Starting Your Own Detailing Business | Interview with Reflectionz by Eric

I have a very special guest with me today, Eric Robinson of Reflectionz by Eric Detailing. And what we’re going to do with this episode, instead of showing you how to work on a car, we’re actually going to tackle the topic of what is it like to start up your own detailing business, whether it’s mobile or in a fixed location?

When you look at a business, if someone decides, you know, I’m not really the kind of person that wants to take orders and work for another company, I want to start my own business, there’s a lot of different opportunities you could go into. I would use the example like a franchise for Kentucky Fried Chicken or, you know, a pizza parlor, sandwich shop. There’s just a lot of opportunities out there. But a lot of those take a lot of large contributions of money up front to get them started and get them off the ground.

Where in the detailing world, at least at this point, because there’s so little rules and regulations, I mean, virtually, a guy can get a wash bucket and a wash mitt, and he’s in business.

The Simplicity of Starting in Detailing

That’s the truth. Now, we know how scary those guys can be.

Eric: Oh, yeah.

Mike: They create a lot of work for us.

Eric: Oh, yeah.

Mike: To keep us going. But that’s how simple it is to get started. And you know, a long time ago, one of my friends, he shared, he said something that was funny. And the reason it was funny is because it was true. He said, you know, Mike, when a guy loses his job, the next day he’s either in lawn care or detailing.

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: And I thought, yeah, he’s got a lawnmower, he’s got a wash bucket, and a buffer.

So with the detailing industry, it’s always going to be a lot less expensive to start out mobile because you’ve got no fixed overhead. You don’t got electric bill, utilities, shop lease, insurance. But at the same time, and I know you’ve experienced this, you spend a lot of time on the road.

Challenges of Mobile Detailing

I had a lot of friends that were mobile detailers out in California, in the Los Angeles area, and their biggest complaint was the traffic. You think, well, I’m gonna go do a job that’s five hours, which is then two hours getting there and two hours getting out of there.

So there’s always the downside of being mobile, whereas a fixed location, if the customers bring you the car, then you’re not on the road, obviously.

Eric’s Journey into Detailing

To get started here, I’ve kind of just written down some questions. And let’s just kind of go through them. So why or how did you first get started in detailing? I think you shared maybe your dad was into it?

Eric: Yeah, yeah. So I grew up with my dad. He was very picky with all the vehicles, big car guy, cars, motorcycles, boats, all that stuff. So I kind of grew up with it.

The Early Influence of Family

Eric: Yeah, I grew up with him telling me, don’t touch that. Don’t touch this. So it worked out. So all in all, I kind of fell into it in a sense, you know. So how he was with me, I turned out worse than him. So like I said, I see way more than him now. I kind of just fell into it, really.

Mike: So you’re a lot more OCD than he ever was.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. I see stuff. I point stuff out to him nowadays.

Mike: So you got the disease.

Eric: Oh yeah, a little worse than that.

Early Beginnings and Family Influence

Mike: What age would you say that you started gravitating into? Maybe like you started out detailing mom and dad’s cars? I’m sure a lot of detailers started out that way or your own car. But what age do you think it was when you started to go, you know, this is kind of the direction I want to go, and you started looking at this as a business and doing it for, you know, clients?

Eric: Okay. So it was a little bit later. I worked at car washes growing up, all that stuff. I worked for a mobile guy doing some mobile work. But I would say probably it was late for me, probably late, maybe mid-twenties, twenty-five. You know, so it started late to actually say like, okay, actually, you know, I’m actually really good at this, so I can make something out of it. So I started doing it part-time from there.

Mike: Gotcha. And in context, late-twenties would be young to me.

Eric: Yeah, I’d be old now.

Mike: I don’t mean to interject, but what did you do before detailing?

Eric: Before detailing, actually, my dad owns a tree business, so I ran his tree trimming company, and I absolutely hated it.

Mike: Lawn care.

Eric: Yeah, it is, right? You’re the lawn care or your detailer.

Dream Cars and Unique Projects

Mike: Okay, so then I always like to ask this question, but… you know, out of all the cars you’ve detailed—and I’m sure it’s a really wide spectrum—is there any one that really stands out that you’re like, God, I finally got to work on my dream car? Or something that’s rare, one of one, that kind of thing?

Eric: Yeah, we’ve done a couple of one-on-one cars. You know, the F88 we did last year, we spoke about briefly. Some one-off Ferraris before, but… I’m really now I’m leaning towards some of the antiques because I’m still learning the antiques myself, you know, the history behind them. So that’s kind of what’s grabbing my attention. You know, I grew up in the modern age. I grew up with all the modern vehicles still now. So to me, that stuff, you know, a lot of Ferraris, love them, you know, great-looking vehicles, beautiful piece of art. Yeah, but, um, I’m leaning towards the antiques.

Mike: Classics, street rods, muscle cars.

Eric: Muscle cars, yeah.

Mike: Even pre-war?

Eric: Yeah, pretty much like that. You know, if you look back at some of those vehicles and the detail they had into them, and they came up with that far, that long ago.

The Challenges of Antique Detailing

Mike: And I’m just the opposite. I do not like working on things like the Durants or the vintage Cadillacs. They’re big, they’re ornate, they’re complicated. A lot of times they got gold leaf pinstriping, a lot of metal polishing work. They’re just complicated. I mean, it’s great to consider it a challenge, but I always joke my favorite car to buff out is like a ’69 Chevelle.

And if you think about it, it’s just big, flat panels, kind of a lot of gentle curve, no plastic trim, chrome. You run the buffer over the chrome. So, but that’s kind of cool. I think if I had to choose one, it’d be the Batmobile, the one out in California. I think I’ve detailed it three times. And the guy that owns it is incredibly talented. He built it from scratch. He got the molds pulled off the original molds that Chuck Barris made from a guy that owns them in Canada, and he built everything else. But the guy cannot touch paint to save his life. Might as well just give him an SOS Brillo pad and tell him to wash his car because the results are gonna be the same.

Overcoming Challenges in Starting a Business

Mike: What would you say is the most difficult hurdle you had to overcome when you’re starting either your mobile or your fixed location?

Eric: So, the most difficult part is basically the initial startup. And when I say that, it’s people questioning you, doubting you in a sense like, hey, you know, are you sure you’re going to wash cars? You know, but they don’t see what I see. So I’m looking at the bigger picture. They see it as a car wash guy, right? So it’s a lot of doubt, a lot of, you know, just negative attitude towards it. But once you overcome that, you know, you’re good to go for the most part. If you see it, run with it. You know, other than that, another difficult hurdle is growth.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: You know, what’s the next step? You go from mobile to this to that. What’s your next step and how do you make that step?

Perception of the Detailing Industry

Mike: I think even today, if someone says, “What do you do for a living?” and I say, “Well, I detail cars,” sometimes I feel like, “Oh, that’s all I do. I just detail cars.” But I work on some pretty cool cars. But I do a lot more than that. I’m more into the content creation and that kind of thing, which takes some real talent to do.

Eric: Let me know when you have some.

Mike: But detailing cars, it’s one of those things where… For a lot of people, it’s not a must-have, it’s a want-to-have. You know, they don’t want to detail their car. They want someone that knows what they’re doing. And I’m sure you’ve run into a lot of people that have tried the cheap guy, and then they come find you.

Eric: Oh yeah.

Mike: And you’ve got to do someone’s work over. So once somebody finds somebody that knows what they’re doing, they usually tend to stick with them. And any time they go away, they usually end up regretting it. So it’s a valuable service to be able to take somebody’s car in neglected condition and restore it back to better-than-factory-new condition and earn that customer’s trust.

The Importance of Passion in Detailing

Eric: Of course. And it’s a talent. It’s a skill. And I always tell people it’s not a grinding process, you know, like step one, step two. We bring the human elements of care and passion. Like I’m sure that you’re like me, you mentally kind of adopt the car as your own and you treat it like it’s your own.

Mike: Of course.

Eric: And then the results always come out fabulous versus, you know, a lot of people that get their job, say, at a detail shop or in a car wash lot, that kind of thing. They’re just there to pick a checkup.

Mike: Exactly.

Eric: And they just really don’t care what they’re doing. They drop them in, wash the car, and scratch it up. They don’t care. It’s a weekly paycheck to them.

Pricing and Competition in Detailing

Mike: Okay. Pricing competition. So one of my friends, he’s up in Fort Pierce. He called me up the other day and says, you know, “Mike, I’ve been having a hard time staying busy detailing cars.” And he says in the last year, there’s been thirty-two new detailing businesses that have started up within twenty miles of me. And again, remember we went through COVID. A lot of people transitioned out of their job and then they started a detailing business. So there’s a lot of competition. And that just makes it, you know, you’ve got to work harder to promote your business. And then you’ve got to compete with the low-end guys, and hopefully you’re in the high end, you know.

Mike: But how have you had to deal with that, or what have you seen the changes since COVID?

Eric: Since COVID, I mean, well, some people were, they were spending money back then. So pricing was never really an issue for me. You know, you do a quality job, and there’s a market for everybody. You know, if you want to do a twenty-dollar car wash, there’s plenty of people that would love to have you do a twenty-dollar car wash. You know, if you’re doing a hundred, hundred-and-fifty-dollar car wash, there’s plenty of people for that. So it’s just I learned to stay in my lane. I’m not the most expensive, and I’m not the cheapest, you know, but I do the quality work.

Navigating Competition in the Detailing World

Eric: So the pricing and competition, I don’t really look at everybody as competition, really. You know, I don’t see them. I do my stuff. If I’m too focused on competition, then I’m not going anywhere myself.

Mike: And then the big picture, and this is where like in the greater car detailing community, a lot of times you’ll see guys that are real mature, and they’ll point out, hey, there’s a lot of cars out there. You don’t have to worry about not having enough cars. The real thing starts just doing a good job first and building up a good reputation, get that word of mouth going for you.

Growth During COVID: The Sanitizing Business Boom

Mike: And then the other thing I wanted to point out was that during COVID, you know, and this is just a few years ago, it seems like it was forever ago, but a whole new industry started up, and that was sanitizing cars. You know, get rid of, worried about the germs, you know, you trade a car in, you don’t want to touch the steering wheel. So that started a whole new— it just really grew, I think, the interior side that maybe a lot of guys weren’t paying attention to. And now that’s part of their business model.

Starting Out with a Mobile Setup

Mike: Looking behind me, I see this really cool-looking van. It’s very eye-catching. So, when you first started out, did you have a van like this? Because I’ve used personal cars. Like, one time I had a 1966 Chevy milk truck. That was pretty cool. Street rod, but also my detailing van. What was your first car when you started out mobile?

Eric: My first car, I had a pickup truck. I’d go to people’s homes, had a pickup truck, just like you said in the beginning. A bucket, a hose, I’m using their water. So I had to start somewhere, right? But I was still very picky back then, as I am now. So I had a pickup truck.

In the beginning, I started out a lot of car collections, little guys, a couple of cars, three, four, five cars. And they had me take care of their vehicles. So I didn’t have a fixed location at the time. I just started out the back of my truck, show up there, my polisher, everything I need, wash the car, pull it inside and do it.

Mike: Keep it in like bins, sealed bins?

Eric: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so I’m an organized person, so everything was always organized. I had it all in plastic bins, microfibers covered up in the bins, and it was out the back of the truck. But if you opened the back of my truck, you’d be surprised.

Fixed Location vs Mobile Detailing

Mike: Yeah. You know, one of the things—I’ve had three fixed locations and I always do mobile. But one of the things at some point in my life I noticed is you’ll get some customers that, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a shop, they’re just not going to bring their car in. You have to go to them. Maybe they don’t want rock chips. I did a Ferrari Testarossa, a 250 Testarossa. I mean, the last one that sold was like thirty million dollars. They don’t want to drive that to the shop and have some Honda hit it. Now you’re going to fix that. So you have to be mobile for some clients.

Eric: Yes, of course.

Mike: And I actually remember one time my daily driver was a 1974 Datsun 260Z. And I mostly do paint correction. So it’s a hatchback. You lift it up. You can throw your towels, a bucket, a polisher, extension cords, and take a van. I can do everything I needed out of a small hatchback sports car. But at the same time, this is great marketing. Because every time I see you drive around, my eyes just go to it. And I know a lot of people do too.

Mike: Would you say that you get a lot of people that call you when they see your van? They’re sitting at the light going, “Oh yeah, I wanted to get the car detailed,” and they write your phone number down.

Eric: Yes, I do. I definitely get a lot of calls on the road. Even before the van, I had my truck. Then I went to a trailer, got my trailer. So I have a big lifted truck and a big trailer behind it. That was a rolling billboard itself. So definitely with the vans, trailers, huge marketing.

Scaling the Business: Vans and Trailers

Mike: Do you have just this van or do you have more than one?

Eric: I have two vans, and I just sold my trailer. We’ll be replacing that with another van shortly.

Mike: Another van?

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: Yeah, so the thing about—and correct me if I’m wrong, because I’ve never had a trailer. I always just had a rig—but as soon as you get a van, sometimes you’ve got to back into things. You’ve got to haul it somewhere. You’re always connected. Sometimes it can just get kind of tight depending on the residential area you’re in.

Eric: Yes, the van’s the way to go. The trailer, it’s big, gets in the way sometimes. Unless you’re doing big old commercial accounts and fleet vehicles and stuff like that.

Mike: Something I never want to do.

Eric: Yeah, it’s not that fun. It still pays, but it’s not that fun.

Mike: Yeah, it’s not that fun. Okay, well, that’s a great answer.

The Cost of a Van Wrap

Mike: And if you could, what does a wrap like this cost? Just give the audience like a general idea if they’ve never called and got an estimate.

Eric: I mean, you know, the wrap prices are everywhere. You got guys, you know, cheap prices trying to get some work. But let’s say, you know, something like this, I would say anywhere around four thousand dollars or so, depending on the artwork. If you’re doing a full wrap, half wrap, really depends on the extent you’re going.

Mike: How many years have you been getting out of a good wrap?

Eric: I mean, this one—we just rewrapped this about a year ago, a year and a half ago. But I’d say… I mean, to be honest, I haven’t kept them long on my personal vans.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: You know, a customer’s vehicle is definitely, you know, two years, three years easy.

Mike: Sure.

Eric: As long as, you know, everything is only as good as you take care of it. If you wrap your vehicle and you just sit it outside, you never wash it, it just gets baked in the sun and beat up, it’s not going to last.

Mike: In South Florida here, nothing lasts for long.

Eric: If you take care of it, it’ll last.

Securing a Fixed Shop Location

Mike: Okay. So, you have an awesome shop. It’s just right down the road from our shop. What was it like getting into that shop? I mean, when we located this shop, I mean, because of COVID, there have been so many people moving out of other states to Florida. And not only did housing and rentals become less available, but commercial real estate is hard to find around here.

Eric: Yes. Yeah, no, it’s very hard. So the shop that I have now, we didn’t start there. We had actually right around the corner here, we had a one-bay shop over off of Ellipse there. So it was a one-bay, one-car shop. And it was actually my buddy’s shop at the time. He was doing some audio work. That was before I had the mobile setup.

Mike: Is that the UPS driver?

Eric: Yes. Yeah, that’s him.

Mike: Yeah, he’s a good guy.

Eric: Oh yeah. So before I had any of the mobile setups—no trailer, no van, anything like that—I really started, I wasn’t the car wash guy or the detailer. I was more of paint correction, you know, getting into polish, and I was big on the polisher. So I would rent that shop out from him per car. So I get a car coming in, he’d let me bring it in and do a correction, polish, or ceramic coat, whatever I had to do. I would, you know, do per vehicle.

Eric: And then it came to a time where, alright, I’m starting to use a lot of the shop now. So we split the shop. It was a small shop, but you gotta start somewhere. You know, it got me going into the shop I’m in now. Now we’ve got, you know, definitely a bigger shop, a lot more upgraded, everything from the lighting, everything we have. And we’re still looking to grow, actually. We’re looking for a bigger one now.

Mobile vs Fixed Location: Monthly Costs

Mike: And kind of one of the primary differences between being mobile and then having a fixed location or a brick-and-mortar store is every month you’ve got your monthlies.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: You know, lease, electric, internet—like here, water I think is free here. Water is free for you, isn’t it?

Eric: Yeah. Well, we have a contract with a local water company to get DI water.

Mike: Oh, DI water?

Eric: Yeah, we fill up all our vans with spot-free DI water.

Mike: So you have these fixed costs every single month as a mobile detailer. So here’s what that actually means when you apply it. If you’re mobile, you can be kind of picky. Someone says, “Hey, you want to do this car?” You’re like, “Nah, not really.”

But as soon as you get a fixed location, it’s like usually you’ll take anything that calls.

Eric: Oh yeah.

Mike: Because you’ve got to do a certain amount of volume every single month just to pay. So if you’re thinking about getting into a shop, that’s one of the differences between being mobile and having a fixed location—once you get a fixed location, you’ve got to generate a certain amount of income every single month just to cover your basic costs.

Eric: Yeah, of course.

Mike: It’s that overhead. You’ve got to hustle.

Eric: Yeah, you do.

Mike: And then you start taking anything that calls. “Hey, I’ve got a Chrysler Town & Country van. It really needs the interior done. Will you do it?” “Oh yeah, bring it in.” Goldfish and all.

Managing Volume with Mobile Services

Mike: So that’s just one of the differences you’ve got to think about. Okay. What kind of volume do you do with the mobile business?

Eric: So we’re still busy with mobile. Our mobile service actually is a little bit more right now than our in-shop services. We’re about sixty percent mobile. So we have a lot of, you know, steady weekly, bi-weekly customers, contracts, stuff like that. So we’re about sixty percent mobile.

Mike: Do you do a lot of maintenance washes for established customers?

Eric: Yes.

Mike: Can I ask you what you charge for that?

Eric: Oh, so our maintenance package starts at a hundred dollars.

Mike: A hundred dollars?

Eric: Wash, vacuum, window, wipe down interior.

Mike: Yeah, details, but a quality job.

Eric: Oh yeah, of course. Our regular wash is what somebody would call a detail.

Importance of Maintenance Washes

Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know that a lot of detailers, when they start out, you know, besides doing the initial detail, a lot of customers—I mean, I always make the joke that all people know how to do nowadays is, you know, push the button, start the car. They don’t know anything else. You know, you’ve got to paint tires, all that plastic trim. And they just don’t want to do it if they can find someone that can do it for them.

And the thing that has to take place to most cars most of the time is it has to get washed. You detail it once, but it has to get washed a lot. And again, here in Florida, I mean, you can set your wristwatch by how often it rains. At three o’clock every day, it rains.

Eric: Oh yeah.

Mike: So if you’re driving on the road, then you get splatter all over everything. And there’s always such a risk with taking your car to any kind of car wash. I mean, some people say, “Well, I take my car to a hand wash.” Well, with your hand wash, that’s one thing, because you’re going to inspect your wash mitts, and everything’s going to be in order. But when you go to a commercial or retail car wash, you don’t know if that wash mitt has been dropped on the ground a hundred times, if the bucket’s full of grime and dirt, and now they’re washing your black Lexus. You just get what you pay for in this world.

Offering Maintenance Services

Mike: So I’ve always told mobile detailers getting into the business that it’s a real nice thing to offer your established customers to do a maintenance wash because that way you can take care of your hard work. You can monitor if anything’s going south on it, you know, maybe you picked up something off the road, a stain or something, and you can correct it and stay on top of it. Versus when they’re just on their own, you know, you’ll see them in another year and it needs the full detail again.

Eric: Oh yeah.

Mike: So being able to offer a maintenance wash and then just the pricing. Like I’ve always told people, you need to be right around that hundred-dollar mark. I’ve noticed some guys that charge seventy-five, but maybe they’re not at the level you’re at. And I’m sure there are other guys out there that charge even more than that for high-end luxury cars, show up at someone’s shop, do all their cars at once.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Expanding Services: Paint Protection Film (PPF) and Window Tinting

Mike: So, what’s the level of work that you’re doing in the shop now? You do both PPF and window tinting too?

Eric: Yes. Yep.

Mike: So those are the things you can add on to your business. So if maybe paint correction is slow, you got other things to bring income in.

Eric: Of course, yeah. So we pretty much do it all. From vinyl wraps, window tint, paint protection film, ceramic coatings, pretty much concourse details, do a lot of big concourse shows.

Mike: So a lot of car shows here in Florida.

Eric: Oh, there sure is.

Mike: Okay, so, what’s the volume like that? Like, you know, one car a week to ten cars a week?

Eric: We’re in a little bit of a slow season right now, but I mean, when we’re talking PPF, we could definitely do a few cars a week. Three, four, five cars a week. But then we get down to a slow season, maybe one or two.

Mike: What is the slow season?

Eric: I’m still, I guess, down here when it comes to the PPF. Not my quality, but my name isn’t up there, really. You know, with PPF, we just started that over the past couple of years. There are a couple big names around here.

Mike: And I get people that ask me all the time, “Hey, who can put a clear bra on my car?” In the future, I’ll start sending them to you.

Eric: Yeah, thank you.

Mike: And that’s something like we taught a five-day class out in Chicago, Dr. Beasley’s did. And one of the things on the fourth day, we went out to Car Warehouse Supplies, and I had my first chance to actually install PPF on the hood of a car, and I thought I was pretty good at it.

Mike: I have no desire to do it.

Eric: (Laughs)

Mike: Now, I was horrible at window tinting.

Eric: (Laughs) Yeah.

Mike: And to be honest, I’m not the professional. I got a professional window tinter that I had working for me.

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: It’s the back window. You got to be a contortionist to get in there. I’m too big to get back there.

Eric: Oh, it’s just tough.

Mike: It’s something no one ever thinks about. The side windows, no big deal. It’s that back window on a passenger car.

Advice for Adding PPF or Window Tinting to a Detailing Business

Mike: Okay. So, if you had to give some advice then, say someone’s got an established detailing business or they’re starting it, but they wanted to add window tinting or PPF. What would your best advice be? Take a class from an established brand, or get some training, hire people that have already been trained? What would you tell them?

Eric: Of course, I would definitely start with a class. If you’ve never had your hands on film before, you definitely want to get your hands. You want to know what you need to do, what the quality job looks like, the right way to do things. If you have the time to be able to pick that up and do quality work, run with it. Then that’s great.

Eric: If, if you’re kind of, you know, slacking off on the time, you don’t have the time to perfect it, I would recommend, you know, looking to hire that perfectionist, that professional.

Mike: So that’s their area of expertise?

Eric: Yes. That’s their passion.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: And it’s not, everybody’s blessed to be able to do everything in the shop, you know.

Eric: Yes, of course.

Mike: And I’m not, I don’t do everything in the shop, but I can have my hands on everything.

Eric: Yeah, it’s good to find people that are specialized. And especially if it’s their passion, they’re going to care about what they’re doing.

Mike: Yeah, exactly.

Challenges in PPF Application

Mike: I was at another shop over in Jensen Beach, and while I was there, a gentleman brought in a brand new Denali black four-by-four truck. I don’t know if it’s a Denali, but a big brand new Chevrolet truck. High Sierra, I think. And wanted a full wrap on the whole front clip.

Mike: And I watched this young guy come over and do it. And I looked at it and I sat back and go, man, that looks good. And then the owner came and looked, goes, “Oh no, there’s dust everywhere under this. You’ve got to do it over.”

Eric: (Laughs)

Mike: I felt so bad for that kid. And it’s not fun to have to redo that.

Eric: No, it’s not.

Mike: If I was him, I’d say, “Oh, it’s a work truck.” I would have gone with it. But you know, you got picky customers.

Eric: Yeah, a lot of my customers come in, they’re picky about everything.

Social Media and Promoting a Detailing Business

Mike: Okay, so let’s talk about social media. Back in the old days, you put an ad in the newspaper or the yellow pages. Nowadays, we’ve got Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Those are probably the top three. TikTok. How much time and energy do you put into social media as far as showing the work you’ve done or promoting your businesses that you offer, the services you offer?

Eric: So I slacked off a lot on social media over the past year.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: It’s time-consuming. Yeah, it took up too much of my time. I was busy with work, and it’s hard because I have my hands in everything at work. So when it came to social media, unfortunately, I didn’t put all my time and effort into it. I wish I would have because maybe I would have been at that next level from where I’m at now. But just recently, I hired a marketing girl. So she takes care of my social media, my Instagram, Facebook, all that stuff.

Mike: Frees you up to manage the business?

Eric: Yes.

Mike: And she does that? Again, someone who specializes?

Eric: Oh yeah, and that’s been worthwhile.

The Importance of Delegating Social Media

Eric: Yes, that’s been great. She comes in, takes videos, pictures, all that professional stuff, instead of me just breaking out my phone.

Mike: Well, the phones nowadays are good, but…

Eric: Yeah, you know, it just wasn’t working.

Mike: Oh no, there’s—you know, it’s kind of funny, like if you’re an older person and the computer breaks, the joke is we need to find a teenager, right?

Eric: (Laughs) Exactly.

Mike: But there’s definitely a learning curve to do things like using CapCut or just any of the software that’s available for your phone to take your mundane video and then spice it up to make it eye-catching so people actually watch it.

Eric: Of course.

Mike: And then they take action from it.

Eric: Yeah, that editing, it takes time. You’ve got to know what you’re doing.

Building a Professional Website

Mike: Okay, now I was up on your website, and it’s really nice.

Eric: Thank you.

Mike: It’s laid out nice. If you’re a customer and you’re looking for PPF or tinting or detailing or whatever you want, it’s pretty easy to navigate, figure out what you want, hone in, and then contact you to take care of that. But I’m just going to take a guess here that this is not your first website?

Eric: It is my first website.

Mike: It is?

Eric: It is.

Mike: Has it gone through any kind of evolution?

Eric: It has not. It probably needs it.

Mike: Look at that. He’s gleaming now.

Eric: (Laughs) It probably needs it, though. But thank you. I appreciate it. But that is my first website.

Mike: The reason I’m asking this is because, you know, if you go up into the Facebook groups, I see the young guy—the new guy. I don’t want to say young because I’ve got a lot of people that take my classes that are retiring from their career job and they want to start a detailing business. They’re old guys. But you see this question, “Do I need a website? How should I get a website? How much should I pay? Where should I go to have it built?” And so the real key is, for you, you got lucky and found someone that could actually do what they said they could do—build you a quality website.

Eric: Yep, no, I got lucky with that. And actually, it took me a while to get a website up. Once again, I was slacking. It was my first time owning a business, running it, starting it, growing it. So I just got my website three years ago. Once again, I wish I would have done it earlier, but you live and you learn.

The Importance of Having a Website for Business

Mike: Yeah. In context, that’s not very long.

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: I always remember in the early days of the internet—so back in the 90s, the internet popped up around, I don’t know, in the 90s. I remember surfing the web when I worked at a place called Hewlett-Packard, and the only websites that were up were either college kids or military. I mean, there wasn’t no BestBuy.com, and none of that stuff existed. But in context, three years, that’s fairly new because the internet has been around for about, what, thirty years now?

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: I think I saw a statistic one time that said in 1996, AOL only had a half a million customers, which is nothing. And it’s the virgin era of the internet.

Overcoming Florida’s Heat and Humidity While Detailing

Mike: Okay, oh, this is a great question. So let me preface this with my experience moving from Southern California to Florida. So the first time I detailed a car, I was out in a parking lot just like this. I started at 8:30 in the morning, and by 9 a.m. I was 100 percent drenched in sweat. I never experienced so much humidity in my life. So, how do you deal and overcome with that?

Eric: You gotta stay hydrated, obviously, wear protective sunscreen or hats, you know, light colors.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: We definitely wear hats. We’ve got our big, you know, big hats covering the sun. Water is major. Definitely have to stay hydrated. It’s tough. It’s one of those things, either you can do it or you can’t do it. People don’t understand, “Oh, you’re just washing cars.” Well, it’s hot out there. It’s humid. And that drains your energy.

Mike: Oh, it definitely does.

Eric: So, in the summertime, I slow up. I could wash X amount of cars in the wintertime, and then come the summertime, maybe I’m taking three cars off that list just because we slow down. There’s nothing you can do about it. I slow down, my cars slow down, and I expect that. It’s hot out there. We’re dying. It’s hot.

Mike: And for those that might be geographically challenged, a winter here in Florida is like…

Eric: (Laughs)

Mike: Humidity drops. You know, with 80 percent humidity, and that’s a cool day.

Eric: Oh yeah, that’s beautiful.

Mike: So, when he talks about in the summer when it’s hot, you know, you’re at 100-degree temperatures, 90 percent humidity.

Eric: And then the rain.

Mike: And then after it rains…

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: In Oregon, we call that liquid sunshine.

Eric: (Laughs)

Transitioning from Sole Proprietor to Employer

Mike: Okay, so here’s another question. You started out by yourself, but now you’ve got partners or employees?

Eric: Yes.

Mike: So, both?

Eric: Yeah, employees.

Mike: Employees?

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: Okay. And I know just from being in the industry a long time that most detailers start out as a sole proprietorship or an LLC, and then there’s that step to go from you doing all the work to bringing on an employee. And it’s a huge step. It’s like a whole different side of the business that now you’ve got to be involved with. So can you share anything about how you managed that?

Eric: It was hard, and it still is hard, to be honest. Yeah. Hiring employees and the right people to do the job is always going to be a challenging part of owning any business, especially in the detailing industry.

Eric: So I actually—surprisingly, I hired one of my good friends I grew up with. I know that’s a no-no. A lot of people don’t do that. But we were just in conversation back and forth, back and forth. And we sat down, and it’s like, all right, well, this is what we’re going to do. Business is business. Friendship is friendship. Besides that, he’s been great. Everything’s been good.

Mike: He’s watching this video.

Eric: Oh, I’m sure he is.

Mike: He stopped working, and he’s watching this.

Eric: (Laughs) Yeah. But it’s been great. You know, I got lucky with that part. But it’s a big jump. It’s a big jump to be able to hire somebody. So now it’s another expense you’re adding on, you know, onto your weekly, monthly, yearly basis.

The Costs of Hiring Employees

Eric: Workman’s comp.

Mike: Workman’s comp.

Eric: Just the liability, taxes, you know, the commercial insurance, all this stuff in advance. It’s just, it’s a huge, it’s a huge—to do it the right way.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: To do it the right way, legit way. It’s a big step to hire just one person.

Mike: And then…

Eric: Let alone three or four.

Mike: You’ve got to keep them busy.

Eric: Yeah, of course. And then, you know, when—if we slow down, you know, we’ve had times where we slow down.

Mike: Yeah.

Eric: You know, and guess what? I don’t send my guys home. Like, it’s my job. I hired them. I’ve got to keep them with a check.

Mike: Right.

Eric: So, yeah, you’ve got to keep them going.

The Challenges of Scaling a Detailing Business

Mike: I know that that’s usually the biggest hurdle for most people: to go from that one-person shop to having employees. It’s a huge hurdle.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: Luckily, there are a lot of Facebook groups out there that, if you need help, you can ask a question. And, you know, you always have, you know, the bullies, the cyberbullies. You always have the guys that are jerks, but you always have the guys that are really nice.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: They’ll help you. They don’t expect anything in return. They’ll just tell you how to do it, give you a link or a phone number, and here’s what you need to do.

Eric: Yeah, I’ve had that growing through the business.

Mike: Yeah, the industry has been good to a lot of people.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: So I talk to a lot of people, not even in the car industry, but when it comes to right now, it’s so hard to find good help—people with a strong work ethic. They’ll show up on time. They’ll continue to show up. It’s just really challenging. And so when you do get a good person, you want to retain them.

Eric: Yes.

Retaining Good Employees

Mike: Because just the cost of losing them and retraining somebody and bringing them on costs a lot more than, say, just whatever it takes to keep them there: a good raise, a bonus, a pat on the back.

Eric: Of course.

Mike: It costs a lot to hire somebody else, not just the initial, not your weekly check, but the training.

Eric: Training, yes.

Mike: You invest a lot into that one person.

Eric: Exactly.

Outsourcing Bookkeeping and Payroll

Mike: Okay, so let’s see. Keep going on this business thing, and then we’re going to kind of open this. We’re going to take a look at your van because it’s really well laid out. But this real short answer is when it comes to the business side, what would you tell people about the bookkeeping, taxes, billing, invoices, payroll? Do you find other sources to manage this for you?

Eric: I do. Yes, I do.

Mike: That’s the best thing for me. I kind of knew that ahead of time, but I wanted you to share that with everyone.

Eric: Yes, no, I do. I can’t do it all. And there’s no way I’m knowledgeable in all that sense. So if you find somebody good, definitely stick with them and run with it.

Mike: So that’s something you just want to outsource. You can’t wear every hat.

Eric: No, you can’t.

Mike: You can’t do it.

Eric: You can’t do it all.

Mike: And then focus on what you’re good at.

Eric: Yeah, of course.

Taking a Look at the Van Setup

Mike: Okay, well, Yancy, you want to go mobile? Let’s take a look at the van.

Eric: Okay, perfect. Let’s do it.

Mike: Okay, so first of all, this is what they call barn doors. It kind of opens up.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: And what’s nice about this is, you know, if you’re able to pull right up into a driveway or if you’re on the road, you know, everything’s accessible either through the side door or the back door.

Mike: So let’s just go ahead and… let’s wait for Yancy so he can—this is the big moment.

Mike: There you go. Dun, dun, dun.

Eric: (Laughs)

Mike: No confetti bombs?

Eric: (Laughs) No confetti bombs, sorry.

Mike: So these doors, they’ll open up all the way, okay?

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: Just like this. So we got everything we need here. We got all the bottle holders, the brushes we need. We’re running a Kranzle pressure washer. It’s an electric pressure washer, about 1500 PSI. We don’t need much more than that for the vehicles we’re doing.

Mike: Unless you’re trying to clean someone’s four-wheel drive like Yancy’s.

Eric: (Laughs) Yeah, they’re not mud-bogging.

Inside the Van: Tools and Organization

Mike: So we got the generator on a slide-out. That basically is a lot more easy to access. Honda quality.

Eric: It’s amazing. It’s quiet.

Mike: It’s quiet.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: Watch down. Reliable.

Eric: I had it in my old van. I had it in there for quite some time and never had any issues with it.

Mike: Yeah, Hondas are great.

Eric: Yeah, so, right in here we got our microfibers. So we keep them out of the elements, you know, out of the sand.

Mike: Sure.

Eric: So we’re putting it on your vehicles, we’re not scratching it.

Mike: This looks like NewAge.

Eric: Yes, it is. That’s what we got over here.

Mike: Oh yeah, if you need cabinetry, man, NewAge is amazing. I had them in my trailer. I have them in both vans. It’s a great way to go.

Eric: Yeah, no, they’re great. But I guess it just keeps all the microfibers out of elements. And once again, I’m picky. Everything’s color-coordinated, you know. Each microfiber has a job.

Mike: So your black, what’s your black for?

Eric: My black is just like the dirty jobs.

Mike: Dirty jobs?

Eric: Dirty jobs, any kind of wheels, cleaning like that. This is more in the paint, you know. So for doing a quick detail spray, something like that, we’ll do that.

Mike: And what’s nice about a light color is you always want to inspect the towel, and you can see contaminants on the paint.

Eric: Exactly.

Mike: So if you had this black one for paint, it wouldn’t work out that way. You can see everything on this.

Eric: We got our window rags here.

Mike: Window rags.

Eric: Yep. And then we got interior. We’re using this for interior. And then we got some plush ones down here for some of those soft, real soft clear coats.

Mike: Those are the worst, aren’t they?

Eric: I hate them.

Mike: They drive me nuts.

Eric: Yeah, they’re horrible.

Mike: You know, in the last year, I’ve had to deal with two cars that had— the way I would describe it is paint that is so soft, if you look at it the wrong way, it’ll scratch. It’s that soft.

Eric: Oh yeah.

Mike: And one of them is the ‘69 GTO sitting inside of the building. And the owner came to me and says, “It needs to be polished again because he took it to a shop, and the same thing has happened the third time it’s in the shop.” And then the shop technicians, whatever they’re working on—the carburetor, the axles, the brakes—they do him a favor and wipe it down with probably one of those red shop rags.

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: Right? And it’s soft paint. Scratches the heck out of it.

Eric: Yeah, they’re horrible.

Mike: There are quite a few people that have it. So it helps to have the really soft plush towels for that.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Continuing the Van Tour

Mike: Okay, let’s take a look around the other side then.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: You know, when I did a lot of my mobile detailing, for me, it was always the expectation that I would have access to their electricity and their water. But usually, it’d be stuff like—you know, it’s not a mundane daily driver. So, it’s more high-end customers, high-end house.

Eric: Yeah, of course.

Mike: And…

Eric: I like the other side.

Mike: What’s that?

Eric: Well, come around, let’s do that.

Mike: So, we got our water in here. A little messy, we’ve been pretty busy. So we’ve got a hundred-gallon water tank back there. That’s where we keep all our water, spot-free DI water.

Eric: Yes.

Mike: We also have a little DI setup here, just in case for some reason, if we’re had a busy day, we ran a little low at your house. “Hey, can we borrow some water from you?” We’ll do so. We’ll filter it right here into our tank.

Eric: Sure.

Mike: Got our bucket rack. You know, we got our wheel bucket, rinse bucket, and soap-and-water bucket.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: Got to be organized and have them labeled so you don’t mix them up. Because once you get suds in there, you don’t know which one’s which without the label.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Final Look at the Van Setup

Mike: Gotcha. So we got all that going on. Cooler, water, gotta stay hydrated. You also got the—what do they call this, the headache rack?

Eric: Yeah, the suicide rack.

Mike: (Laughs) Oh yeah, partition wall.

Eric: Partition wall, yes, sir.

Mike: And all that’s for is just like if you ever get that brake check, you don’t want everything flying up and hitting the back of your head.

Eric: Exactly.

Mike: Probably the most important part on the van, huh?

Eric: Oh yeah, no, it’s great. It’s great. It keeps some of the chemical smells out too, keeps the AC in the cab, and it works amazing.

Mike: I like this. I don’t see this in a lot of guys’ rigs, but just having some of these to set these out, just so people slow down. I mean, so many people when they’re driving, they’re on their phone.

Eric: (Laughs) Yeah.

Mike: Oh, they come flying by, and then you get hit, you know, just because they’re not paying attention.

Eric: Yeah, the graphics are amazing, by the way.

Mike: Thank you.

Eric: I appreciate it. It’s very eye-catching, and that’s kind of what you want.

Mike: Yes, sir.

The Importance of Branding in Mobile Detailing

Mike: And that’s something that a lot of guys don’t think about, but, you know, having the wrap on your van, it’s like a rolling billboard.

Eric: Yeah, 100 percent.

Mike: So anytime you’re out on the road, I mean, people are seeing it, and it’s just constantly promoting you, even if you’re not detailing a car at that moment.

Eric: Yeah, exactly.

Mike: So that’s really, really important for a mobile business.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Mike: So, do you think that you’re going to stick with two vans or maybe even expand into more?

Eric: We’re looking into expanding more, probably another one soon, actually.

Mike: Another one soon?

Eric: Yes, sir. We’ll be running multiple vans at once.

Expansion Plans and Future Growth

Mike: What’s your vision for the future? Are you planning to stay in South Florida, expand to other areas, or just focus on growing the business here?

Eric: For now, just focusing on South Florida, growing the business here. But who knows? Maybe in the future, we’ll think about expanding to other locations, but right now, we’re just focusing on doing quality work and growing the customer base here.

Mike: Yeah, it’s always a good idea to master your home base before thinking about expanding too far.

Eric: Exactly.

Mike: That way, when you do grow, you’ve got a solid foundation to build on.

Eric: Yes, sir.

Final Thoughts and Advice for Aspiring Detailers

Mike: Well, I think that’s about all the time we have today. This has been an awesome discussion, Eric. You’ve got a great business, and I think a lot of people are going to take away some valuable insights from this.

Eric: Thank you, I appreciate it. It’s been great talking with you and sharing some of my experiences.

Mike: If you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking about getting into the detailing business, what would it be?

Eric: I would say, just stick with it. There will be ups and downs, but if you’re passionate about what you do and you take care of your customers, the business will grow. Stay focused on quality, and don’t cut corners.

Mike: That’s great advice. Thanks again for joining us, Eric, and best of luck as you continue to grow your business.

Eric: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it.