In this episode of the Green Element Podcast, host Will Richardson interviews Sam Brennan, founder of Fresh Car Valeting, a mobile premium car cleaning service based in Edinburgh. Sam explains that the business operates a team of nine full‑time valeters who travel to customers’ homes, offering high‑end detailing services priced between £60 and £150. The core purpose of the company is a people‑first approach: Sam sees the company’s super‑power as finding great people and creating an environment where they can thrive. Staff are involved in weekly decision‑making meetings, receive full employment contracts with benefits (holiday pay, pensions, sick leave), and are supported by a ‘head valet’ who monitors wellbeing and workload. Sam contrasts this ethical employment model with the typical cash‑only, low‑margin car‑valeting sector, describing the market’s price‑driven pressure as the biggest challenge. Rather than undercutting, Fresh Car Valeting maintains higher prices, targets customers who value living‑wage wages and VAT‑inclusive pricing, and has built a subscription‑based service that yields about 70% repeat business. The conversation also covers practical advice for purpose‑driven leaders: interview candidates informally to understand their personal goals, align work with those aspirations, and treat employees as the person they want to become. Community, accountability, and feedback loops are highlighted as essential mechanisms that sustain the business despite low margins. The episode ends with contact details (Facebook page and email) and a call to join the Green Elements community for sustainable business discussions.
Chapters
Quick word from our sponsor, 51tocarbonzero.com. If you're a CFO or board member staring down CSRD or Scope 3 and thinking, where do we even start? We at Sustainability Solved would point you to 51tocarbonzero.com. They turn complex, fragmented emissions data into something simple and give boards clear, audit-ready visibility on exactly where the reduction opportunities are. It's not another reporting tool that adds work. It's built so the data holds up when your auditor asks the hard questions. If that's a conversation worth having, get in touch with 51tocarbonzero.com, or just drop me a message and I'll point you in the right direction. Right, back to the episode.
Welcome to the Green Element Podcast, where business and sustainability come together.
Good afternoon, Sam. Thank you very much for joining the Green Elements podcast. I guess let's start with, tell me a bit about your business.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Who do you work with?
So I run a mobile car valeting company based in Edinburgh, and we've got a team of 9 people. We drive to people's houses and clean their cars. We're more on the sort of high end, so we'll do sort of anything from about £60 to £150, really in detail, really premium, you know, high-quality equipment, high-quality people, high-quality cleaning products. And we sort of found a good market for ourselves and scaling through Scotland that way.
Okay, brilliant. And so what do you think your purpose or Your business superpower is?
So our business superpower, our purpose, is finding great people and bringing them into an environment where they, they really do their best. So, you know, the way that car cleaning and car valeting has been traditionally is that you go out on a Saturday morning when it's sunny and you clean your own car, and it's sort of— it's been a guy's job, and the guy does it and he loves it, and he, you know, gets out cotton pads and makes sure everything's perfect. But as it's evolved and people have got busier, there's not really time for that.
Mm-hmm.
So you've still got all these people who take real pride in keeping cars clean, but there's not really been an industry to facilitate it. It's kind of— the industry has been a bit sort of on edge and a bit sort of white man in a van. And our superpower was finding those people and bringing them into a job that effectively doesn't exist, didn't really exist until we created it. So figuring out what, what kind of person is that, bringing them in, and then figuring out how can we create the perfect environment for this person to really flourish in what they do.
And I've got to say, having used your service on our camper van, it was brilliant.
I didn't know you used it.
No, did you not?
Yeah.
What did you get done?
We got the whole of the inside done and I think we were the first campervan that you did.
I don't know, I've done— back in the day I did a couple of campervans myself.
So yeah, it was really, really professional. It was really, really good. Yeah, I thoroughly recommend your service to anyone listening. Thank you.
Little plug.
Can you tell us a bit about how you engage your staff, suppliers, or customers with your mission and purpose?
Yeah, so The people we need to engage is mainly staff. So, you know, if you speak to any other smaller mobile valuing company and say, what's happening, why are you struggling, they'll say, can't find people.
Hmm.
And the way that we do it is it's almost like the strategy and the direction of the business is everyone's responsibility. So, you know, I make the final call and it's really, it's up to me. But we sort of talk about it and decide it together. So you've got guys that their job's a mobile car valet, but we'll have them in a meeting every week and we'll be saying, what do you think about these things that we're going to do? What, you know, what do you want the prices to change to? What do you want the names of packages? What do you think about the glass cleaner we're using? And really take their feedback on board and it makes real change. Like People say things and we genuinely change it. And, you know, we've got systems in place, you know, where we're having, you know, monthly reviews with mobile car valeters. Like, that doesn't— that isn't what people do.
Right.
And, you know, we've got a sort of head valet and his job is just look after people, you know, figure out where their energy's at. And if they're tired, say, why don't you take an extra day off? You know, figure out where they're at. You know, for example, we've got a guy, Thomas. His wife is going away for 6 weeks on Saturday. So we've all kind of been aware of it. We're trying to give him shorter days. We've been taking jobs from his diary and putting them onto other people's diary. So he's finishing early and everyone is a bit of a community and everyone just sort of got everyone else's back.
That's brilliant.
In a way that, you know, the industry, the way it's run is more like you're a You're a tool to make us money. This is what you cost. This is what you bring in. And they try and push what the cost of the person is as low as possible and push up what they can bring in as much as possible. And from a financial standpoint, it works. You get really high turnover of staff. And actually what we're proving is that isn't the best way. Pay them more, charge more, look after them more works better.
And people are on payroll, aren't they? So they are salaried.
Yes. Yeah, so everybody that we have is employed on a full-time contract. Yeah, and we've never done contracting type work before. The reason for that—
Yeah, we really do get the benefit of, um, doing shorter hours. I think it was Thomas actually, funny enough, that claimed that.
Yeah, he's cool. Yeah, yeah, we pay them, we pay them for holidays, we pay them pensions, uh, we pay for sick days, um, Yeah, that's brilliant. Package. You want to get the best people, gotta give them a good deal, right?
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's looking at looking after your staff and looking after the people around you because they'll look after you. You know, we live in a community now. Well, not now, we always have done. Yeah, I think people are awakening to the fact.
Yeah, the importance is coming out in businesses, particularly the ones that haven't been doing it well.
So when it comes to running an ethical and sustainable business, what's been your biggest struggle so far, and can you tell us a bit about how you've overcome it?
Yeah, our biggest struggle is the market that we're in is kind of like what I've said before. It's very price competitive, and it's all about pushing the costs down. And then for mobile valeting, the prices that people charge are then very cheap, and it's a cash industry. So you've got guys that will charge £40 And from that, he's putting it in his back pocket and then he buys fish and chips for dinner with it. And when you're trying to run a real company with, you know, everyone's— you're paying employers' national insurance, you're paying VAT, you've got an office manager, all these things, you've got to have your prices way higher than that guy.
Yeah.
It's been very difficult for us because we've had to kind of be like, so what are we gonna do? Are we gonna put our prices up 20% or are we just gonna do what they're doing? And do we really want to risk our business? You know, when realistically, you know, if we're taking 50% of all our sales in cash, we could very easily increase our profit overnight by £4,000 or £5,000 just by paying people in cash, etc.
Yeah.
And do what everyone else is doing in the industry. So it's been difficult to work so hard on building a business model where we didn't do anything like that. Which we've achieved. That is what we've achieved. Yeah, we don't— we're totally above board. But to actually build the business in that way when everyone else is able to charge so much less and make, you know, they charge less and they make a higher margin, is difficult. And the way we did it is really we scaled up and we made sure that the kind of people that we wanted as our clients respected that if you're paying someone living wage And there's VAT on it, it's going to be a higher price and they're cool with that.
And do you have a lot of repeat customers?
Yeah, we do. So at the moment we're about 70% repeat.
That's pretty good.
Yes, we've got a subscription-based service where if you book once and you like it, we assign one of our team to you and you're with them every 4 weeks or 6 weeks or whatever. So our business model doesn't work unless we do a great job, they really like it, and then they keep booking.
Right, that's brilliant. That's great.
Yeah.
Um, so if you could offer one piece of advice to our listeners, which— what help would that be with their purpose?
With their purpose, as in—
Yeah, and what could it be? I mean, what piece of advice would you give to them if their purpose— so for you it's staff and looking after your staff, etc. So what piece of advice would you give to another person listening to this podcast?
Hey, can you hear me okay?
Yes, yes.
Sorry, you just froze there. I think that the number one piece of advice, certainly around people, is— and there's kind of a few parts to it— when we're interviewing people, one of the first questions of the first things that I start to ask about. I really ask about them in quite an informal, casual way, and I try and build up a picture of what's this person trying to achieve and what do they care about.
Hmm.
And then I say, so how can we help with that? How do you— how does working here align with what you want to achieve? And, you know, I really take time to get to know the people that we've got on board, not because I think it's a good business move, although it is, because I actually enjoy it. And I try and figure out what kind of person is this person trying to become. You know, for a lot of our guys, it's they want to become a family guy who earns enough to support, you know, a wife and 2 kids or whatever, and while also having a good work-life balance, while also having job satisfaction, while being able to go away on holiday. And I think so we treat people like they're that person already. No matter sort of what the position that they've come from, you know, I try and figure out who do they want to be, and then we just treat them like that person. And we sort of give them the benefit of the doubt and really see the potential in them. And, and, and, you know, sort of there's some KPIs that come with that for me that are sort of my personal KPIs on a business. You know, for example, one of the things that I think about a lot is Does this person's wife or husband notice a difference in them because of the work that they're doing with us?
Okay, that's brilliant.
That's—
yeah, absolutely. That's fascinating. So you really do start from almost from day one, from interview, and that's where you start your whole process of ensuring that your end customer has— gets a good, you know, gets a really good valet. It starts from day one for you, and there's a whole cycle, and you're thinking about absolutely everything, and it's all about your staff and how they are and how they're treated.
Yeah, the reality is, you know, from them— from 2 weeks in, and they're— or 6 weeks, when their training's finished, they're gonna be in a van on their own, and I'm gonna see them like once a month. And I'm never going to get to see the jobs that they do. I'm very rarely going to get to see how clean their van is. I don't know how they speak to customers.
Hmm.
We obviously, we've got systems to get feedback and things like that, but they could be getting— they could get away with doing less than they're capable of. And the way that we've survived where that is the case and it's low margin and it's, you know, you can't afford to pay them huge wages, is just by really looking after them, you know, give them an offer. That's so good, a community and a sort of family environment that's so good that they really want to stay and be part of it. And they get that to be part of it, there's a standard that we've all got for each other and we hold each other accountable for that.
Brilliant. So what's the best way that we can connect with you and we can learn more about your business?
Probably Facebook. We update everything on Facebook, so we're facebook.com/freshcarvaleting. Or in terms of me personally, it's probably my email.
Okay, and we'll put all of those up in the show notes at the end of the podcast. Thank you very much, Sam, for coming on to the Green Element Podcast. If you do want to know more, freshcarvaleting.co.uk. And yeah. Thank you for listening.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Cheers.
Cheers.
Thanks so much for listening. We created this podcast for you, so we'd really appreciate any feedback that you want to give us, and you can do that by rating and reviewing on your favorite podcast platform. If you'd like to keep in touch, then we invite you to join our free Facebook community, which has got everything to do with sustainable and ethical business. There are lots of daily conversations, lots of themes, inspiration, ideas, and a really great place to network with like-minded people. If you head over to Facebook and search for The Green Elements, hit the groups search function, and then just send us a request to join, we'll let you right in. All of the show notes, any links, and any references in this podcast will be featured on our website. So if you head to www.greenelement.co.uk, you'll be able to access those right away. We look forward to seeing you next week and hope you have a wonderful day.
