Kleen Car Auto Detailing Blogs

- by Kevin Farrell

I speak with many people all over the country, usually about the same stuff. When people attend my classes from all over the country, and even from different countries, I hear the same thing and the same concerns. Many detailers are worried about competition. This is normal in any business. You always want to know where the competition is and what they are doing.

I used to do the same thing. I worried about anybody else that could be doing business in my area and how they could possibly take business away from me and hurt me. It’s normal. But it took me a very long time to realize “WHO” I had to look out for. I wasted time looking out for the guys that were under-cutting prices and performing cheap details. I worried about the guy who was established and seemed to have a strong client base. I worried about the guy who “claimed” that he was the best in town and the “best” price. I also worried about the new guy and how good he could be and what his prices were.

I worried about this for a long time…..until I became very good at what I did. After that, I didn’t care anymore. When I finally knew I was good and that I could handle any job on any car, I only wanted quality customers myself. I didn’t want the horrible mini vans where you spend way too much time, for far too little money anymore. I guess you could say I “graduated”. I let the lower level competition fight themselves for the crappy, pigsty cars. Many times a customer is looking for the best price and nothing else. This is a situation where you can’t win most of the time. If you give the best price, you get the job. But along with that you get a cheap customer who will battle you for every little thing and they are bringing in cars that are in poor condition. I got sick of that. When I realized that I was better than most of the competition, I stopped competing with the lower level guys. I went after wealthier people with nice cars and gained their trust that I would do the car correctly. For that, they willingly paid more money.

This revelation so to speak, made me concentrate on the real competition. The few detailers that are on the top level get the high end cars and high end customers. I found out who they were, where they were, and what they were doing. I wanted to know if they really knew what they were doing or if they could just fake it real good. I sometimes pretended to be a customer and asked specific detail questions and wanted to know what they would do to my car. I found out that there are not too many high end guys in my area, and that many detailers are actually afraid of wealthy people and high end cars for fear of making mistakes. So the majority of guys fight for the mid level customers, and mid level cars, where the competition is fierce and price will make a huge difference in getting a job or not.

I like to do analogies. I look at things in areas that have noting to do with detailing but are relevant in my life. This is where having a column like this is fun. I get to talk about one of my favorite topics…..ME! And how things affect…..ME!

I am an avid cyclist. I have been riding a road bike for many years and I am in good enough shape to be pretty competitive at it. This is an individual thing where there is no team to help you and either you are in better shape than the next guy, more powerful, a better rider, or you are not. When I see a guy on the road, I want to pass him. It doesn’t matter how far ahead of me he is. My motto is….If I can see you, I can pass you. It keeps a ride interesting when you are on a bike for almost 3 hours and doing over 40 miles at a time. So if I see a rider, I want to pass him. Most times I do, and I am very unhappy if I can’t. I can get up a mountain faster than most guys and I like to climb big hills and mountains and test myself against other riders, regardless of age or the type of bike they have. I have ridden some of the same routes that Lance Armstrong rides when he is in New York City, and he says many of these routes are pretty challenging. So I love the competition and I like to win

On a weekend morning, there are dozens of bike riders along a route that borders New York City that I love to ride. It’s very challenging and I know I will see lots of very good riders. When I size up the “competition” (which is basically every rider out there) I look to pass each one and hope I am a better rider. Again, I need to play this game with myself. It keeps me interested. If I see a guy ahead of me I look to pass him. Some guys are hundreds of yards ahead of me and just little specs in my vision when I go to chase them down. But one by one, I get to them and pass them. Now I know I am a little bit better than that guy I just passed, especially if he was far ahead. So I now look at this guy no longer as competition. I have passed him, and I can tell if I am stronger as I pass. This would be the same for me looking at a detailer who has little skill, knowledge and is very unprofessional. He is no competition in my eyes. I know a customer will eventually see through a guy like this and seek out a more professional and skilled detailer. If they don’t want that type of detailer, I generally don’t want that customer.

Getting back to biking……When I come across a strong rider that I have trouble passing or I just can’t get by, that rider makes me better. He makes me work that much harder to go faster and pass him or we both just end up going faster and riding harder. This would be a guy I would highly respect and I know he is in great shape and has great riding skills. All the other people that I had already passed, no longer enter my mind as competition. However, the people I cannot pass or have trouble with, I view as the real competition. This is the way I look at detail competition as well. If you know you are better than 90% of the guys already, then don’t focus on that 90% but look at the 10% that are just as good as you or better and find out what makes them so good.

Back to detailing….but only for a minute…..

I had a couple of people from Germany attend my class recently. They run a large chain of car washes all over Germany and they are hugely successful. We were chatting during a break and talking about different things and how they do business and one of the other students asked them about competition. He asked him about when they come into an area and open a new car wash, if they were worried about any other washes already in the area as competition. He slyly smiled and replied that once his company does the research and decides that this area is where they want to do business, the other guys better be worried about them, not the other way around. He said that they do things right and know how to get the best customers. In some cases they will put an already established business out if they are not careful. I loved this answer in the fact that he is supremely confident in his business model and the way his car washes do business, that nobody poses a huge threat to him once he is in a particular area. It may seem cocky and arrogant, but in many cases this is true in all aspects of “competition”.

Stop worrying about the low end guys who don’t follow the laws and the guys who are undercutting everybody and the guys who are unprofessional. Sure these guys can be a thorn in everybody’s side, but they generally are not around for the long haul and don’t end up with the high end customers who make your reputation better and your profits higher. Worry about guys who do the job right. Maybe I should not say worry either. Good competition will hopefully make you better and make customers understand that there are true professional detailers out there. Understand and locate the great detailers in your area and don’t undercut them, to get work. There is no need to. It’s not always about price.

Good competition makes everybody better. It makes for more caring and attentive business people. It makes for better job performance. Its helps us make better products when we know that there are other great products out there. If you worry about the low end competition and competing with them, you bring yourself down to that level in many cases. Look for the “real” competition and see if you can be as good or better than them. The great bike riders I have seen in my area over the years has made better bike rider. I realize I won’t be winning the Tour De France anytime soon……but I can still dream of that yellow jersey…..and cool little lion they give you for winning!

to learn more about our detail training services, as well as our products and equipment, please visit us at www.kleencarauto.com

I have a bunch of friends who are landscapers. I also have a relative who is a former landscaper, and who was the president for many years of the New Jersey landscapers association. Although I have zero skills as a landscaper, the plights and struggles of that profession are very similar to ours. Do you ever count the amount of landscaping trucks that are out there today? No matter where you live, there are dozens within neighborhoods, all seemingly doing the same thing….cutting grass and such

 Tons of competition

Everybody that owns a house needs their grass cut. Of course many people do it themselves, like me, but I don’t claim to be a landscaper. But do you ever talk to a person who washes their own car and sometimes waxes it, claim that they know a lot about detailing? That’s the first common thing between these 2 industries. I cut my grass and do some weed whacking and sometimes trim my bushes, but I cannot identify a single type of flower (or weed for that matter) that is growing on my property. My take is that as long as it’s green during the spring, summer and fall, I am cool with my lawn. But somebody like me may sometimes claim they could be a landscaper? Sound familiar? My relative, who was in the business for over 35 years, used to laugh at me because I just didn’t care too much about the grass. Sometimes he would see my lawn and offer to spruce it up, the same way I would offer to spruce up his car when it did not look so good.

 In any event, there are tons of landscapers out there. The amount of competition that these guys have is enormous. There are far more landscapers than detailers, but what I have seen they all seem to make money and they all seem to have plenty of work even though there is a tremendous amount of competition. We have the same opportunities even though there is competition and varying levels of skill and professionalism

 The same obstacles

They also seem to have many of the same obstacles that we have. They employ some borderline people, some of them who are not even legal! They also have customers who are lust looking for a cheap price regardless of the challenges of the property. They also have customers who never seem to pay their bills and are always chasing money. They struggle with the competition that cuts prices and does everything very cheaply just to get the work. They deal with people who don’t know the difference between a blade of grass and a flower, but claim that they can take care of it themselves….if they weren’t so busy. Some of these people who are the ones cutting their own grass but see a landscaper cutting the neighbors grass, will ask for free advice on how to make the grass greener or get rid of weeds. Does some of this sound familiar??

 Landscapers work only about 9 ½ months of the year here in NJ. Work is seasonal in some parts of the country with grass being cut during spring, summer, and early fall, while leaf removal takes place in late fall. Many mobile detailers and many shops see work fall off during the winter. I see some landscapers who have the absolute best equipment with fancy dump trucks and fancy trailers, and nice equipment. There are also plenty of these guys with poor equipment and working out of the back of a station wagon or old SUV as well. So just like detailing there are landscapers who occupy the top of the pyramid and many in the middle, and still many toward the bottom.

 I used to hear my relative complain about the un-professionalism of many of these landscapers while he was the president of the association. While this association had a large membership, there were still a large majority of guys who did not join or did not even know about the association. We see the same thing. Guys want free advice and refuse to pay money for a membership in a professional organization that will ultimately help them.

 Some of these guys operated without knowing the labor laws, or laws about the chemical they were spraying, or even how to correctly do the job. As you know we face the same obstacles. There are many detailers who operate on a shoe string budget, yet call themselves professionals although they barely have a clue. There are many detailers who are cheap and don’t have the best equipment and refuse to buy it because “it’s a rip-off” or “they don’t need it” We deal with customers who want the best job at a low price. My landscape friends deal with those same customers. We deal with bad weather and don’t have much work when it rains or snows, while the landscapers deal with the exact same thing

 Its funny how both professions struggle with the same things. However, what I see with landscapers is that they have much more invested in their business. Some trucks are $50-60,000. A ride on mower is $8000. A good trailer is at least $5,000. A leaf blower is $600. Many trucks have 2 or 3 mowers, 2 or 3 leaf blowers, 2 or 3 weed whackers, a bunch of shovels, rakes, etc. to get the jobs done. The money I see some of these guys spend is enormous. They have a lot at stake not to be professional and do the job right. I rarely see landscapers who do not do a good job.

 Many started out small, doing lawns after school and during the summer. Many progressed into a full time job and gradually hired employees and added more trucks and equipment. They don’t worry all that much about the completion either. I will see 3 different companies on my block and I live on a short dead end street and many people do their lawn themselves here. So the competition they face is huge and the expense is huge along with complying with the law and being very visible on the streets.

 But you know what?? They all seem to make money and stay in business. Sure, some people want a break and some people cut back, but all these landscapers seem to do something correctly. We can learn from these guys. Be professional. Join an organization that will help you understand the business a little better and have strong leaders who will help and assist the entire industry. Don’t worry about the other guys and what they are doing, but worry more about what you can do better and help serve your customers.

 If we think we have it bad and want to complain about how much you spend and how much money you are not making, I suggest you speak to a landscaper that you know. He can still make money despite another landscaper cutting the neighbors lawn right next door, and 5 other guys in a 2 block radius. Ask him about his association and if he belongs to it, and I bet he does, and I bet it helps him. He probably does not complain about what it cost to join, and I think he will tell you that it aids him. Maybe we can learn from them just a little bit

 to learn more about our detail training, products and equipment, please visit us at www.kleencarauto.com

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 our 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. Its always about the money but soemtimes its not always about a “deal”.

 To learn even more about our detail training, our products and equipment, please visit us at www.kleencarauto.com

About a week ago my neighbor got a new car. Of course he was very pleased about it and wanted to show everybody. So myself and another neighbor were chatting about cars and how nice this one looked. As we were talking, I always tend to rub my hand over the paint surface on a new car. I like to “feel” a new car, especially on the showroom floor of a dealership. This tells me how well a car was prepped. Most new cars are prepped rather quickly for delivery and certainly not “detailed”. Many dealers do not wax a new car for various reasons. One is that they don’t get paid any extra time from the manufacturer to do this. They get paid a prep time which involves checking the fluid levels, air pressure in tires, making sure all accessories work, a short test ride, and other mechanicals, along with the “detail” of removing any film on the car, plastic covering inside on carpets and seats, washing the vehicle, quickly cleaning windows, dressing tires, and ensuring the new car looks like a new car. By waxing it, they will not get paid the extra time so many dealers just wash the car and maybe give it a quick spray wax. Most of the time this prep is acceptable to a customer. If the car looks new and has no blemishes, they take the car and are on their way. But it leaves the dealership with basically no wax on the paint surface.

 My neighbors’ new car, which is a major Japanese manufacturer, looked good…..not great. It was clean, the interior was clean, and the tires were shiny. However, the windows were very streaky which is common on a new car prep and the paint felt horrible. It was very gritty and felt like sandpaper, which my neighbor did not notice, and it felt very dry, so I knew it was not waxed at all. But he wasn’t complaining and I did not want to break his very happy bubble, so I said nothing about the prep job. My other neighbor was also there, and he had bought a new car last year as well. He brought up the point about what I told him last year when he first got the car. He said that I told him to get some wax on that car right away and I took care of it within the first week that he had it. My neighbor with the brand new car only days old said to me……”but the dealer told me not to wax the car for a year”

 I am sure many of you have heard this before. “Don’t wax a new car for at least one year” This is as false of a statement as I have ever heard. Dealers say many untruthful things to customers as we all know, but in a case like this, it hurts the detailing business. Here’s why

 The first thing that is done at the factory is the car gets painted. It’s a bare body car at this point with no drive train, interior, glass, trim, etc. Its painted first and then put together. I have seen it in person with the robotic sprayers spraying a bare body and seeing the car almost come to life as it’s painted. What needs to happen before the rest of the car can be put together is that the paint (clear coat) needs to dry and cure. Workers cannot assemble a car with wet paint or paint that will show fingerprints if touched. It needs to be fully cured “before” it moves along the line to be built. The way to dry and cure the paint is two fold. Sometimes an activator or hardener is mixed in with the clear coat to start the curing process. The other thing that happens on all cars is that they are “baked” in a curing oven to further accelerate the process. After the vehicles exit the curing oven, they cool for a couple of hours and then on to assembly. All cars are about 97% cured and dry by the time the car leaves the assembly line. By the time that car reaches a dealers lot, it’s almost 100%. In fact at the end of the paint line after the cars have been cured, they run by a line of workers who are looking for imperfections in the clear such as dirt nibs and small runs. They are corrected at that time by sanding out the imperfections and then by buffing the sanding marks that are left. They can do this because the clear coat is almost fully cured just hours after painting.

 So why would a dealer tell a customer to NOT wax a car for a year. This is old school thinking in that the older single stage paints of 30-40 years ago would dry from the outside –in. The thinking was that although a car was dry and seemed fully cured, it was still a bit “wet” underneath. In theory, if wax was applied while the paint was still in a drying process…meaning that the solvents still had to escape, the wax would seal the surface thereby NOT allowing the solvents to escape. In turn, the solvents would finally force their way up and through the paint causing little solvent pops or dimples in the paint surface. So a dealer would tell a new car customer 40 years ago not to wax a car for a full year. It may have been true back then, but it certainly is not true today. OK back to where this screws the detailing business

 Let’s say a car was built a few months ago on 4/30/2009, three months previous from today

 Let’s assume it arrives at a dealer’s lot about a week later. It will arrive maybe a week or 2 after that if it’s coming from overseas

 Let’s assume the vehicle is NOT pre sold and is for stock, so it may sit for a while. We all know how the car industry is at this point and that cars are not flying off the lots. Let’s assume that this vehicle will be outside on a dealer’s lot exposed to the atmospheric pollutants. Some cars will have the protective plastic on the top surfaces, but there is time limit where it needs to be removed after a certain date. Some vehicles have no protective wrap at all, so this is not good for the paint surface.

 Let’s say the vehicle finally gets sold about 3 months later. Things are slow. Cars are not selling. Maybe it has poor options, a funky color, it’s a gas guzzling SUV, or whatever keeps a new car from selling rather quickly. It sells today on 7/30/2009 

 This is Day 1 for the customer but the car is already 3 months old. This is conservative also. Some cars sitting on lots are there for more than 3 months. You can check the build date on the inside sticker on the left front door of most cars to prove when it was built. Let’s also assume that this is a dealer who does not “wax” a new car. They wash it and dress tires, etc but there is no wax on the car and it certainly was not buffed. I see new cars where the line of glue from the plastic wrap is still there. I feel new cars and many need to be clayed. Some new cars have light scratches that need to be buffed out. But many go out the door in whatever condition they happen to be in. So the car is sold on 7/30/2009 with NO wax on it

 The customer also was told by the dealer NOT to wax it for 1 year. But it’s strange that many dealers still try to sell a paint sealant or weather package…or whatever they cal it in particular area of the country. They try to sell these packages from $600 and up. Many dealers try to get around $1,000 for this. If they could have sold the paint sealant package, they would have basically “waxed” the car and took the money, but if a customer says no to this, they let the car go with NO wax and tell them not to wax it for 1 year. VERY strange!

 So because a customer is told NOT to wax a new car for 1 year, they will not even think about it. Now pity the poor detailer who suggests a wax job or light buff to this customer within that 1 year time frame. Now the customer thinks that the detailer is trying to rip him off because of what the dealer said!!! Imagine that? A customer that thinks a dealer is telling the truth on a subject they generally know nothing about, and they think the detailer is lying!!

 So 1 year passes, with no thought in the customers’ mind of detailing or waxing. Let’s fast forward to 7/30/2010. The car is 1 year old. But in reality with the 3 months that it sat on the lot, it’s now 15 months old. It may not look so great either. Maybe they are thinking of getting it detailed, but hey its summer time, kids are out of school, you need the car, you go on vacation. Things are just busy. This customer will wait until the kids go back to school. Hell, they may as well wait until just before winter to get it done.

 Fast forward again to 10/30/2010 It’s finally time to get the car “waxed” (well in the customers mind anyway). In the customers mind, they still have a “brand new car”. In reality this pig could be in horrible shape and it’s really 18 months old, a year and a half. But when the customer price shops this “wax job” they will tell a detailer that they have a new car that is “about” a year old. Oh but how wrong they are in many ways. This 18 year old car could be black. It never had any wax on it. It’s probably going to need some degree of “detailing”.  So when you see the car and price it out, it’s far different than what the customer thinks it needs. Now you look like a bad guy for giving them such a high price on a “brand new car”

 Look at how much money was lost in this time because a dealer told an old myth to the customer. This is the way it can be handled from the beginning and see how much business can be gained.

 I have customers (because they are properly educated and trained) that call me 2 days “before” they pick up a new car. They say they are picking up the new car on Thursday, can we get some wax on it in the next few days after that. So, I get the brand new car that still has a temporary tag on it and still dressing on the tires to set up from day1. I will clay it, give it a light polish and wax it for a very fair price. If I put 2 hours into it, that about all it will need at most, I can still get a nice price which is far less than a dealer who wanted to sell him a paint sealant package. Now if you guys want to sell them something like that, go ahead, but be fair and don’t over-estimate how long stuff lasts. Remember we want repeat business.

 I then tell them it’s a good idea to bring it back after about 3-4 months. I am realistic in that most people will not bring it in every month or 2. So if you can get them almost from day one for what really amounts at that time as a “wax job” and even every 4 months after that, at whatever your average “easy” detail price is. You will have seen that vehicle at day 1 or thereabouts, 4 months after that, then another 4 months, then another 4 months. So in the first year you have seen the car 3-4 times, and maybe a time or 2 in the next 6 months to equal the 18 month mark. Sure the customer will have spent more money in total for all those visits compared to a one time “full” detail at 18 months. But the car will always look brand new and you won’t have to fight as much for your price on that initial detail at 18 months

 Of course you won’t convince everybody to do this but to get a few customers like this will make your life much easier and add a lot of revenue to the bottom line and keep customers extremely happy with how great the vehicle looks all the time.

Even if they spend a total of $500-600 for a bunch of “easy” details in that 18 month time frame, its still far less than the 1 time fee of the super fantastic, supposedly 5 year guaranteed, almost bulletproof shielding, paint sealant package that the dealer wanted to sell then upfront. There are so many ways to do this and make it easy for the customer to have a detailed looking car all year round and to keep you busy and profitable. It’s again all about educating and training the customer AT ALL TIMES! It never stops and it never should stop.