HOW I STARTED MY BUSINESS FROM THE BEGINNING | DETAILED & LOTS OF PICS

what's going on guys Christian here from CK wraps it's been a little while since I've done a video but here I am I'm on my vacation and just trying to stay out of the shop I do have a card wrap next week so part of my vacation anyways don't forget to check the description below for any tools or training or anything that you're looking for everything will be listed in the description below I can grab most of the products I use on Amazon and then if you're looking for a discount on sign maker tools there's a promo code down there as well now today what I want to talk to you about is how I got into this business a lot of you have asked this question about how I got into this business and how I how I grew I suppose for the most part is wondering you know how you how you start a business and I'm no professional and starting in business believe me never in my life did I think that this was going to be a business so kind of back to the beginning of things about seven years ago I had heard that you could change the color of your car using a sticker using a vinyl wrap and plastidip was sort of around at the time as well and so I was looking at like those options I guess and plusted it was hard to get in Canada it wasn't easy came in aerosol cans and I saw a lot of people using it on hoods and I found the finish to not be good at all so as far as using an aerosol can go it was a really poor finish and it just didn't look good so I decided to pass on that completely you know use it for some small things here and there but nothing on a large scale like that with an aerosol can so I worked in a restaurant waiting tables and one of the girls that I worked with Lindsay herb her boyfriend at the time now her husband he worked in the rivana rap industry and she was talking to me about I don't know how he got into the conversation but she was talking to me about it and you know how it's what he did for a living and he works feeling this busy very busy working a lot did more and more commercial things as far as I knew but then I saw also some videos of him actually doing color changes on cars I thought hey that's that's amazing I know how do you do that and even then I think that he was still fairly new at doing the color change on vehicles because commercial graphics and commercial raps are much different than doing a color change on a vehicle we're trying to cover every last millimeter of paint on the car to make sure that we have complete coverage and it looks as much like a paint job as possible commercial graphics are much different in that area where that's not the goal the goal is to have the commercial graphic looking good on the exterior and for the graphic itself to portray itself so that it does its job again two different jobs right the sticker does two different jobs in two different fields or two different parts of the industry so that wasn't really for me I wasn't really into it but I was like hey you know I can change the color of my car how hard could this be so I had him get me a roll of 3m ten a first roll ever used first vinyl I ever used and did it in matte metallic blue so I changed the color of my car over the course of like two months while I had it stored away for the winter time at my dad's place in his garage and it was cold had a propane heater in there it was really difficult which I tried heating the garage up for like two three hours in the morning you know we live in the great white north it's cold up here and two three hours in the morning at the garage warm up with the door open to the house of the house heat and he you know he was totally fine with it so hey whatever and I added a propane heater on top of that and that helps bring it up to a temperature that was more suitable again had no idea what I was doing but hey clean the car down and started wrapping the door it was the first panel I did again I'd take the mirror off the door handles off and that kind of stuff so I learned to do all that stuff as I was experimenting on my own car now my buddy RJ he came to help me a couple of times over the winter and my current wife Christina she came to help too and we got it done and it I couldn't couldn't wait until I could take it out in the spring so I took it out in the spring and I was you know still working at the restaurant I drove it to the restaurant and everyone just everyone's mouth hit the floor and that's it that's a good feeling because I I did that I I created that effect to happen which is a really good feeling and no one no one believed that I wasn't paint and even if they did they were like what kind of a paint job is that he you've never seen a matte finish like that or a blue there was some matte black gaping around and a couple of other matte colors but nothing like more vibrant on the on the lines of blue so it stood out a lot I got you know I never got a lot a lot of looks a lot of feedback a lot of good positive feedback from everybody and you know the part wasn't perfect no by no means at all I didn't even know what seems were at the time so I tried to one-piece everything and the car that I had had some very heavy recesses in the license plate area and fog light area the mirrors were curved like eggs so trying to do this and teach yourself this from the very beginning with no knowledge whatsoever about what you're doing it's it's a difficult process so I you know if I had if I had a youtube video to watch amazing everything would have been fantastic so I you know I thought that was a great feeling and I felt good about what I did there and so what happened was so I had the car wrapped in blue and I had it wrapped in blue for maybe like three months and somebody keyed the door I know how people are somebody keyed the door they didn't get the paint and so you know I was like you know I'll show them instead of just rewrapping the door I'm gonna change the whole color of the car again so I took that off and wrapped it inside and black that was probably one of my favorite wraps the siding block loved it and I changed it to satin black and I and I felt better again after wrapping my car again in I just agree it was 3m because it was baseball I knew back then and I didn't think that there was anything else so yeah wrapped it in 3m satin black turned out even better this time and there was no overstretching or discoloration in the film this time it looks great I took it's a lot of car shows and car meets and so that's the thing you when when you do a good job and you're happy with your work you you want to put that in front of people you know I guess that's why you know for the car community car enthusiasts community you know you modify our cars to the way you want to show it off in front of people at car shows and car meets well a lot of those parts you actually buy but this one you buy and then you custom-fit it to your car which is really cool right so there's a there's a bit of a different aspect to it the end and a lot more work but the hard work will pay off if you keep practicing so a got it out there printed off some cheap cheapy business cards and started passing though I had no confidence at all in other people's cars I was probably going to give them a hell of a deal and I started booking in some some stuff here and there some small stuff you know some mirrors some stripes some roof wraps that kind of stuff and I just did it in my driveway actually in a tent in the summertime or that summer and put an ad up on Kijiji which is a Canadian thing it's not so much a US or rest of the world thing but it's sort of like a Craigslist a lot better in my opinion we have Craigslist here as well just kgg is much better so shout out to kitchen for that but yeah they do they the ad space and the way the ads work on there it's all free and you can promote or whatever I never did and yeah you just poke I just posted stuff up there all the time and you know doing a full rap for 1500 bucks right or 1400 bucks it was cheap back then but my the first rule of 3m 1080 that I ever bought I think I paid like three hundred and twenty dollars for the whole roll or sixty feet so it's 20 yards that's pretty cheap now it's over 700 so it's doubled in price since I started in this industry so again the little bit of money I was saving on the vinyl back then kind of made out forward a bit and again it wasn't like I was trying to do this as a business I never thought it was gonna be a business it was just like a side hustle I was just trying to make a few extra bucks on the side and and learn at the same time so you know one thing I always said to people was a I'll guarantee it I'll fix it if it doesn't come out the way you want or the way it should be or if something happens down the road I'm gonna fix it and that I always stuck to no matter how busy you get you got to get it you got to squeeze it in at some point sometimes there might be a couple leave sometimes it might be a couple of months by time you get someone in but you do your best to get them in and and fix whatever the problem is and that is probably the one of the most important things that you can do when you're starting your own business is is you're going to make mistakes and you're going to have you're gonna run into a lot of issues and you're gonna get a lot of flack you're gonna get hey and you're gonna get a lot of praise and you know don't let the praise get to your head and don't let the flack and the hate gets your get to your soul and it's hard to keep your head up sometimes you deal with a lot and it wasn't fast it was a very slow process it took me three or four years to sort of just kind of break out break out and I actually have a lot of social media to thank for that social media is a very important has a played a very important role in the development of my business Instagram was where it was that first person was Facebook and my Facebook page is like way down here compared to everything else that I have but it was the first one that I had and I used that and you know look at a little bit of work from there then Instagram started booking in I started looking very consistently with Instagram and you know because people DM you and then you know people are booking in through that I don't have a website or anything fancy anything like that I just guaranteed my work and I was putting out the best work that I possibly could so this is you're always striving to be better and for every mistake that you that happens you try to learn something from it you don't let it knock you down and keep you down you just you get up and you and you go at it again because this is this is an art and this is a very it's a difficult art it's not it's like a handcraft it's like it's like doing a sculpture could I do an ice sculpture probably not I wouldn't have any idea where it starts but hey with practice makes perfect and I'm sure in the end I could probably do a pretty fine job would I be the best I don't know am I the best I don't know I don't think that I'm the best but I do think that there's always room for all of us to learn and that's important part always keeping an open mind so use what you want to do is you want to use social media you want to use it's free and in the end like if you just if you create a successful YouTube channel which a lot of people are trying to do now but hey I'm not discouraging anyone from doing it I actually thought the idea was terrible hi it was referred to me by a friend and I don't have them to thank for that you know who you are if you're watching the video and I thought it was a terrible idea I'm like well I'm gonna teach everyone my tricks and then I'm not gonna book in anywhere cuz everyone's gonna start wrapping their cars we got a start then you start to think outside the box okay if I do teach people how to wrap cars online is it as much as they could learn in person well no it's not as much as you're gonna learn in person it's not as much as you're gonna learn right practice makes perfect and it's not for everyone on top of that and on top of that YouTube is a worldwide thing and you know someone from Germany is not going to fly their car over to to Toronto for the most part that hasn't happened yet it will but it hasn't happened an elective miss of that happening is pretty slim so they're gonna they're gonna wrap their own car there's always gonna be a market for do-it-yourselfers and this is why I created the YouTube channel there'll be people who think that they're do-it-yourselfers and they think that this is going to be something that they can do and then they might go through half a car like forget this I'm just gonna pay someone to do it again there's a lesson learned there right you you you you try something you took a chance you learn something and you learn this all for you and you move on to something else it's not for everyone that's for sure it's hard work it's high risk there's a lot of chance for failure and there's because not only can brands fail but your work can fail so it's there's always room for failure and and to think that everything is always going to be 100% perfect is the wrong way to go about it but yeah use your social media I don't care if you wanna if you do YouTube videos great I actually encourage all of you to do YouTube videos I encourage all of you to post up Instagram pictures as much as possible consistency is very important I was very consistent and I tried to show the most thorough details of what I was doing the best that I could that was it I wasn't trying to hide anything in the beginning was Instagram I didn't even use YouTube and I wasn't trying to hide anything and so I wanted to I wanted to show people what the bottom side of the corner looked like I wanted to show people what the bottom side the edges look like I wanted everyone to know what they were getting in the end and unfortunately that's not consistent with all work that gets put out but it's important for you to do that for yourself for your own integrity as someone who wants to start a business and run a business so you want to and it's not showing off it's showing what you can do that's the important part like I said I'm not the best rapper but I will show what I can do so yeah do you do Instagram that's it's a it's an amazing source to generate views and awareness of your business for free doesn't cost you anything you can pay for promotion at promoter dies I've never done it but it's not necessary YouTube I don't even know if you can pay anything to produced you're out on YouTube I have no idea I never did it anyways I just started putting out videos that people were interested in watching and that's all it was I've never thought anything of it I just kept doing the videos and I got a lot of flack a lot of flack from doing those videos to the point where people were threatening me so it's but I didn't let that stop me and you shouldn't let's know what someone thinks of your rap at a car show stop you you'll get better if you want to do it again and don't let that don't let that stop you know your rap could be a year or two old in your car how do they know it's gonna show weathering no matter what you know no one's no one's going out there and critiquing the paint after two years but though it could seek your rap and a heartbeat and these people won't even know what they're actually even looking at or what they're talking about for the most part so take it from where it's coming from don't let it get you down it's important to stick to it okay like I said consistency is key consistency in in getting the raps in the door so how do I get raps in the door okay well through social media I kept posting up the work that I was getting and any time I didn't have any work to do I wrapped my car I just reroute my car and I forgot my car this car that I have right now like nine times and I'm a little bit too busy to rewrap it now all the time but I try to squeeze at him once know how when something new comes out but you know I I use it as a filler get your friends get your family get them all in on it get them in get them to grab the vinyl or buy the vinyl and they get they get a color change and then if they're close enough to you you can fix it up and you can touch it off and you can go over your mistakes and things like that and your family well for the most part your friend your close friends are not going to be too hard on you they know that you want to learn and there's not really any better way to learn you don't want to be trying to learn I mean I'm always learning I'm learning on customers cars too it's not like so this Lamborghini is not the same as that Lamborghini there's something to learn on this one there's something to learn on this one going from one to the other there's always something to learn so I do have things I always learned but you don't want to learn the basics on people who are paying you for work that's the important part too because you know if you start charging a really low dollar and then you start damaging things that's that's a problem in itself too if you're not comfortable removing parts off a car have paint somebody to come in and do that you'll find that the the the the rates if you get to know someone are probably pretty reasonable and it will save you the liability and the stress of having to have to do that so it's worth it and like I said you can't do it if you don't want to learn yourself but again if you're learning yourself do it on your own car every time you take on a rap and a disassembly you take on a liability okay there's some there's an important part to remember there and in any business there's always a liability involved what what level is that risk well that depends over here I have a dodge charger over here I have an I have an Aventador the risk between the two isn't even comparable but there's still risk there even with the charger and charge is pretty beat up but you know they want their car back and at least the same condition that they gave it to me in but better with the rap on it right but not worse when I take the rap off it can't be worse that's that's the word and you cannot do that so anything you break you have to fix and see how you you may have to account for that in to your cost you always try to be careful like I said but hey you got to confer that into your cost sometimes it happens should the customer pay for it no but you have to be ready to spend that money that you've earned now on something like that I've bent window trim some window trim cost me $400 on a BMW m4 I didn't even really bend it I just kind of popped out a little bit and then someone went in there he said a BMW to try to fix it and they literally look like they hammered it down with a hammer and there was dents all over it I mean it was so it was so badly damaged and he knew that I didn't do that he said that even if you did that but you know what because it was popped out a little bit and it was due to me tucking the vinyl under the route I took on that responsibility of paying for because he said he took it to BMW and if that hadn't been popped out a little bit then he wouldn't have taken it to BMW shouldn't stick it to me to begin with I were fixed it but if he had if I hadn't been popped out that he wasn't taking it there and then they would have damaged it even further so I took on the responsibility from the very beginning and recognizing things like that is very important okay you have to understand where it might start to be your fault and then whatever kind of happens through the middle doesn't really matter because you were the first person okay so keep that in mind as much as it does suck sometimes it does happen it doesn't happen so much anymore again part of a learning curve it's and that was just from tucking the trim in tucking the bottle under the trim it just popped out like I said it wasn't even like I couldn't push it back in but somebody else went in there and damaged it so these things are important right you utilize what you have around you okay you don't need a lot you really don't I started you know I started wrapping in my garage and I my garage my driveway after my first draft all my other wraps were in my driveway for about a year and an in a tent a big tent and halfway in the garage actually because I had a small garage it was like a half a garage and I had a tent over the other half so hot you know back in the car would stick out and the front of that car would be in the garage or vice versa and I would rap like that not fun not ideal but I had a net around the tent and I know so no insects and things like that would get under the rap and the raps came out great I mean right booked why one of my first full raps in was a matte white Mustang with stripes and I charged him what I thought was a good deal you know I think was 15 or 16 hundred bucks and got some stripes and a matte white wrap and that was it and it turned out good I actually had to rear up the bumper again because it was so hard and I didn't know about inlays back then so Mustang bumpers are not easy and I did it in one piece so you can imagine right that way is not the best colors it seemed as well but hey it turned out good he was happy with it and then I moved on I did a Supra and well said I do ever I've I did my friend's wife's car I did my car Idaho bunch of cars and just the super it took on the fact that I wasn't even charged I even charged it really anything I am two hundred three hundred extra dollars they knew that I was learning so it was all to build a portfolio the greater good is you keep in work and every single car that hits the road is a business card that is your business card so you want it to look good and you start to realize that okay like if I do a really bad job or if I do a bad job or I don't do my best job we're gonna have issues because every car that goes out there I'm not doing a good job on it's going to leave a bad impression and like I said some people won't understand the small small things because there's usually always small things on a rap but when when things look more major which are things that I've pointed out in some of the videos that I that I've done in the past those are major issues okay a little bit of lifting maybe around a mirror or a door handle okay that's that's minor a little bit on a bumper okay that's minor like these some things can be really just touched up but when you have like extreme pullback and things like that those are and then seams in places and just like patches here and there that don't even make any sense are those that's not the way to go about doing it so don't do patchwork it's not that's not the way you want to go do it you want to rewrap the panel if it's gonna if it looks like it's bad enough where you can't just touch it up some a way that makes sense and is cosmetically still enhances the appearance of the vehicle then don't patch it or don't try to fix it like that reroute that panel that's how you go about doing that I hope some of this information is insightful to you guys and helps you guys move forward this again in your social media start get on youtube start doing time lapse videos people love watching time lapse videos wrap weird things you know what actually brought me oh I I was never afraid to use something different you know a lot people gave vivid flak and in the beginning I could say that their product I wasn't very fond of it in the very beginning but this we're talking like six years ago three or four years ago when I kind of came back to and started using a little bit more often I felt like their products had changed a bit and then they came out with holographic chrome and then I got the holographic black chrome for my car and and you know I had to kind of the in you know I kept I kept my relationship I know I'm not trying to burn any bridges I was trying to let her know kind of what colors we were looking for and stuff like that and they were listening which is cool so someone was listening to me and I'll just wrap you in cars out of my garage but either way got me some holographic chrome and that was a game changer I did something different that nobody was doing and next thing you know all the big Facebook pages you know I'm offending with you know them you know lad lad Bible viral thread whatever all those guys and they still come to me now I have contracts with a couple of them and they still come to me now where they asked they asked permission to share my videos but if I didn't make videos then those videos wouldn't be there for them to ask for to share my work so you see we're kind of going with this put it out there for people to see put it out do you want people to see it it's it's it's an aesthetic so you want people to see it and when you have something that's bright and vibrant it's not gonna blend in not everything's bright and vibrant there's a satin black Mustang over here but you want people to see it either way even once a satin black Mustang you've worked hard on it and you want people to see it so those videos aren't there and that content isn't out there nobody's gonna be able to share it and the sharing is what spreads your your name your business your name what you're doing what a vinyl wrap even is because a lot of people still don't even know what a vinyl wrap is that's there's there's an ever-growing market here there's a massive market I in my opinion that hasn't even really been touched yet a lot people want to get into this industry I don't blame you I think it's fantastic I think that there's plenty of room for everyone to get into I can't even hire somebody because it's hard to hire guys who are great at installing maybe I just kind of boosted myself up there a little bit what you guys catch my drift it's really hard to find someone who cares about what they're doing and is good at what they're doing and those guys work for themselves because this industry is so small still that you could you could get good at it and you can go start your own business and you don't even need you don't need a bunch of employees working for you you don't want a bunch of employees working for you if they don't put out good work that's horrible you just don't want that you're just you're just trying to make a quick buck that's gonna backfire on you in the end again it's all about passion and quality you gotta have the passion you got to have the quality and would the passion will come the quality like I said guys I hope this video was informative if there are some unaddressed questions that you have please drop them in the comments below I'll go through them I will try to address them in other videos or in other videos maybe where I'm actually doing a rap to her hat for you guys in a long time or other videos where I do videos like this for you guys to to address specific questions I do have a follow-up video now speaking of this one to talk about I'm gonna go over more thoroughly how to price out your raps okay some people some shops are losing their shirts and then some of you who are trying to get into it don't even know where to begin so I'm gonna do a video on that for you guys guys if you like the video don't forget the thumbs up and if you guys want to see some more videos don't forget that subscribe button again a link in the description below to the training and the products that I normally use will be there and some promo codes and stuff like that so go ahead have a look thank you for watching I appreciate it take care

Channel: CK Wraps

Views: 154,602

Keywords: CK Wraps, how to vinyl wrap a car, how to vinyl wrap, how to wrap a car, vehicle wrap, car wrap, vinyl wrap, learn to wrap, wrap business start a business run a business, entrepreneur, work for yourself, wrap shop, your own shop, start a business, how to, small business, wrap industry, Vvivid Vinyl, vinyl installation, Avery, 3m 1080, KPMF, Oracal, Orafol, Hexis, car, exotic

Id: EsmPrSrUp9o

Length: 25min 21sec (1521 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 06 2018