The flip side of a Maybach detail
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!