It's been a crazy week.. Finished off the week coating an E400 with GTECHNIQ Crystal Serum Ultra Many don't realize is, people are still buying brand new cars (or fairly new ex-demos) even with this whole craziness that is going on right now Working on cars has always been therapeutic for me It allows me to clear my head, block out the noise, listen to my favourite post-hardcore bands and sift through my thoughts It's almost like I'm in my little own world doing what I do best Just this week I was reflecting what are actual pivot points for my business throughout my journey And it came down to these 4 things that changed my detailing business from your typical jim's detail to a high scale business doing 30-50 coatings/month (and no we don't have any dealership or fleet contract) **** This is going to be a long article packed with golden nuggets that clients paid me thousands to help them I just want to put this upfront in case you're in the middle of something important - save it and read later Turn off Youtube, close all your tabs, put away your phone (or close all apps if you're reading from your phone) - enjoy and take notes. If you can't sit and read an article that could potentially change your life and your business, close this window and go watch Netflix. This is not for you. Let's start with 1st pillar: In any given market, there's ALWAYS a high buying power market vertical and there's ALWAYS somebody serving them If you're not serving that market - somebody else is. Always remember that Here are some real life examples - $35,000 Mac Pro - Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Porsche - $3-$10,000 International Airline Tickets - 5 Star Hotels All of them, they are not targeting the everyday consumer - they are serving the high buying power market vertical even though it's a small percentage of them, it makes up 80% of their profit How does it apply to your detailing business? Branding and market positioning (linking with the 2nd pillar) Here's proof: One of my rockstar client, a private collector - doesn't blink an eye of how much I charge. Gets me in every single week to detail his cars Cars that got previously coated, he'll get me to recoat in again often. He just loves a clean, detailed cars in his private crib If I did not brand and position myself in the higher buying power market vertical, trust factor wouldn't be there and he would not have secure me in to do his cars regularly 2nd Pillar: Long gone the days of market yourself as a "detailer" Almost every day there's a new detailer popping up every single day How many times have you go into Instagram and find out that old mate Jim just started his mobile detailing business 4 days ago and now taking potential clients from you? That Black Range Rover you quoted last week? Now Jim got the job by charging $100 less and now he's posting it all over social media flexing how now he's a paint correction specialist lol The game has changed so much in 2020 man, it's not 2017 anymore where you call yourself a "Paint Correction Specialist" and it'll grab attention of your potential clients Differentiation and client loyalty doesn't come from word of mouth, or quality of work anymore, it's not enough You need to differentiate yourself from a brand-targeting standpoint by defining your unique market you're serving See for yourself and here's how to do it: The term "detailing" is extremely broad. There are so many types of detailing. Wash? Clean? Polish? Correction? Coating? PPF? All fall under the umbrella of "detailing" And these "detailing" business targets a generic market with absolute no differentiation Here's what the thriving, successful 2.0 detailers do to cut out the competition and serving high end clients choosing only to book with you at all times: By serving a niched market segment and defined your unique market: 1) Actual differentiation and not just differentiation by different logo 2) No need to run monthly "specials" or "promos" undercutting yourself to get your through the month 3) Authority and specialist position, you're not just some dude that cleans car 4) You become your market's go-to detailer 5) Actually charging what you're worth and competition becomes irrelevant - they can try to compete with you but you are differentiated by being your market's authority. It's like comparing a general practitioner doctor and a brain surgeon. They are 2 completely different doctors 3rd Pillar: Best marketers are the best salesmen, best salesmen are the best marketers One cannot exist without the other - first you learn how to sell yourself to book in correction/coating jobs, and then you learn your market and your client's language Reflect and mirror back in your branding & marketing messages to your market and you have a killer marketing that cuts through all the other detailers in your market circle laps around them Barely detailer I met knows how to market and sell themselves and their services Marketing is a pain for a lot of us detailers I know it well because I used to be that guy Every call ended with "Let me think about it" with absolutely no differentiation from other detailers (Pillar 1 & 2) Here's an advice that will save you the potential headache, time-wasters and $1,000/month - do not hire a marketing agency to outsource your marketing Myth: I'm just gonna pay a marketing agency to do all the marketing and I'll just do my job Fact: Works in theory but it NEVER works in real life Worked with 3 big-name marketing companies in my city Promising over the world costing me $1,000/month + ad spend out of pocket ending up with nothing but car wash leads with mummy vans Here's the problem: 1) Marketing agencies are not detailers (duh), they DON'T understand the nuanced services we offer. There's a huge difference between a car wash, detailing and paint correction/coating services - 3 of them are completely different markets Weekly report sent to me showing they generated 50 leads that week - and they are all car wash and mummy van leads which is exactly what I'm NOT after Explaining to them those are shitty leads and they can't seem to wrap their head around what I meant and kept telling me there's nothing wrong and we're good with the numbers we're doing 5 interior details a day with fried up fries and coffee with the smell of sweat is not the detailers dream 2) Most marketing work by marketing agencies are outsourced to white label contractors from 3rd world countries This is a standard practice in the marketing industry - when you're talking to a marketing agency, really they are just the middlemen They don't have a team to actually work on your marketing. Even if they do, they only allocate couple hours a week to run your ads and they priorities bigger paying projects over yours - in the end, get subpar quality marketing with the wrong message getting shitty leads (All from my first-hand experience working with marketing companies of course) 3) They are not in your business. They don't know your ideal clients. They don't know your market. They don't sell for you. And then they try to run your ads? Boi it's no wonder that they land you just a bunch of car wash leads and mummy van jobs When you, as a salesman AND a business owner write your own ads, your ads resonate 10x better than if an agency run ads for you = better leads at a lower cost without the monthly agency fee Marketing is no easy task, yes but I'll make it super simple and boil down to couple of metrics. But do take note this WON'T work if you don't have pillar #1 and #2 set in place 2 numbers that matter: Number of leads and closing conversion rate Reverse engineer your numbers and focus on the daily tasks that moves the needle. The rest like likes, reach, engagements etc its irrelevant. Figure out what's your target revenue per month: say $10,000/month (base standard of 2.0 detailers) Say the average coating job is $1,000 (basic correction and coating. If you price is lower than $1,000 for a basic correction and coating - up your prices right now, you're doing yourself and the industry a favour) You need 10 jobs x $1,000 to make $10,000 right? Say your call conversion rate (lead to booked jobs) is 20% - 1 out of 5 people that enquire you, will book it in Which means you need 50 leads per month to book in 10 jobs at $1,000 a pop That's less than 2 leads per day = $10,000/month Generating 2 leads PER day is a walk in a park - there are millions of ways to generate 2 leads per day If you have pillars 1 + 2 solid, generating leads this will be a piece of cake for you because: 1) you have positioned yourself 2) you have a strong marketing message that stands out from all the other detailers and 3) you know where they hang out Here's some proof of a marketing campaign I ran in months ago (FB ads is at best 20-30% of our business): How would you like waking up every morning with 5-20 hot leads waiting for you to call them and book their cars in with you? Mastering sales and marketing, you might even need to turn down jobs and put them back in your schedule months ahead 4th Pillar: Getting positioning, marketing and sales dialed in you max out at $10K-15K/month solo (at best $20k/month) Getting the job is not the problem anymore. The problem is actually getting the work done You'll be out of hands working 7 days a week 12 hours a day like I did when I first opened up my shop It's miserable like a slave to my business (but really it's better than not having jobs booked in at all, it's different place to be in) Smart entrepreneurs engineer themselves out of the business and have more fun and freedom Not so smart entrepreneurs grind-it-out holding the detailers pride wanting to put their hands on each and every cars that come through To fix this, this is what I call "Engineering Service Delivery Machine" where we hire the right team and set proper systems in place to machine your business to run it like a machine fixing the throughput of your business With a system in place, you will shift your focus on doing the "power business tasks" which moves you to $1,000-$10,000/hour tasks instead of $10-$100/hour tasks and not having to get behind the tools every single day The secret of having the right team is to have the right vision, mission and culture in place Before even touching and building the 4th pillar, pillar 1, 2 and 3 must be extremely solid with at least $20k net cash reserves if you're mobile and $50k-100K net cash reserves if you have a shop Building a team early on without the first 3 pillars and without net cash reserves is pretty much an entrepreneurial suicide move Working with Chris on the 4 pillars down, he's averaging about $7k/week - nearly $30k/month Working with Noah, before working together the only coating he did was a free coating job to test out. Now he have booked $2,100 worth of jobs: Another one with Meshac, now doing high end jobs: Want to nail these 4 pillars down and transform your detailing business? Because right now I currently have 3 more spots for detailers to work with the remaining of April and May
These spots are extremely limited on a timely basis as the work and time needed to help get you results like Chris Applications open now via a complimentary 45-minutes strategy session with me to visually map out where you currently stand and gameplan for the next 6-12 months Click here to apply for your free 45-minutes strategy session
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Yikhai WongHelping Detailers Scale To $50k+/month Archives
March 2021
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