If you’re looking for the latest information about starting or growing an auto detailing business, you’ve come to the right place. CarDetailingBlog.com is the Internet’s leading source for news, insight, commentary and how-to information focused on running an auto detailing business. Updated weekly by the team at Detail King, you can count on us to keep you up-to-date and informed.
April 3, 2013|Category: Auto Detailing Challenges, Auto Detailing Tips, Car Detail Marketing, Marketing with Social Media, Uncategorized|2 Comments
PDF What to Brand:
Brand your business as the top detailing resource in your area. Blogging is a great way to showcase your business. If you are not blogging you are in the minority.
Reasons to Blog:
1) Show your expertise
-Use your blog to elevate your audience’s trust in you and your business.
-The more you write and the regularity with which you write show commitment to your business.
-The result is Credibility with your target Market.
2) Connect with your target audience
-As you continue to blog and offer insider information or detailing tips you will build a stronger following.
-Asking questions of your audience at the end of each blog to start interesting conversations.
-Thoughtfully respond to those comments to build relationships with your audience.
3) Introduce other websites
-Use your blog to connect people to your business website and your other social media platforms.
-Have plenty of links on your blog page to your other social media outlets. This encourages others to share your blog posts and comments, which means more traffic to your website and further distribution of your ideas.
4) Give and you shall receive…
-Think of each blog post as a free little nugget of information that will improve the business or life of each member of your audience.
-Offer additional free tips to improve your connection with your customers and audience.
5) Showcase your connectedness
-Ask for comments from your clients. Show tips from other professionals in the industry.
-Ask other professionals (Detail King) to post articles on your blog.
April 1, 2013|Category: Auto Detailing Business Management, Auto Detailing Challenges, Auto Detailing Tips, Car Detail Marketing, Prospecting For New Business, Uncategorized|5 Comments
Make more sales: Everyone needs more sales, not everyone can see the need for more sales. It is easy to get distracted by other issues, such as creating new products or managing day to day tasks. Get out there and sell.
1) Change what you do:
If what you are doing is not working, why not? Are you selling the wrong product or service? Are you charging too much or too little? Is your marketing effective? Sit down and analyze what’s not working and figure out ways to improve.
2) Target different customers:
If your product is right, but you earn too little from your current customer base, perhaps it’s time to look around. Is there a more profitable market segment you could reach? Are there other customers who will / could pay more?
3) Sell more to each customer:
Once you have customers, can you provide them with related products or services? Example instead of selling them an upscale car wash, offer a complete detail or offer added value services such as carpet dying and headlight repair.
4) Get Help!!
It’s hard to grow alone. If you’re are spending your time on routine tasks when you could be out there making sales or providing your service, you are losing money. Maximize your earning potential by using your own time in the most productive way.
5) Use Technology:
Technology can give you more time and create deeper connections with your customers.
- Do you use a contact management system to track customers?
- An email program to stay in touch?
- A customer’s order on your website?
- Find technical solutions to speed administrative tasks, finances and production, so you have time to make more money.
6) Stick with it!
You may not get rich overnight, but if you work smart and hard, the money will follow.
As is the case with a restaurant’s bill of fare, your auto detailing service menu should show your customers — at a glance — just what exactly it is that your car detailing business has to offer.
Example of Auto Detailing Service Menu
Imagine how long it would take to get your meal at a restaurant if your server had to tell you everything that was available back in the kitchen. In addition to describing the meal options, your waiter would have to give you prices and brief explanations of the food offerings. A menu speeds up the process and resolves most of the initial questions about what’s available and how it will taste.
Same holds true for your auto detailing business. It’s most important that your auto detailing service menu be a tangible document that includes a complete list of your services, along with the price for each service. Visible somewhere on the cover of your service menu should be your company name and logo, along with your phone number.
Inside the service menu is where you should find a list of your services. And along with all of the packages you list, be sure to add a brief description of each service. Here is some more information that we here at Detail King suggest be included in all auto detailers service menus:
Exterior Services. Include all the different packages you offer to spruce the outside of your customer’s vehicle, along with the average price for each package. Also list your Express Detail services, and what you provide for a complete exterior detail. If you provide a one-step package for newer vehicles, mention that here, as well. Continue reading…
January 8, 2013|Category: Auto Detailing Business Management, Insurance & Risk Management|7 Comments
On the surface, it might appear as if operating your own mobile or fixed-site auto detailing business would be a piece of cake. Buy some equipment, stock up on some auto detail products from Detail King, and hit the road looking for car-owning prospects.
But here’s where we remind you that your new enterprise is a bona fide business undertaking — a venture that should include the appropriate amounts of planning, troubleshooting and an entire notebook page full of “what ifs.” And chief among those considerations should be insurance.
We know. We’ve heard it before. “Nothing’s going to happen,” you say. “It’s such a small business — I don’t need insurance,” you reason. “Insurance will just eat up my profits,” you claim.
Truth of the matter is, one of the first things you should be looking at — maybe even before picking out a rotary buffer and an orbital polisher — is business insurance. And that’s particularly important when you consider you’re working daily with other people’s property.
What we offer below is information on the three basic insurance components for an auto-detailing business — general liability insurance, garage keepers insurance (fixed-site location), business interruption insurance, and workman’s compensation insurance.
General Liability Insurance
A part of the general insurance system of risk financing is to protect you from the inherent risks of liabilities imposed by lawsuits and similar claims. Among a laundry list of other potential mishaps, this coverage protects your auto detailing customers in the event one of them is injured by a piece of equipment on your property or even in the case that a customer trips on a cord or hose and falls down and is injured while you’re doing work for them. You should look for coverage quotes in the $500,000 to $1 million range, which covers general liability in those amounts for your shop and/or mobile operation.
While you’re at it, inquire about an Continue reading…
January 3, 2013|Category: Auto Detailing Challenges, Environmental Considerations, Mobile Auto Detailing|3 Comments
If you’ve attended any of our auto detailer training programs, you know there’s a respectable amount of homework involved in successfully running your own auto detailing business. And one area where you don’t want to scrimp on the research is in knowing the local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for your neck of the woods.
Specifically, we’re talking about the Clean Water Act, a 35-year-old amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act that sets the rules for discharging pollutants into the waters within and surrounding the United States. In other words, this heavily enforced law prohibits businesses — including auto detail businesses — from dumping dirty and polluted water into sewers, drains and culverts that may lead to pristine creeks, streams, lakes and a couple of oceans.
Many new hotshot detailers who hit the deck running without first doing their homework on federal environmental laws find themselves at the other end of some fairly hefty fines. We’re not talking about a slap on the wrist here. And these fines are far from resembling your typical parking ticket. When the feds get their dander up over dirty water, they’re likely to impose fines of thousands of dollars, and they’ve even put some mobile detailers out of business!
So it would behoove you to check out your local EPA laws before you even think about turning the spigot on that hose. You don’t want to be known as that car detailer who bought all kinds of auto detailing equipment but neglected to ensure you have the gear necessary to keep water from entering the ecosystem. Here at Detail King, we’ve come up with a wide variety of Continue reading…
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