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.

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.

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.

Interior Services. This list should include all the different packages you offer for cleaning the inside spaces of a vehicle, including carpet and seat shampooing, leather cleaning and conditioning and fabric protection. Be sure to mention your Express Interior program, and don’t forget prices for each of these services.

Auto Reconditioning. If you offer these services, provide the customer with a description and price list for paint chip repair, headlight repair, plastic trim restoration, glass repair, vinyl and leather repair, cigarette burn repair, carpet dyeing, odor removal and other auto reconditioning tasks you’re trained to perform.

Other services. Many of Detail King’s Authorized Licensees expand the field by launching mini businesses to broaden their offerings — and their income. These services, if you offer them, should also be included in a complete service menu. They include window tinting, bumper repair, security systems, remote starters and more.

A nice personal feature that you could add to the back page of your service menu is an overview of your company, including how you got started. Personal touches like that invite customers to get to know you and to feel more comfortable with you and your auto detailing business. Mention the years you’ve been in business, and if it hasn’t been that long, make sure they know the experience you have — and the training you obtained (hopefully through the Detail King Auto Detailing Training Institute) to become a professional detailer.

And it doesn’t hurt at all to use this area of your service menu to include reference to your website, Facebook and Twitter addresses. Then maybe toss in some basic tips on how your customers can keep their vehicles maintained during the winter months or after a detail. Again, it’s all about building a comfortable relationship with your client base.

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 “umbrella” policy that can help you obtain lower rates and provide a wider range of coverage. And you’re certainly not wasting time obtaining two or three quotes from various carriers — in fact, do that every couple of years to make sure you’re still getting the best rates.

Garage Keepers Legal Liability Insurance

For those operating a fixed-location auto detailing business, you should ask your insurance agent about Garage Keepers Insurance. Here, you want to look for coverage in the $50,000 to $100,000 range for damage to your customer’s vehicles during the time they are in your possession. In addition, coverage should include theft, fire and movement of the vehicles and/or delivery.

Here, if you do experience the occasional small claim along the way, it may be far better to shell out the money yourself. Turning small claims in to your insurance carrier may result in a higher premium.

Here are some more things to keep in mind when seeking general liability insurance:

• If your operation provides pick-up and delivery of customer’s vehicles, a clean driving record keeps premiums low.
• Same thing goes for your employees. Before hiring anyone, make sure their driver’s license isn’t suspended, revoked or chock full of points. This can also affect your insurance rates.

Monthly insurance premiums for a mobile auto detailing business with $500,000 of general liability insurance and $75,000 in Garage Keepers coverage is around $125 per month based on the principle owner having a good driving record. If you are going to use your personal vehicle as your “mobile rig,” you may have to have your policy upgraded to a Commercial policy and that is where “umbrella” coverage could help defray the costs.

Business Interruption Insurance

Business interruption insurance (a.k.a. business income insurance) covers the loss of income that a business suffers after a disaster while its facility is being rebuilt. If you carry this type of insurance and your auto detailing location is hit by flood, fire or other event that prevents you from working out of the insured location, your expenses are typically for 60 to 90 days.

Workman’s Compensation Insurance

Workers’ compensation is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee’s right to sue you for negligence. While the cost of workman’s compensation insurance is based on the type of business you run and the number of people you employ, it’s wise to budget on average between $50-$100 per employee per month for coverage. Workman’s comp can typically be purchased from the state in which you do business. And if your business is primarily detailing cars, your business should be rated under the classification of “auto laundry.” Just make sure the insurance doesn’t rate you as “auto service,” because your premium will typically be much higher under that type of classification. And as with all other forms of insurance, any claims made could increase the premium.

One final recommendation: Regardless of which type insurance you carry for your auto detailing business, be sure the insurance carrier is first and foremost a “rated” carrier by a credit rating agency dedicated to serving the insurance industry. For example, A.M. Best’s Credit Ratings are independent opinions regarding the creditworthiness of an issuer, and you want to look for an A.M. Best rated “A” (A, A-, A+) carrier for your auto detailing business coverage.

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 eco-friendly mobile car wash equipment — including auto detailing mats and auto detailing water systems and tire and wheel containment berms — that can help you comply with the laws and still perform your detailing service with little inconvenience in time, labor or expense.

Specifically, we’ve got water mats that collect runoff, thus keeping the excess from the gutters and drainage pipes. We offer low-pressure washer systems that prevent water from spraying or splashing off the car and onto the pavement.  And we’ve got water reclamation systems with powerful vacuum motors that suck up excess water.

All of these systems — our water containment mat, Vacu Berm, Big Dog Water Reclamation System and our Mr. Green Waste Water Tank System — are designed to be EPA compliant, which is especially important if your detailing business is near large bodies of water.

The added bonus to complying with the federal laws, of course, is the satisfaction of knowing that you’re doing your part to keep our waters clean of contamination and runoff. And you’ll be surprised at how many of your customers applaud your efforts, too!

For more information about local EPA laws and regulations that may have an impact on your auto detailing business, visit EPA Laws & Regulations.