Chris Collins talks with Robert, a mobile auto-detailer in Turlock, California, about running a detailing business. Robert does 2-3 full details daily in summer, mixing retail and fleet work. The conversation centers on staffing: Robert pays detailers $12-15 an hour, but the strategy suggests raising it to $20 and having owners focus on sales instead of doing details themselves.
Robert? Yeah, Chris, how's it going? How are you, Chris? Amazing.
How are you?
I'm doing good, thank you.
I'm getting ready. Robert, do you smoke cigars?
No, I do not.
I'm getting ready. I'm obsessed with. These new cigars are called aladinos and they're a nice little break from the Cubans I usually smoke because the Cubans are really, really strong and these are kind of like a nice little snack. And I started to feel after smoking a couple Cuban cigars every day that maybe my doctor was going to start seeing me more than I wanted. So I'm going to light this while you tell me your business, what's going on with your business? Okay.
Yeah. So I'm a mobile. I'm a detailer here in Turlock, California. I had a car wash that I had. It was a full service hand wash. Kind of got out of that, wanted to cut the overhead out, went to do the mobile side and focus more on the detailing instead of the minor stuff. Well, I'm out there, you know, I do have employees, but I'm out there working. So how do you. What my question is is what I had failed to do is time management. You know, when you're always working for the business, how do you find time to work on the business?
That is a great question and one I think that many, many people besides yourself struggle with. So let's talk about the business of detailing. So are you mostly selling to retail or B2B?
B2B.
B2B. So who are your clients? Are they dealers, are they shops?
So I would say a little bit of both because I do have business. Other businesses that I have accounts with that we take care of their feet. And then other than that, just your regular day to day customers that call, you know, looking for my service.
Like let's. How many details are you doing a week?
So you know, and during the summertime, you know, when it's weather's good, we try to average, you know, anywhere from two to three full details a day. Now I have my minor fleet stuff that we do. So it varies.
And how do you, how do you charge for the fleet stuff?
It depends. So for instance, like I do commodity truck and trailers. It just depends how many they have on site, how many we're doing. If they want to do a bi weekly, weekly or monthly. That's how the price varies.
So how much would you pay a really good detailer an hour and how much do you need to pay to find a really detailer? So let's find the crosshairs of what you would pay and what you could attract a really good detailer for an hour.
I'd say anywhere from 12 to 15.
Oh, okay.
That. I would say an hour. An hour. An hour.
So my experience in the detail industry is the good detailers are making 18 to 20, the ones you don't have to worry about.
So can we use. Can we use 20 just for the sake of.
Yeah, yes. Yeah, no, that's fine. Totally fine.
Okay, so $20. So if you're doing two or three a day, and let's say our average is 65 bucks, so.
Could you go out and get five or six a day? If you weren't detailing and you were out selling, could you go get dealerships and use car lots and other places to send you business?
No. Absolutely. Yeah.
Okay. So would you pay somebody 20 of the 65 if you could go out and get more business, more work?
Yeah.
Yeah, I could definitely. Yeah. I was going out there getting more work to keep moving, of course.
So what. What you want to do is you want to set up a. A detailer that gets paid kind of commission, where they get 20 bucks for everyone. They do. And then you try to line up as many as you can, and then as soon as that person's too busy, you go out and get another one, and you kind of. You kind of build. That way you're at a huge advantage, but you have to step back and get people doing the labor so you can curate the culture and the feel and the sales of your business. Don't do the easy thing. Do the hard thing.
Absolutely.
Do the uncomfortable thing, because that's what will get you where you want to go.
