So, I detail for a Mercedes dealership, owned by Lithia. As we all know, dealerships' detailing departments are not good at all. I have to crank out work, and I am never satisfied with any of it. I'm on a flat rate pay system, and a full "concours" detail should take 7 hours, which IMO is ridiculous. I care way too much about the cars I work on, and I can never make any money with this flat rate system. One of the other detailers even said to me, you're not paid to care, you're paid to clean. It's very frustrating. I really want to get in with a high-end shop, but I can't find any in my area, or they aren't hiring. I would love it even more if I could start my own mobile detailing business. But that requires time, which I have none of since I work full time at Mercedes. I would have to quit and just hope I can get details. But I can't just do that, I have bills to pay, gas and food to buy. It seems I'm stuck doing crap work for minimum wage. Sorry about the rambling... I'm just wondering if any of you have ideas to get me out of this mess. I'm just not sure how to do it without risking everything I've got when I'm already just getting by. All suggestions are welcome, thanks for your help!
Start your own client list on the side of your full time job. If you still don't find another detail shop, you'll probably take a leap of faith at some point and hope that the client list you had will stay with you and you find new clients as quickly as possible. I would make sure you have the minimum amount of bills as your building your client list. You would be worse off if you took that leap and you have to worry about bills besides the necessities like rent, food, gas, car payments. You don't want extra bills like credit cards. P.S. start eating top ramen. lol
I wouldnt go off of what is said here... I dont know how populated your area is, but I say "go for it"! Take the leap!!! Do you have kids? if not you really have not to much to worry about. Bills will come for the rest of your life sounds like you care about the work that you do, which says you have a great work ethic. That is the best character trait of a professional auto detailer. I would keep your job while you collect a few customers willing to support you and get you started. (Friends, family spreading the word) get some cheap business cards to start. If you have any business centers in your area start there. Find the property MGT. talk to them. Fleet trucks etc. Start with low prices to keep you busy in the beginning... word will spead !!! The way is see it from what you said, your working for minumum wage? figure if you do 2 cars a day for $50.00 each... that should be better pay and more rewarding. If your thinking about it and love it, DONT WAIT! I support a my whole family (wife and 2 kids) strait from cleaning cars.... it can be done! And the best part is the people you will meet will take you places and open more doors.... think about it? more than welcome to hit me up if you need help or Positive feedback
How close are you to Northwest Auto Salon? Map it. To add to what Brian (AO) just said. Take a leap with working on your own - if you are young, single, living at home, child free, etc there is no better time because it will only get worse and more bills will stack up the later you hold out on working for yourself. A few years ago (pre-economy downfall) 7 in 10 Americans were dissatisfied with their current job. I have never met anyone that worked for themselves that complains.
You have a job you might not like currently, but I don't think it's a good choice to dump what you have now just because you don't like it. I'm the first person to tell someone that if you don't like your job, to quit as life is too short to do something you hate. But then again, you don't really hate your job. You just hate the way your employer makes you do it. You have two choices: either try to change the way the dealership is doing things, or slowly start detailing on the side and once that is at the right volume, switch over and quit Mercedes and go 100% on your own.
Based on what you are currently doing, you will love having your own detailing company. Nothing is more rewarding to me than seeing my client's cars go from dirty to spotless, and I appreciate having the time to do so. My first ever customer told me I didn't have to spend so much time on his car, but I explained to him that seeing the finished product looking perfect is about as rewarding as the money. I would recommend doing what you can to test the market and start up finding business before quitting so it's hopefully a seamless transition. Took me a couple weeks, but business picked up way faster than I was expecting. I did one vehicle last Thursday, one Saturday, and I have one tomorrow, Wednesday, and a few more waiting to find time to schedule.
aowheels, your first two paragraphs are contradicting. However, if it the case with Bmer89 that he doesn't have kids or wife to look after, it will definitely be easier to take the leap.
Agreed... It was kinda meant to be ! This gentlemen is looking to make a choice. Most dicisions we make in life are contradicting.
I'm not married or have kids, but I don't live at home lol. If I did, I would quit in a heartbeat and go for it full steam ahead. I'm going to see if I can somehow get a list of clients that are willing to wait, as well as make some flyers, print more business cards, and generally try to get my name out there more. I've got a website already, so that helps. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! As for that one detail shop, northwest auto solon I think it was, that's in Lynnwood. I'm on the other side of the state in Spokane. I think tomorrow I'm going to look up more shops, maybe in the Coure d'lane area. I knew I wouldn't like it much at a dealership, but I just had to detail somehow. Sadly, there won't be any negotiating about changing how things are done, as the dealership is owned by the big boys at Lithia, and they have contracts with chemical companies (mainly Blue Coral) and set guidelines on how things are to be done, and how long it should take.
Thanks, I'm gonna need it! Plenty of people here, and there are several detail shops (not good ones...). So I think it's doable if I try hard enough. Maybe start with a clay and wax special, something I can do after work. Maybe a 1-stage on the weekend. But my main concern is winter. I have only worked through one whole winter, I can't explain how much I don't want to not be working this winter. I can't afford to lose my job again, or have my business collapse because of no work. I just want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row before I do anything drastic, as tempting as it is lol
I wish you good luck but this is a tough economy for a new business that relies on discretionary income spending. As much as your current job may suck I wouldn't leap now without some sort sort of safety net either in the form of a pile of savings or second job that will at least minimally pay the critical bills.
Little bit of an update with potentially good news! So I was looking up shops and calling around, just kinda seeing what else was out there. One of the guys I called used to run the detail shop at Mercedes when it was privately owned and in a different location. Back then it was apparently the best detail shop around and everybody knew it. Now he owns his own high-end shop, doing the kind of no-compromise detailing that I want to learn and do. Anyhow, he's interested in bringing me on as long as I can help bring work into the shop. I also explained how I could take care of his customers by maintaining their cars at home, since I'm already set up to be mobile. He seemed pretty interested in that as well. Fingers crossed, hopefully this will work out!!
