVER and I never will…. meet a customer who knows more about detailing than I do. So when I know that he is in my ballpark, playing my game, and I know he cant play it better than me ( I equate everything to sports it seems), that puts me in total control of the situation. I dictate the price and what the car needs, not just what a customer wants.

If he wants a “wax job” and the car needs so much more, I let him walk. If he wants to play “let’s make a deal” (I don’t play that game) I let him walk. If he says that the guy down the street (they are always down the street it seems) can do the job for half that price, I let him walk to that guy and let him do it (or screw it up). If people want a price over the phone, I never, ever do that. I need to see it and then educate the customer about what the car needs. Lets face it everyone is lazy. They are phone shopping the best deal. When the first question to you over the phone is “how much do you charge”? You know they are price shopping. You may never get this person, but its still worth trying to get them in to see you.

Sure we can complain that the “competition” is killing us on prices, but again why compete with that kind of detailer? I want the low ball guys to deal with all the crappy 12 year old SUV’s that need tons of work. The top end detailer knows how much time and effort will be involved in bringing that kind of vehicle back to life, if its even possible, and the amount of labor involved will be enormous and so will the price. To take a job like this at a low ball price will eventually kill you. Even if you are slow, it’s still not a great idea to low ball the price. Here’s why

If you start off cheap and do good work, you will always have work, but you won’t make a lot of money. If you always give out “deals” and always take money off the price or meet the other guy’s price, guess what? The customer will now always expect that from you. The first time you hold firm or raise prices, they will most certainly complain and demand a deal, or possibly go somewhere else where the deal is. There is no loyalty there and you will always draw in the cars that need the most work. If you want to do high end details, and assuming you are professional and know precisely what you are doing at all times, it takes much more work and effort on your part to command that kind of price. It’s never easy to sell something more expensive. But when you believe in what you do and truly know that you are providing something much more in value, you will be able to sell quality at a higher price. But as always the customer needs to be properly educated and if they are not, then why blame the customer or the poor competition when it’s always about the money.

It sounds preposterous, ludicrous, nonsensical, and absurd to ever “fire” a customer. In this economy? In these turbulent times? But, am I really crazy? Hear me out and read on. Yes, sometimes the best thing to do is weed out customers who are draining on your profits, morale and time. I have been doing this for years. When I first started detailing I wanted every car and every customer. I was afraid to let a job go for all the obvious reasons.

I am sure many of you have customers who are draining. They may always want discounts. They may be very picky about everything but are unwilling to pay a premium price for high expectations. They may want such things as a loaner car while theirs is being worked on. They may want odd time appointments and request or demand that the car be done at an exact time. They may be unrealistic on how the vehicle should turn out even “after” you point out things that cannot be corrected. They also may want the challenging and more involved operations such as wet sanding, headlight restoration and paint touch ups for instance, included with the regular price. I could go on and on but I am sure we all have these customers. The difference sometimes is that the demanding customers may be problematic sometimes, but some are more than willing to pay the premium price for their expectations. Those are the ones I keep but kind of cringe when they call. The ones who seem like they are never pleased or perceive that they are not getting value for your work…..yes, should be fired!

Cutting ties
Those that expect the most and want to pay the least should be considered a bad investment and may have to be let go. By doing this, it may very well free you up to pursue new customers and pamper some of the better ones. These new ones can be “trained” by you to be a great detail customer. You see, all of us have problems with cancellations, expectations, and pricing. We all have made some of these mistakes at some point. We all have booked a job at too low of a price just to get it. We all have given some customers much more than the job deserved, and we all have put up with un-needed cancellations based on weather or a sudden change in the customers’ schedule. How many times has a customer cancelled an appointment because it “may” rain that day or the next day?

That was one of my pet peeves. I have a shop where work is done indoors, so obviously the weather won’t affect the work being done. Rain will NOT make the car look like it was NOT detailed if it happens to rain the next day. But customers want to enjoy the detail job for many days and not have it rain on the car so they become weather forecasters and cancel appointments based on the potential for some rain. Well, if a customer does this to me once….I book the next appointment about 3 weeks later no matter what. If they do it twice…..they are fired! That pissed me off more than anything. If you cancel a doctor’s appointment within 24 hours, many will still charge you. That prevents cancellations. But, back to training the NEW customers.

Once you have had experience with problem customers you can turn new ones into trained puppies! I tell them you may need the car the entire day. I tell them up front I don’t appreciate cancellations based on weather. I carefully explain how well the car will look no matter what and a little rain will just wash off the dust and the car will look great after the rain stops. There is no need to cancel because it may rain the next day. I inform a customer that YES; there is sales tax on a detail job. I make sure they know what will be taken care of and what cant be taken care of, as well as, what may be optional for an extra charge so we are both on the same page. I always “read” the customer on what they expect and how anal they are. If they are very particular and very anal, that’s fine. But then they will pay for that. Some customers already know how they are. The ones that don’t and still want a deal are the ones you should not take on in the first place. But this is a tough thing to learn

My buddy “Joe”
I talked about my buddy “Joe the detailer” in a previous blog. “Joe” is mobile and likes to get every job he can. The problem with being mobile is that he never gets a chance to see a car before booking an appointment. A customer called him last week and wanted to set something up. The customer seemed a bit anal over the phone as he was asking what processes “Joe” uses and that he needed the car to be “wheeled”. When he asked “Joe” what kind of products he used, “Joe” replied that he uses only the best. I use Optimum. I always appreciate that when “Joe” talks about the Optimum products. So the customer says that his “old” detailer was the best and that he used Optimum and helped develop some of the products. So “Joe” says to this customer, you must be talking about Kevin from Kleen Car. The customer says yes, Kevin used to do my cars for years but now he is too busy training guys and working for BMW of North America so he cant do my car anymore…..You see, this is partly true. I use that line when I need to “fire” a customer or I just don’t want to work on their cars anymore. This guy was a very nice guy and I actually like him. We always chat a bunch when I picked up his car and when I dropped it off. Sometimes too much chatting but that’s my fault as much as anything. In any event this guy is picky but I knew it from the beginning. He would sometimes question things that I had told him would not come out such as deep scratches or chips, etc. before I started the job. I would carefully explain all this and he sometimes would still want to know why they didn’t come out better when the job was done. This is always a pain in dealing with a customer but it has to be re-enforced to them or they will drive you crazy. Eventually the guy purchased a new car and I had told him how to take care of it and he didn’t call me for a while. I did get busier training and such, so I really didn’t have too much time to dedicate to him as he needed pick up at his job which was a bit far for me and all the chatting, and I never really charged him that much so it made sense for me not to do his cars anymore. No hard feelings that he called “Joe”

“Joe” tried to go over the car with him before the detail and he told him what would come out and what would not come out well. From what he told me he charged him a fair price for the car but the slight “issues” that were discussed “before” the job came up again “after” the job. I knew exactly what he meant. Again, we have all come across customers like this. It’s not so bad to have a picky customer. Sometimes that makes us work that much harder and keeps us on our toes. But when the expectations go beyond time involved and price, it’s not fair. These will be the customers that will make you cringe and wish you never had them in the first place. So “Joe” called me after the job to let me know what I already knew about this customer. In the end he was happy but it seemed a little stressful. These situations have to make you think about either raising his price to make sure you can thoroughly take care of all the little issues, or sometimes you should just let them go.

Rule of thumb to let them go
If a customer is late paying that’s a big problem. We all want to be paid for any job and to float money is just bad business most of the time. If a customer is constantly canceling and making you reschedule him, or other people to fit him in, that’s a big problem. If a customer wants to pay the least but expects the most, that a big problem. If a customer is very high maintenance, pushes boundaries and takes up your personal time with unreasonable requests, that’s a big problem. And if you cringe when that customer calls and possibly causes you to lose sleep the night before the job, that’s also a big problem. What can be done about all these problems? Fire the customer!!

It sounds so bad and looks bad to read on this screen, but sometimes this is actually a smart business decision when you think about it. But a smart thing to do is screen new customers better and train them to be good customers. It’s not so hard. You may not get everyone but you should know your target market and concentrate on those people. I know that each one of you while reading this has thought of a few customers that you would like to fire! Even if you don’t fire them, try to “train” them to be better customers.

In most of my training classes students generally seem to get the hang of making a vehicle look absolutely perfect. Since it’s a controlled environment with multiple people, we have plenty of manpower to make sure everything is learned correctly and everything comes out as perfect as possible, both inside and out. But where it generally seems to click in is after learning about buffing, buffing pads, buffing products, etc. We wet sand some scratches out of scrap panels to learn what this process can do for deeper scratches and then of course we need to buff out the sand scratches to fully correct the paint surface. In buffing scrap hoods and then moving on to buffing a real vehicle, students can see how to fully remove all the imperfections and produce perfect looking paint. This is where they really see how great paint can start to look. I love this part of the class because now a student can see perfection and know that with enough time, effort, skill, etc. they can be a top notch detailer and have that “A” game for the pickiest customer. Once they see a paint surface come to life and the amount of effort it takes, this also sparks discussion and questions like, how perfect does it have to be? Can I still get these little tiny scratches out? How many buffing steps will all this take? How long will it take to make the vehicle absolutely perfect?

I love these questions because it brings up real life situations and what to do, or more important, what not to do. In my class, I teach perfection. I want them to know how to be perfect and get everything out so that a student will develop and “A” game and be a great detailer. But this is in a controlled situation and setting with multiple people working on the vehicle with basically no time limit. And I am the customer. I am demanding perfection so they know exactly what I want, and I am telling them that a particular area can be a little better or I point out things that cannot be done better and how to explain it to a customer. But when these students get out on their own they then have to realize that there is nobody helping them and if they decide to produce perfection, they need to ask themselves….How long is this going to take? How much am I being paid for this job? Does this customer really expect true perfection?

You dont need perfection on every job
If a detailer is going to give a show car back to a customer on every job for an average price, 2 things will happen. He will be absolutely loved by everybody for such great work at what will amount to a very lowball price, and he will also soon be out of business believe it or not. You can’t spend 8-10 hours on a car trying to be perfect while you are only getting paid for maybe 4 or 5 hours worth of work. It just doesn’t add up. If you give a customer a show car he should be paying a show car price. If you are giving him a great job in a 4 or 5 hour time frame, the job should be excellent but maybe not show car perfect. Never should the 2 be intertwined if you still want to make money.