Hey guys,
My friend and I are starting a detailing company this summer and hope for it to mature into a more concrete and permanent service later on. We will be seniors in high school and we both detail our cars to great extents. One of the largest issues we face is getting past the image of careless teens looking to make some money. We want to provide quality service to our customers and are currently in the process of laying out the structure of this "operation." Since I know there are a lot of members here who are well educated in this field, I was wondering if any of you have good advice or any tips that would help in getting started. Any help is welcomed and appreciated. Also if you know of good and efficient products that you recommend that would be great.
We currently use klasse all-in-one wax, sealant, etc. and various cleaners as well as mothers (hope to improve soon) clay bar. We plan on getting a deionized water system soon and are seriously considering the crspotless sytems I have seen on various threads.

Sorry for such a long post but thanks in advance for any help.

Oz

 

Hey,
Getting started is tough. I have been detailing and polishing paint for about a year and a half now as a side thing. You first need to figure out what kind of detailing you want to do. Just general where your doing the average cars or looking to work on higher end, or show cars. If you are just starting out, work on normal cars, get good practice in and get money to expand your supplies and knowledge. Don't undercharge to get business, you can discount products, but you can't discount labor. The only other thing is to make sure you know what you are doing if you start working on high end cars. Accidents at that level have serious consequences.
Good Luck.

 

Promote your business as licensed and insured ( actually do this, dont lie to customers) to assure a higher end car owner won't worry about you screwing up or scratching the paint or body. Take your time at first at let the owner ( high end cars) drive them not you. After you finish see if you can make a service plan thats similar to lawn men, i.e. coming every 2 weeks at a certain time and if they want a regular service done lowering the price. And just to make sure you have a good technique and learn some tricks of the trade spend some money or watch another company thats been in business for a while do a extensive detail and pick up on there skills