BEING EFFICIENT

by Prentice St. Clair

Many operators begin a detailing business because it seems like an easy way to make money. Yet running a professional detailing operation as a sole proprietor requires the owner to do much more than simply wash and wax cars. In fact, there are multiple tasks that have to be performed so that the operation can do more than just make a few extra bucks on weekends.

In a large company, there are several departments or divisions, each with a specific function. For example, there is accounting, marketing, reception, shipping and receiving and dispatch. In contrast, the typical small detail operation is run by a sole proprietor who does everything. The owner who does all his or her own work, with or without employees, has to perform all of the duties in the different “departments” of the business. In this article, I would like to cover some of the major tasks of the business person and how to make those tasks and the entire operation more efficient.

Running a Successful Detailing Business

The scenario that I will use to discuss these ideas is that of an owner-operator or one who employs a couple of detailing technicians to assist in performing details. Your situation may be different. Perhaps you do all the work yourself, or you run a much larger operation. In any case, the information discussed herein may still help you to improve the efficiency of your business.

The owner-operator is faced with two major categories of duties: (1) performing enough details during the week to pay the bills, and (2) making sure everything else about the business is running so that the detailing part continues to thrive. Let’s assume for the sake of this article that the operational side of the duties is performing well. By this, I mean that the operator has:

1.            Received adequate education and training in the art and science of detailing,

2.            Equipped the operation with the appropriate equipment and chemicals, and

3.            Created processes and procedures that are efficient and effective.

While these tasks are critical to the operation, they are not all that is involved in running a successful detailing business. Other important aspects include:

•            Marketing;

•            Sales and scheduling;

•            Bookkeeping and accounting;

•            Supply and maintenance;

•            Planning.

Let’s talk about each one of these areas and discuss some options for getting all of this work done.

Marketing

Marketing can be defined as “the providing, for profit, a product or service, including attracting, servicing and retaining customers.” When you own a business, your income is dependent on the customers that you attract to your business. In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you know about detailing if you don’t have any customers for whom to provide service.

Attracting customers to your business can be accomplished in two primary ways—advertising and networking. Advertising involves utilizing such tools as signage, print media (e.g., newspapers, flyers, direct mailing) and broadcast media (radio, television, and cable). Networking involves letting the people in your “sphere of influence” know about what you can do, like friends, neighbors and business acquaintances.

To increase the success of your networking efforts, you must increase your sphere of influence by joining local civic groups, business networking groups, and getting out into your community to meet owners of other businesses that cater to the motoring public.

Before any of this happens, however, you have to decide on a business name and other things like the colors of your business and perhaps a logo. I suggest using a name that describes what it is that you are doing, such as “Joe’s Detailing.” A name like “Metro Magic” sounds interesting, but tells nothing about the service offered. On the other hand, you may want to start with a general name like “Joe’s Automotive Reconditioning,” which allows you to offer in the future more than just detailing.

Marketing is essential to the long-term success of any business. If you do not have a marketing plan, or if your marketing plan is not bringing in enough customers, you may want to work with a marketing expert, take a marketing class from a local school, or find information online about marketing small businesses.

Sales, Scheduling and Customer Care

As mentioned earlier, “marketing” also includes “servicing and retaining customers.” Your advertising and networking efforts should attract customers to the door-front of your business, or at least to your phone. It is at this point that salesmanship comes into play. Your job is then to convince the customer to give you money in return for the service that you provide.

Sales

Sales involves finding out what the customer wants, pointing out what the vehicle needs (whether or not the customer realizes it), and convincing the customer that you are the best person to fulfill those needs and wants. Bad salesmanship can turn away ready-to-pay customers and good salesmanship can both win over a customer who is unsure as well as increase the average per-vehicle revenue. So it is obviously very important that your salesmanship skills are effective and well-honed.

If you are having difficulty spending time with potential customers because you are too busy detailing cars, you might consider hiring a salesman. The problem with this is that most people shopping for sales positions do not understand automotive detailing. Thus, you will probably have to spend some time educating this person. On the other hand, if you are your best salesman, perhaps you should consider hiring and training a detailing technician so that your time is best spent as a front-line person with customers.

Scheduling

Once you have “sold” the customer on your service, you need to place the resulting job into your schedule. Scheduling for a larger operation can take up quite a bit of time. It is important to have a grasp on the length of time required for each type of service that you feature so that you or the person in charge of scheduling can place jobs in the correct time slots.

If you have a salesman or receptionist taking calls and walk-ups, you could make this person also responsible for booking the schedule. Make sure to give that person the information he or she needs to make good scheduling decisions.

Customer Care

After the job is done and the customer returns to pick up the vehicle, the “customer care” begins. Show the customer the finished job and ask for feedback. Follow-up a few days later with a phone call or perhaps a “thank you” card in the mail. Customer care also involves quickly ameliorating customer complaints and then changing your processes and procedures to avoid such complaints in the future.

Collect all of the customer’s information and place it in a contact software database (or, if you have no computer, on a three-by-five card). Go through your database once a month and phone those customers whose vehicles you have not worked on for a few months. Ask the customer how the car is looking and if there is anything that you can help them with to keep the car looking great.

Bookkeeping and Accounting

With paying customers and shop expenses, you need to keep track of your money. Bookkeeping is the profession of recording expenses, income, accounts payable (what you owe) and accounts receivable (what others owe you). Fortunately, most detail operations are relatively simple on paper.

It is no less important, however, to keep good books for a detail operation. Without good records of your money flow, it is difficult to make financial decisions for your operation. It is also difficult to accurately complete your tax forms. And it is impossible to obtain a business loan or sell your business without good financial records.

Hiring Out or Doing it Yourself?

There are some great computer bookkeeping programs available. If nothing else, get a wire-bound notebook and record all of your expenses and all of your income. If you do your own bookkeeping, plan a time—each day or at least once a week—to sit down at your desk and record your income and expenses. You may find that bookkeeping takes too much time away from your daily detailing duties, in which case, it’s time to hire a professional bookkeeper.

A typical detail business does not require a full-time bookkeeping position. A professional bookkeeper can probably complete most month-end bookkeeping tasks (e.g., balance the checkbook, write checks, complete invoicing and provide a profit-and-loss report) within two to four hours for a charge ranging from $50 to $150. A typical business owner would require twice as long or more to complete the same tasks. At $50 per hour average, you should be able to earn about $400 in that same time period. You can see by this example that you actually have the potential to make more money if you delegate your bookkeeping to a paid professional.

If your bookkeeping is in order, you can print out some simple reports at the end of the year and take them to your accountant, who will prepare your tax forms. Unfortunately, there are significantly more tax forms for a business owner than there are for an employee. As in the paid professional bookkeeper example above, it pays many times over to have a professional perform your tax work than to spend hours and hours required to understand the forms yourself.

Moreover, a good accountant and bookkeeper will be able to help you with financial planning for your company.

Supply and Maintenance

A detail operation is not necessarily producing “products” and thus does not have the same supply issues as a manufacturing company. Nonetheless, chemicals run out and equipment breaks down. Without the right chemicals and without functioning equipment it is more difficult to do the job correctly. Thus, it is important to have some kind of routine for checking the supply of chemicals and the functioning of equipment.

Supply Stock

Chemical supply issues can be dealt with by filling all dispenser bottles at the end of each working day. As the bulk supply bottle of a particular detailing chemical gets low, call your supplier and order another bottle. To save your valuable operational time, work with a local supplier that delivers.Or work with an online supplier that can ship product refills directly to your door. If you run out of a critical supply in the middle of a job, consider using a local courier service to pick it up from the supplier. Your time is more valuable (going to and from the supplier) than the nominal cost of a courier.

Regular Maintenance

By the same token, be proactive with your equipment maintenance by performing thorough inspections and cleanings once a month. Have spare parts on hand for equipment that requires regular parts replacements.

Your detail shop will also require regular maintenance. This includes the actual work area, the lobby area, the restrooms and the outside of the shop. Break it down into daily cleaning tasks, weekly housekeeping and monthly mechanical maintenance. List out the activities that should be done and create a checklist. Make sure that all elements of the work area are functioning properly (lights, power, water, built-in equipment). Also make sure that the appearance of your shop is super-clean. You can also have a checklist of “rainy-day” tasks that are the ones that would be “nice to do if we had the time.”

Planning

Unfortunately, for most business owners, planning is the last thing on their minds. As you have probably heard before, “a failure to plan is a plan to fail.” Part of your job as a business owner is to create a vision for your business and then create a plan that will help you realize that vision. So put time in your schedule at least once a month to look at your operation and plan for the future. Once you have created a plan, you can spend part of that monthly planning time looking at the progress of the plan that you created. The plan will change from time-to-time.

If you find that your business is stagnant or has reached a plateau, perhaps it’s time to look at your plan or your vision and create something new for the future of your business. This type of activity will keep your business charged and feeling “new.”

Summary

Running a detailing business requires the owner to wear many hats, especially if the owner is also the primary detailing technician. Don’t neglect the important business management activities that go along with operating a successful business. If you are overwhelmed by all the work you are doing, consider finding other professionals that can help you perform some of the business management activities so that you can get back to what you do best—detailing and selling detailing.

Prentice St. Clair is the president of San Diego-based Detail in Progress Inc. which offers consulting and training in the automotive detailing and reconditioning industries. He can be reached directly at 619.701.1100 or by email at prentice@detailinprogress.com.