Car Detailing Training: Learn to run your own car detailing business.
Introduction
If you want to start your own
car detailing business, you must:
Learn professional detailing
skills. These include: how to clean engines to like-new, how to
remove carpet and upholstery stains, how to remove odors (food, dog, tobacco),
how to polish and wax paint to a better-than-new finish, how to remove water
spots, how to clean "nooks and crannies" (buttons, vents, switches, under seats,
etc).
Buy professional equipment.
Don't overspend! There are only a few completely necessary items:
wet/dry vacuum, Cyclo polisher/waxer, electric pressure washer, and an air
compressor.
Learn professional marketing
techniques. A modern detail business needs to have great relationships
with local car businesses (dealers, mechanic shops, detail shops, and body
shops) and have an aggressive and very visible website.
There are 3 resources for
training available:
On the job.
Car Detailing Schools.
Train at home.
I'll explore your options
below.
On The Job Training
This is, in my opinion, the
most thorough means of learning the business. However, it is the most difficult
to arrange.
It will require that you work
for 6 weeks at a detail shop at least 1 hour from your home. Contact
detail shops outside of your area and explain that you want to open your own
shop. Emphasize that you will NOT be their competition. Offer to
work for minimum wage or less in exchange for complete training in the technical
and business operations of their shop.
Your first few weeks will be
spent performing actual detailing: in, out, and engines. You will
encounter all the problems (food spills, dog hair, water spots) that come up at
a pro shop. And you will become much faster at fixing them.
3 weeks into your training, you
should begin to learn the business side of the shop: what supplies to buy,
where to buy them, what to pay for them, how to advertise, how to run a website,
how to sell to car dealers, how to greet customers, when to run coupons, how to
handle complaints...all of the many issues that confront a detail business owner
daily.
At the end of 6 weeks, you
should have enough knowledge to venture out on your own. But expect a lot
of new issues to come up in your first 6 months that you will have to fix on
your own.
On the job training only works
if you are willing to drive to a distant shop for 6 weeks, and only if you have
a willing shop owner. You may need to work for free (ie, an internship) to
get a shop owner to agree to this.
Pros: Completely thorough, hands-on training in a real detail
business. Cons: Very difficult to find a shop owner willing to train you.
Detailing Schools
There are many detailing
schools across the country that specialize in training detailing business
owners:
You should enroll for a minimum
of 16 hours training, if not more. Expect to pay at least $1200, including
travel expenses, and be away for at least 3 days. Be sure that you pay for
and receive adequate marketing training as it's marketing--not your ability to
detail--that will make or break your young business.
I have heard great things about
all 4 companies, but in particular, Detailing Success in Boise--run by Renny
Doyle--has a superb reputation.
Pros: Hands-on
technical and marketing training from teachers who have done and seen it all.
Cons:
Expensive. Not a truly real-world experience where you can learn how to
handle real-world customers and real-world problems (broken equipment, odors
that can't be removed, customer complaints, etc.)
Study at Home
There are several study at home options available:
The books and DVDs listed above offer great technical
training. They do show you how to detail cars
quickly and thoroughly. But they are a bit short
on marketing training. They discuss marketing
and sales, in general, but lack specific advice.
For example, they still recommend paying for phone
book advertising. Phone book advertising is
essentially extinct in the car detailing business
today.
"How to Start a Car Detailing Business", an online training
system, is the first of its kind. It offers 4 ebooks, 21 videos, a
website, and a Craigslist ad. Written in 2010 (the others were written and
published years ago), it covers current detailing methods and has the latest
information on how to market on the Internet--the new "honeypot" for finding new
customers.
Pros: Cost and convenience. Cons: Lack of actual hands-on traiing.
Conclusion
How you choose to train ultimately comes down to your budget and
the time you have available. There isn't truly
a right or wrong way to learn how to run a detailing
business. I do have 2 important pieces of
advice for new detailers:
Don't overspend on supplies and equipment.
You can do excellent work with just some basic
equipment and chemicals.
No matter what method you choose to train,
the most important training will occur in your
first 6 months on the job. Every car is
different. Every customer (and their
demands) is different. After 6 months you
will gain significant confidence. Don't
emphasize training TOO much, as the most learning
will come after your training.
