2013 was a good year for the majority of auto detailers, PDR techs, and other automotive appearance professionals who completed our survey.

Highlights:

• 60% reported better income than 2012.
• 70% reported that retail customers spent more in 2013 than 2012.

Read their responses to more questions, below.

1. How long have you been in business?

2. What service(s) do you offer?

3. How did you learn the service(s) you offer?

4. What is your hourly profit after all expenses?

5. Mobile or Fixed Location?

6. What is your biggest expense?

7. Do you have a website?

8. What is your #1 source for new customers?

9. Do the majority of your sales come from wholesale or retail customers?

10. What is your biggest challenge?

11. How “seasonal” is your business?

12. What’s the best part about your job?

13. Where are you located?

14. Was your 2013 income better or worse than 2012?

15. In 2013, how much were your car dealers spending on cosmetic reconditioning?

16. In 2013, how much were your retail customers spending on cosmetic reconditioning?

Complete this 15 question survey in 5 minutes and:

• Learn about your colleagues. On Feb. 25 we’ll email you what we discovered about PDR, detailing, and interior repair techs like yourself: what they earn, and what they like least and most about their job.
• Possibly win $50! A random participant gets a VISA gift card.

[feedback&91;

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 60 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Support from friendly, experienced techs.

Late payments, no payments, haggling, and “miracle” requests. Sound familiar? These are the troubles we accept from car dealers in exchange for steady, predictable work. But…what do they think of us? What’s the other

Car dealers struggle to find good vendors.

side of the story?

A Florida car dealer talks about his vendors.

Traci McMillan Beach is a freelance writer from Sarasota Florida who we asked to find a car dealer who would talk about his experiences hiring cosmetic vendors (PDR, interior, touch up, and detailing). She found Mike Bonner of Southeast Auto Wholesale who spoke about his 12 years of experience hiring PDR techs, detailers, interior techs, and touch up techs.

Highlights:

• Bonner reveals that there are no contracts: any vendor can show up, do a demo, and get the job.
• He tried in-house detailing briefly. Too much management…”it was a headache.”
• Pays $100 for a full detail.
• Has had detailers ask him for personal loans, borrow his buffer, ask for rides to work.
• Advice for PDR, touch up, interior techs: never stop “knocking on doors.” Dealers are always looking for more options.

The full interview:

Traci: I’m actually working for a website that’s for car detailers, and we’re trying to talk to a few dealers in the area just to kinda figure out what you guys look for when you’re looking for cosmetic services…

M: She’s recording us

B: A website for car detailers?

M: I told her we don’t do no detailing here, but we send them out.

T: Well that’s actually what we’re curious about because we want to know about kind of how you make your decision on vendors.

M: We used to have on-site.

B: A nightmare.

M: Total mess, it was just messy, very dirty. Our facility in Bradenton had a six car garage and two bays was set up just for detailing. And it was dirty. So that’s why we got away from it and now it’s all offsite detailing.

T: How did you pick vendors?

M: We just, word-of-mouth. They solicit us.

T: What do you think is the most important thing to find in a vendor who is doing cosmetic services?

M: Car’s gotta look brand new.

B: In a timely manner too.

T: How do you rate price and reliability…

M: Prices are pretty much…

B: Pretty much across the board, the same everywhere.

M: Usually 100 bucks or around there [for a detail&91;. 85 to 110, around there, depending on what all you want done.

T: Okay and how do you find the new vendors, you just find them straight through them approaching you?

M: Yea, pretty much. We only need like two.

T: What were the two that you said? You said Tropical?

M: Tropical and what’s the other one on Pickney’s?

B: Eh, we just call him Henry

M: Yea, it’s actually a little private detailer that does it for a couple detailers or dealers, it’s not like open to the public.

T: And when did they approach you?

M: Couple years ago. Three or four years ago. Actually we approached them., we heard about them and talked to them and we gave them a try. We’ve tried other ones since then, but you’ve gotta be up to our expectations.

T: How would you suggest that vendors approach dealers like you?

M: Go out there and knock on doors. Just like anything else…

T: What can they do? Can they give you brochures or tell you about themselves? What can they say?

M: Usually what they do is they do a car, some will do a car for free, or they’ll do a car for like half-price. You know, no one wants to do anything for free, so instead of $100, I’ll do one for 50 and give you a try.

T: Then you can check out their work?

M: Yea, we usually just let them try a car. If it’s a $20 detail, and we still pay you $100, we’ll never do you again. I’ve been doing this for 30 years, I’ve been through a lot of detailers.

T: You know what’s good and what’s bad.

M: We had eight of them [detailers&91; at one time. We used to sell 100 cars a month at one time. Going back years ago.

T: Really. Do you have any good stories?

M: I have a lot of stories.

T: Vendor stories?

M: There’s tons of them. I repo’ed cars for nine years, I’ve done it all.

T: So what have the nightmares been?

M: I mean, you know I could just go on and on and on. Detailers are like tow truck drivers. They are not the best caliber of people. They’re not the most reliable, so…There are some out there that are dedicated to their work and run a tight shift, but most of them are day-to-day.

T: Which service do you find most necessary- between detailing and dent repair and paint repair…

M: You need them all. (phone ring) We have a process we go through when a car comes in here. You know if it has a scratch on the bumper, it gets touched up. If it needs to be painted, it gets painted. It’s just a process. We have dye guys, we have detail guys, we have touch-up guys, we have paint guys. A guy was just here a couple hours ago, he painted this black Impala SS, painted the front and rear bumpers. Like I said, me and Brad, we used to do over 100 cars a month.

T: So when you had eight different vendors, was that just because of the sheer number of cars?

M: How busy we were, yes. You know not all of them will take all of your work. Some of them will say, look I can do two cars a day for you. If you are doing 100 cars a month, 25 cars a week, and one guy can only do two a day, well that’s only 10 cars. So we’ve gotta have other people to you know

T: Do you go to one guy for everything?

M: Nah, everyone does something different. They usually come on Thursdays. The Ding Doctor, the paint guy, the touch up guy comes on Tuesdays.

T: Do you have any advice for vendors looking for new clients?

M: Go out there and knock on doors. Just like I tell the Ding Doctors, when they come in here and are like, I’ve lost this account, this account, this account and I’m down so much a week… Well, you have got to go out and find new customers. The way you do it is, if you are a Ding Doctor or a touch-up guy, you just come up and say, hey, I’m looking to take on a couple new accounts, do you wanna give me a try? And that’s what they do.

T: Well this has been really helpful. Is there anything else that you think we should know, that we should be aware of?

M: Like I say, you’ve got to prove yourself. Just go out there and give them a try.

T: And when you were saying $100, was that for detailing?

M: Full detail. You know if someone comes on this lot and says, hey, I’ll detail your cars for $45, you are not getting a good detail. And you can’t do, one guy, one manpower, person, can’t do more than three cars a day. I don’t care how good you are; it can’t be done. If you say, me, myself, Traci, right? Traci says I personally can do five cars a day for you…you can’t, because they are not done right. You can only do two-and-a-half to three cars a day, at most, in an eight-hour day. If you are going to work 15 hours, well guess what, the cars are not going to come out good. A real detailer. You’ll see carwashes that say hey, detail, $49.95, well guess what, they ain’t gonna buff the car, they ain’t gonna polish the car and they ain’t gonna wax the car. They’re just going to put a butter wax on there, run it through the car wash and that is it. It is not a real detail.

T: Any more stories?

M: As far as horror stories, I mean, it’s just you know, stuff you wouldn’t expect. Like I said, detailers are not rocket scientists, so they come up with the stupidest stories. I can’t come into work today because, you know, my car won’t start. Well, you only live two blocks from here, you know. Comes to work, my buffer ain’t working. Well yea, so, go rent the buffer for $15. Well can you loan me $200? What so you can buy a buffer? If I give you 200, I’ll never see you again. It’s just you know, I’ve heard it all, I’ve seen it all. Show up with the two kids and the wife, I’m like, wait a minute, I hired you, I didn’t hire your wife and two kids. I’m not your babysitter. This ain’t a daycare, it’s a business. I could go on forever.

T: Do a lot of your friends and stuff, do you guys all use the same vendors?

M: No, there’s not a lot of competition here. There’s all big dealers here that have their own detailers in house. We’re like the only independent one here. Just Brian across the street there, did you see him?

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

Objective:

Determine the car detailing habits of automotive enthusiasts:

• Are they do-it-yourselfers or do they hire professionals?
• Frequency of detailing.
• Average price paid.
• Opinion of professional detailing services.
• Preferred services.
• And more.

Method:

Members of BMW message boards “E90Post” and “M5board.com” were invited to participate in a 15 question multiple-choice survey. See:

http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e39-m5-e52-z8-discussion/197719-survey-what-do-you-pay-car-detailing-2.html

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10864500#post10864500

Results:

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

Let’s get some bad news on the table first: a Facebook page won’t bring you much new business. Think about it. When you need a plumber, do go on Facebook? Of course not…you ask around, you check Google, you read reviews, etc. And your customers aren’t on Facebook looking for a dent service, a detail shop, etc. either.

But there is good news: a Facebook page can ensure that you never lose a customer to the competition again. The idea of Facebook is for your customers to get to know your company (no, not your services, or your prices, or your sales) in a personal way. That is, they’ll get to know the owner, the employees, the successes, the failures…just like they get to know their friends. And when they need a car detail or a dent removed, they come back to you…just like an old friend.

So, if you want that never-dying loyalty from your customers, here’s 4 tips for running a successful Facebook page:

1. Offer a discount for “Likes.” Customers don’t easily make the effort to follow your page…especially if you’re not their favorite “Dancing with the Stars” celeb, so give them an incentive (15% off; free extras; a free bottle of glass cleaner and a microfiber, etc.) for following your page.
2. Post photos of your work…twice a month. People seem to love before/after photos of dents, bumpers, seat bolsters, dirty cars, etc. You don’t have to say much in your Facebook pages (people are busy, right), but some really clear photos remind them of who you are and what you do.
3. “Let them in” on changes in your business. Hire someone new? Post a photo and bio of him/her. Buy a new shop car? Post a photo/bio of it. Your customers like to feel like they’re “part of something.” Like they’re growing the business along with you.
4. Become their car care expert. Encourage your customers to ask you questions about paint care, leather care, wheel cleaning, recommended products, etc.

Want an example of Facebook done right? This Cincinnati dent company has over 450 followers who probably think only of their business when they think of dent repair:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dent-Magic-Paintless-Dent-Repair-Dent-Removal/123334174353165

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

Websites are possibly the perfect marketing tool for reconditioners. First, you offer a niche service that their customers won’t necessarily ask a friend about for a referral. Second, your job is VISUAL, and a website gives you opportunity to offer visual proof that you are, indeed, the expert you claim to be. And finally, detailing is not exactly cheap. Carwashes are cheap, and people rarely research them online. But for what they’re paying a detailer…people want the DETAILS. And though I’ve MAJOR ACCEPTANCE among detailers in the last 3 years, that website is NECESSARY, I keep seeing the same 3 mistakes that really kill an otherwise good effort.

1. Title must contain the SERVICES you provide and the CITY where your business is located.

There are hundreds of millions of websites on the Internet and many of them are competing against you every time a customer uses a search engine to look for ‘car detailer’. What the customer sees in these search results is the title of your business website. This title is your first contact with potential customers who, according to this study, spend less than 15 seconds on average, browsing an entire page filled with dozens upon dozens of links before making a decision. With less than a few seconds of attention, your website title must immediately let potential customers know that your business is in or near their city and that you provide the services they are seeking.

2. Not enough info about you, the owner.

It doesn’t take a study to know that people relate to people. Your website may be filled with wonderful information, but if you don’t personalize your information with photos of you and your staff, your potential customers might move on to another site that does. Create an “About Us” or “About Me” page that answers: How long have you been in business? How did you get into the business? Have you won any awards? What do you like most about your job? What do you do when you’re not detailing? Give your customers a little peek “behind the curtain.” Yes, they want to like your work, but THEY ALSO WANT TO LIKE YOU.

3. No specials or coupons.

A special or coupon can be that final little push that takes people down from “the fence”: those customers that just can’t commit to actually booking an appointment. You don’t have to offer a Groupon-like 50% discount to give your visitor a little “nudge” either. 15 – 20% off, offering a free service (like a premium wax upgrade), offering a seasonal service at a discount (interior only detailing in the winter @ 15% off), or combining services (engine deal with premium wax) at a combined discount can work. Expiration doesn’t have to be frequent. You can change up your specials and coupons by the season. So many automotive businesses do this very well: tire service, brake service, oil/lube centers, transmission shops, etc. You see their specials in the paper, on their street signs, and on their flyers…because they WORK. But reconditioners, as a group, can improve on the tactic of strategic discounting.

You can make these fixes…in an afternoon.

Take the time to gather and email pictures and bios of you and your employees to your web designer. Have him rewrite your title to: “[City&91; Auto Detailing by [Company Name&91;. Once a season, find a special that’s PERSUASIVE without being DESPERATE. These tweaks can make a tangible difference in the phone calls and emails your site generates.

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

Are you constantly being told how important Facebook is to small businesses (like yours), but have NO IDEA what to do about it?

Meet Richard Lin of ShowCar Detailing of Orange, County CA. His Facebook page has one of the largest, most loyal followers among the 1000s of detailers promoting themselves on the 800,000,000 member community. Most importantly, these aren’t price shoppers or tire kickers. They’re passionate and well educated car lovers who pay Richard WELL for his work.

Applied Colors asked him if he’d share tips for other automotive reconditioners, and Richard was generous with his advice:

How did you grow your audience to over 1000?

Richard: “I am an active sponsor on a number of detailing and car enthusiast forums. I put in my signature on those forums to

Richard Lin uses Facebook to prove his car detailing expertise.

visit us on FaceBook which helps. When we got the Fisker account, our fans grew 100+ within days, so having high profile accounts certainly helps. Most of our business is from word of mouth and FaceBook enables us to “share” our work across a large number of communities. We don’t use marketing gimmicks or encourage people to “like us” as we would rather have a fan base consisting of people that are truly interested in our work instead of people hoping to get something for free from us.”

What’s your strategy for keeping your FB page fresh, and how much time do you put in weekly?

Richard: “I am on FaceBook every day. I receive updates via email and text. I make it a point to keep my fans updated about what’s in the shop and what challenges we face and most importantly, how we solve them. People enjoy seeing the Before and After pictures. We document everything we do with pictures and videos. Knowing how to take good pictures that clearly show the steps is important in winning the viewers confidence that we’re not trying to trick them into seeing something. We don’t process or retouch our photos. We do watermark them however for protection. We also like to talk actively engage our fans by sharing with them some of the crazy phone calls and emails we get. We find this helps educate them about what NOT to do when talking with us.”

What’s been the result of your FB effort? More referrals? More details per customer?

Richard: “FB lets us stay in touch with our fan base and results in new customers weekly. It lets us reach out to the “local customers” more effectively and immediately. In short, FB is a tool that in combination with other online services like Yelp, helps substantiate our credibility.”

Any other tips for car reconditioners looking to use FB?

Richard: “Take pictures of everything, challenge yourself, keep notes of your jobs. Respect your clients privacy and blur license plates. Also watermark images to prevent reuse from your competition. Always try to be better and do the best work possible. Engage the fan base and check the FB Insights often to better understand what they find the most interesting. Many new customers will message us through FB, so make sure you have FB Messenger on your phone. Share your work on related FB pages. We share our detailing work on the manufacturer FB pages for the products we use. Make sure to update your FB page daily!”

Learn from Richard. Follow him on Facebook.

Check out Richard’s Facebook page here. “Like” the page and see why his customers remember and stay loyal to his detailing company.

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

Car detailers, PDR techs, and interior repair techs like yourself have a massive opportunity to make more money with a website because:

• Your business is visual, and so is the web. What better way to win people over than with photos?
• Your customers are affluent, and therefore more likely to search for services online. Busy car owners are doing thousands of monthly searches for dent repair, bumper repair, and detailing in your city. They like that the web allows them to quickly compare the prices and reputations of many different shops.

Yet…most reconditioners don’t have a website. And those that do, sort of leave them out there as “virtual business cards”: they present what they do and how they can be contacted, but don’t offer reasons why.

If you’re planning a website or if you already have one and want better results, here’s the 3 smartest things you can do to attract lots more customers.

Introduce yourself. Include a photo.

People are more likely to hire businesses once they get to know the owner.

Here’s the most common mistake I see out there: sites that present nothing about the owner! Your customers aren’t hiring shiny expensive cars, so why do detailers compulsively post photos of BMWs, Ferraris, and Porsches? They’re hiring you, a human being they must trust with the second most expensive thing they own. So let them know who you are why they should hire you, and share a photo of yourself (preferably in-uniform and on the job).

Case in point…

Our customer Jason Plummer of NWPDR added a short video introducing himself to his website visitors. Business is up, and customers frequently say: “I saw your video and found you trustworthy. So I called.”

Build a Google “power listing.”

A healthy “Google Places” listing is like positive word of mouth on steroids.

If your customers love you, ask them to tell more than just their friends. Ask them to recommend you half your entire city on Google. Here’s how:

• Create a free Google Places account. It’s free, and takes about 10 minutes.
• Ask every customer for feedback, and a Google review. The day after their appointment, send an email thanking them for their business, and a request for feedback or a review on Google. Make it easy for them, and send them the webpage of your Google Places listing.

In time, you’ll start to show up on page 1 (for free) with lots of glowing praise for your service.

Present before and after photos of your customers’ most common problems.

Customers respond to images demonstrating you can fix THEIR specific problem.

The second most common mistake I see on detailers’ websites is their fascination with posting photos of their favorite cars at the exclusion of photos of the jobs their customers actually hire them for. So be sure to capture before and after photos of these nasty problems you fix to pay the bills:

• Filthy interiors
• Pet hair
• Stained wheels
• Water spot removal
• Stain removal

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.

This month we surveyed 50 American car owners about automotive appearance specialty services: PDR, wheel repair, and interior repair.

Our goal was to discover:

• Awareness of these services.
• Interest.
• Perceived value.

Results to follow.

1. Are you aware of paintless dent repair service? A technician comes to your home or office and removes dents in your car without sanding or painting.

2. What is the most you would be willing to pay a paintless dent repair company to remove a dent in your car that is the size of an American quarter?

3. Are you aware of mobile alloy wheel repair service? A technician comes to your home or office and repairs your car’s scratched and scraped wheels. They are sanded and repainted to look like new.

4. What is the most you would be willing to pay a mobile alloy wheel repair service to repaint a significantly scratched wheel on your car?

5. Are you aware of mobile automotive leather repair service? A technician comes to you and recolors worn and faded leather seats to look new again.

6. What is the most you would be willing to pay a mobile leather repair service to recolor your car’s worn and faded leather seat to look new again?

Audience Demographics:

Make $100s more every day with our equipment.

Our paint touch up, alloy wheel repair, and leather & vinyl recoloring systems make it easy to offer the services your customers are asking for:

• Learn at home with DVD training.
• Explore opportunities without risk: 45 day 100% money back guarantee.
• Free phone support.