I Lost Half My Detailing Business | $740 Detailing 2 Cars in One Day ($80 tip)

i know what you're thinking oh click babe he didn't actually do that no it is actually true i lost half of my company all right it's a little bit of clickbait i'll explain everything later in this video but we're gonna take you through a journey of how i started my youtube channel what i don't my detailing business where i was so many years ago where i am now and what i'm trying to do in the future to kind of give you a better um direction or clarification of what i'm trying to do and what the next steps are for my business and this channel but first we gotta get on the road and get to the first job site we have a wash and wax on two vehicles actually an mdx and a acadia arcadia acadia okay so if you're new to the channel you'll hear the story for the first time if you've been following me for a while you'll know all these details but when i started my business back in 2011 from 2011 to 2014-15 the first four years it was complete trash garbage no stability no structure no financial anything i hardly had any customers i had it maybe a couple per month like there was no type of business or customers or making money at all the first four years complete garbage waste of time stressful got nowhere waste of everything alright it wasn't until 2015 where i found my footing and realized what you have to do in order to actually grow a business get customers and make money and that's marketing and me specifically i chose search engine optimization seo to rank my website on the first page of google after nine months of strictly only doing that i ranked my website on the first page of google and i started getting a bunch of calls emails texts every day from potential customers wanting to pay me for my services so i went from four years of absolute trash not doing any type of progress towards getting customers building a business uh then discovered oh look you have to focus on marketing you have to focus on generating traffic leads and sales and after that uh i was never worried about getting customers or leads anymore because i was i just had an influx and by influx i mean i started getting one or three calls a day three to five calls a day five to seven calls a day uh all through search engine optimization not posting on instagram twitter youtube facebook none of that it was all through google search engine optimization now you would think that after i was able to start generating the traffic leaving the cells and i was trying to book out my calendar that i was like yes like this is good i made it but actually what i actually felt out of everything else like out of all the emotions that i could feel once i actually realized what i had to do and once i actually started getting the results i felt embarrassed i felt regret i felt stupid because there was four years of my life and i when i mean like i had no idea what i was doing when i had absolutely zero results i mean that's what i mean like i had nothing going for me those first four years damn can you still see me i came into the shadows we should be better so when i got the customers when i started getting results i just looked at myself and i was like what in the world happened the last four years why didn't i just focus on this from the very beginning why did it take me four years to get to this point when it only took me nine months to get these results and when i look back at it i was like man all the advice i got from detailing from detailing facebook groups detailing uh from youtube videos from detailers it was nothing told me the right up that just paid my bed nothing told me the right thing of like hey focus on marketing hey focus on online marketing hey focus on maybe search engine optimization maybe instagram maybe app maybe facebook maybe in like no one said that and there goes me four years trying to listen to all these other detailers and i'm like man this was whack [Music] all right and we're here on location we have the uh acura mdx right now for the first one then the second one is somewhere else we're charging 280 and overall condition isn't all too bad i mean it's your typical like you haven't watched in a while some bird poo some etching somewhere here and there so just cleaning tires wheels fenders washing cling prepping the paint applying wax and dressing tires cleaning the exterior glass wiping on the door jambs and that should be about like two to two and a half hours as well [Music] foreign [Music] so after that happened i was like you know what i want to share this information with others i don't want others to go through the same obstacles or challenges or unnecessary path that i took so that's when i started my youtube channel i started uploading just business talking head videos on youtube about like this and marketing and this and that and that and this because like that's literally all i needed to know in order to understand what i had to do to get customers and to make money and since that first video up until now it's been the same premise the same goal of mine just to help other detailers start and grow their detailing business so they don't go through the same mistakes or the same time that it took me to understand what i had to do and that's what i plan on doing over the next however many years because like that like pain of understanding the four years that i went through and then what i had to do and i did it in nine months like that it was like a real crunch in my stomach or wherever and i was like man like this was so unnecessary like none like all of this could have been avoided if i was pointed in the right direction on what i had to do [Music] all right so so far we have cleaned the wheels and tires rinsed down the paint foamed the paint washed the paint rinsed the paint foamed the paint plate well we're finishing up playing the paint he's still on the other half i should be helping but here i am being selfish and then we're gonna rinse it down dry it apply the wax and then get into all the finer details now here's the problem that happened when i wasn't getting any customers and i had a hard time for the first four years the passion of detailing was replaced by the survival of life right like i couldn't enjoy a detail because i know even though i had this one detail everything else is not going well for me so yes i had maybe an interior drop here a wash and wax there maybe once the blue moon a pain correction here is that when i was there it's like man like this is one customer this is not helping me like you know i'm grateful for that i have a customer but like nothing else is still any better so like the passion of detailing couldn't be the passion of detail because when i was there i wasn't enjoying any of it it's like man like what am i doing with with the business what am i doing in my life like why is this so difficult so once i started to pick up on marketing which is the important thing and then i started getting more into the business and operations and i started uh i i just delved into dove into the world of marketing and i started to market for other businesses and i worked at a marketing firm then i was a marketing director for a dental company and then i just started helping other businesses with their marketing i just felt in love with the marketing and operation and business side of things and that just that just opened my eyes up even more to like wow like a lot of us detailers are not business minded a lot of the detailers are just that just detailed we're more technician focused than business focus and that's a big problem so now like that i've been creating so many videos youtube's instagram emails podcasts now um my my perspective my perspective but my i guess you can say well yeah my passion went from a detailer detailing technician to detailing business to like business operations just everything business related now so like what can i is detailing my absolute passion right now no do i find detailing therapeutic like after a long day of hard working you know maybe being a little stressed do i go outside to the garage and veto my vehicle no i mean i haven't washed my vehicle right now in like four weeks so it's a little dirty but no but what i really find enjoyment of is like making sure that the customers are completely happy with the experience from start to finish making sure that they're absolutely blown away with the results that we deliver so right now i with so much work that i had on the detail group side of things i had to take a step away from the r3 and the and when i get more work for art for my business for my detailing business i had to stick i had to take a step away from detail group so it was always this balance or this this shifting whatever um between detail groove and my detailing if i was packed with work on detail groove then i wouldn't have time for the detailing business if i had a lot of work for the detailing business i wouldn't have time for detox so that was always a dilemma for several years actually so i don't know if you guys can see that but this is not coming off at all there's like they're scattered all over the the root wall all over the vehicle actually you got things right here i'm not focusing that right there it's like literally all across the vehicle okay so to actually remove all those little blemishes or or whatever they were we use goof-off and citroel with a towel and just a little bit of agitation on the glass came off no problem whatsoever on the paints some came off relatively easy but it did leave a lot of marring so after debating what we're gonna do we're actually going to do the all-in-one on the half of the panels up because that's where we use the the towel and the goof off to take off all that of that gunk because it did leave minor marring but we didn't touch anything below half of the vehicle because it wasn't on there so it is going to bring out a lot of shine even just with all in one it's going to remove those light blemishes add the protection and then on the bottom half we're going to just do the regular application of the of the of the sealant or whatever we're using um that way we're not leaving the car you know worse not worse but because we removed those those marks but we kind of left some marring so we don't want to do that but we also aren't going to polish the whole thing or doing all-in-one because that's not what the service is so we're doing more work but you know [Music] all right so it's actually 10 43 now we finished up uh doing the all-in-one above half of the door panel up but we also applied the all-in-one on the bottom portion that way we don't have to come back with the second application so the bottom the top half it was more like to remove the it is if it's a little bit of margin that we added from removing those marks and the bottom portion which is the application of it so it's still just the wax part itself so now it is looking much better because the the paint itself is pretty swolled and stuff so i mean obviously every car needs correction like there's no question every car needs correction but no it is looking better just because we did apply we did remove to some degree uh some marring light scratches and stuff but again like it wasn't like a polish or anything it's like i wouldn't even call it an enhancement it just our primary goal was to remove any of that marring that we left over from removing those marks and it's still under two hours so we still got plenty of time to complete the job within the given [Music] [Applause] [Music] budget [Applause] so it's like okay what do i do like i can't focus on two things at the same time especially when they're two whole different operations what my detailing business required is completely different than what details required and the two completely different types of actions i need to take meaning like the detailing business is like i'm out there servicing customers responding to customers uh like uh making sure i'm doing like the website stuff and then with detail group is like i'm sending out emails i'm posting on instagram i'm creating podcast i'm responding like so it's two completely different types of genres that i was working on and to me it kind of bothered me that i'm not putting more time and energy into my detailing business because detail groove is the whole premise is like this is how you start and grow your detailing business and if i'm not wearing my detailing business then it's like i'm already capped off at my own level of experience and skill set to share it with others and i just i i didn't want to take away time from r3 just to make detail group content about starting growing your business when i'm not starting when i'm not growing my business so like i think about a good two three months i really like i i really wasn't doing much of anything just because like i was so stuck in in between the the the balance of like do i do this did i do that and i mean i battled that decision for like years but i was like okay i'll figure it out later like okay like you know i do a little bit of this a little bit that okay that's good enough i can get by but up until recently i was like you know what like i really want to grow the detailing business so i need to bring on a partner to the company just because like you can hire an employee right but the thing with like for like and this is for my specific situation for what i'm doing for my specific scenario that i'm going through is that if i were to bring on an employee i'm still 100 responsible for everything that happens in the business they still have to be trained by me i so i didn't want an employee to start off with because this that would just add more work to me in the beginning phases and to get them to the point where like i can hand them off more work and possibly after two months three months 30 days they might leave i just couldn't do that right now at this very second so the next option would be to bring on a partner meaning that they actually have equity in the company and they have actual ownership of the company that way for me again for me for oscar for what i'm doing it it made more sense to go that route because now they have they have skin in the game meaning if the businesses do well they're not going to do well financially so i have to find i have to find someone that's what passionate complete opposite of what i'm focusing on and that wants to grow a business and here's the thing a lot of detailers want to stay a one-man band because it's so much easier right it's like oh i don't want to worry about someone else they're not going to come they're not going to come to work they're not going to be as passionate they're not going to work as hard as me i'd rather do all the work myself so there you are working 10 years in your business and those 10 years you're still answering every call you're booking in every customer you're scrubbing every tire you're washing every vehicle you're what you're washing your own towels you're polishing paint you're washing your own pads and you're doing everything yourself because you think well if i hire someone i got to spend money on them when i can just keep all the money myself and do it myself and yeah the first when you're starting your business like the first couple years that makes sense but there comes a point where like you're going to be capped off and like there's only so much work you can do in a given day and if you work longer hours sure if you read your prices shirt but there's still always going to be a cap not just to how much you can make financially but to the time available for you to spend doing other things other than business like being with your family go on vacation doing other hobbies other than yeah i work i make 100 an hour and work 12 hours a day so that's like whatever a thousand bucks a day but it's like that's all you do and i'm not saying that's wrong i'm just saying like that's what i read and consumed the like the first six years of the detailing bit like me trying to get into the detailing business because like that's what everyone was talking about everyone was like one man band i don't hire anyone it's just easier to press stable myself like it's less problems i can rely on myself and that's like that's just what like consumed me i was okay i guess i guess that's the way it is but now at this point i'm like man like that's also like super nothing is bad information but like there's not many detailers that take a step and like document it or like are out there like with multiple shops like the ones that come to mind like chicago auto pros northwest auto salon here locally it's like vive or vive leave by vivid not sure how you pronounce it um and like don't actually build up a big operation or at least just not a one-man band and there's obviously there's hundreds of others that do it but like that was the one that i know of and i remember i forgot what video it was but like we were they were at a conference and like people like there's a bunch of detailers and like they were asking the detailers who's been in here for five years and people raise their hands who's been in business for 10 years people raise their hands who's been in business for 25 years people raise their hand but if the question was like who has more than one employee how many people would raise your hand if someone's asked who has more than two employees who would raise their hands not many so that's the thing like and again i'm not saying like anything's bad wrong i'm just like for me like i want to help like the goal with this now is like to keep on growing the business where we're actually hiring employees building out a bigger operation in hopes that it gives not that like this is the way to do it but like to give someone the thought of that oh yeah you can grow up bigger than just yourself because when i when i started the business and like for the years that i was on the detailing forum facebook groups watching youtube videos you did not hear or see anything it was all just a one-man band in your garage or in a small shop or like you're a mobile detailer and it's just you because you want to take on all the work because you want to keep all the money and you don't want the responsibilities of hiring an employee all right so now we have the second vehicle it is a gnc gmc gmt gnc is a supplement company gmc what what's the brand in this car gmc gnc is the supplement company gmc arcadia we're doing a wash in the wax and then we just added a in a quick interior detail a mini interior detail um so we're going to knock that out right now because that will just add a little bit like five minutes ago [Music] um so the next phase of my detailing business is to actually grow to something bigger than myself right so in order to do that i needed help and that's why i brought lexo lex is gonna be in charge of the operation side of things so my main focus is to at least high level right now it's not really exactly what we're doing but my goal is to bring in more traffic more leads more customers and then it's lex's job to handle the operational side so he's the one that's going to book in the customers he talks to the customers uh he's the he's going to be like the the board-facing side of the company uh so let's you want to introduce yourself whatever that means yep so i am lex my real name's alexis my last name is too long in the fifth video so i'll save you that uh so yeah so we met i met oscar we have now merged both of our businesses and are now operating under r3 auto retailing llc as you said i am the customer facing side of this business i am the one mainly uh out here detailing although he's always coming out helping me and i'm also uploading and taking care of some content on some platforms and yeah i'm happy to be on this journey with my boy oscar and i'm looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together with both our skills online all right so a lot of you always ask like how can you finish the car so fast the secret is pre-workout you take one of these you're instantly gonna finish the car faster anyway so this is how we're gonna we're gonna make it uh youtube official because me and lex are gonna take a shot that's pre-workout that's right and that now concretes us as business partners are you ready oh wow and it is not 321 we are done with the interior and the exterior on this acadia it actually came out really well i didn't get any befores on the interior that's my bad but that's your fault for not being here and here it is it was just a mini interior detail nothing special like there's still going to be some uh actually not some there's going to be a lot of state like we didn't thoroughly clean it was just a wipe down a vacuum just to get it looking better but it wasn't a thorough interior cleaning as we usually do and that's okay the customer already saw it they're very happy with the results like i said on the exterior we charge 280 for both of those 280 for this one 280 for that one and then 60 on both for the interior the interior was added last minute um but it came out great i mean it it's a huge difference not only from from washing the vehicle but after we clayed it we did remove like an extra layer of debris from the bonded service contaminants so overall it does look much better all right and we are just now finishing up it is you don't know what time it is right yeah uh it's like four i think there's a little bit of wait time just because just because the um the vehicle had locks and we were waiting for the customer to come out so now we're just wrapping it up uh so it was in total it's 680 plus they tipped can you see me plus they tipped 80 85 80 all in cash so today it will be 740 dollars that we make 80 of that is tip so not bad [Music] and we're back in the apartment that was a pretty long day we actually didn't expect the detail to be that long it was just to be the it was supposed to be the washing whack on those two vehicles then we added the interior cleaning and that added a little bit of time um so it was a it was an all day thing but we just took a break a lot i'm kind of slowing down the the operation because i'm recording and stuff but anyways hope this uh video gave you some insight into what i'm trying to do so i'll start i'm as i've been doing over the last several videos is documenting the days of detailing but i'll be i'll be going more in depth of that uh of like maybe you know just showing you the progression of the company and doing all that jazz uh just to see where i could take it i could be completely lying and just like it just stays like this forever i don't know and then you guys will clown on me so that's also a possibility but we'll just see how things go i'll be documenting the process i'll be uploading more like just as i've been doing over the past several videos but you know you'll just see the progression and i'll be showing you the pricing and customers and volume and all that good jazz and if you're interested in any specific information just let me know in the comment section and i'll make videos or whatever make sure you follow my instagram because that's where i ask a lot of questions that's where i ask of q a that's where we have q and a's i go live on instagram not quite often but i do go live on instagram uh download the guide to start your business down below uh the ultimate guide to start your detailing business but yeah and also with this video like i didn't have it i didn't pre-make like a checklist of what i wanted to cover i just kind of talked as i went along the video so the way i try to i try to make some bullet points sometimes but today like i just thought about the last portion of what i said in the video and just thought about what i'm gonna say next so you know this wasn't like a fully planned out scripted video um my timeline is probably a little off i probably missed a few details but you know overall i just wanna let you know that uh lex is here with me now i'm not here but with the company two he's gonna handle the operation so i can so i can handle the marketing uh and as i was saying earlier is that you know if you want a partner you need to find someone that's opposite of you meaning if i was into detailing i wouldn't go get a partner that's also a detailer that'd be dumb i'd want someone that's more business focused so just like us i'm more like focused on the business marketing he's gonna be more focused on the operations detailing and that is a perfect match you wouldn't want two of the same theme because then you're lopsided to one side uh so that's probably uh what i'll get and i know you guys are gonna have a lot of questions about also how you splitting money how is this how is that how how you get how to do this um just watch every single video for the rest of your life that i upload so you can um so i can give you so i can answer those because i'll just be giving you different information across you know whatever videos and and things that i do so i'll end it right here hopefully this clears things up he's going gonna be growing the business documenting and doing what i do i guess so i'll see you on the next one

Channel: Detail Groove

Views: 65,128

Keywords: car detailing business, car detailing business tips, auto detailing business, starting a car detailing business, detail groove, starting auto detailing business, auto detailing business tips, mobile auto detailing business, how to start a car detailing business, car wash business, mobile car wash, mobile car detailing business, ammo nyc, dallas paint correction, wilson auto detailing, chemical guys

Id: 8Z2SRqN8KXk

Length: 25min 57sec (1557 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020