Scaling my car detailing business

[perchboy]

just got into a 1 hour argument with my mom


i have a late start for school tmw morning so i booked someone for tmw morning and planned to make it on time for school after the job.

she was offended that i scheduled them in and turned automatically furious.

she told me i cant go tmw morning and that i have to focus on school.

i told her i have As in my classes (thanks ChatGPT)

she started screaming "why do you even want money!" "what are you gonna do with it?"

i said "everyone wants money. that is why you play the lottery"

she started lecturing how i must focus on school because my deceased father always wanted me to go

i said i dont want to live the same life that he lived

end of convo

my mom will always find something to shame me for. - not just my mom, but everyone will.

i charged a guy $200 and she called me a scammer because its too expensive
i charged a guy $100 and she called me retarted because its too cheap

when i was failing in web design she said i should get a real job and im lazy
now im booked every day with this business and she tells me im overworking and should only work on weekends


but i dont let it phase me anymore.
i dont take advice from people who i wouldnt want to trade lives with

making money is all about your mindset. dont adopt the same beliefs as failures. the failures im talking about account for 99% of people

i still love you though mom. ill retire you in the future

 

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[perchboy]

Fb Ads were off last week due to snow but its getting warm again in my city so I turned them back on today.

Today I booked:
$199 job from Facebook
$199 job from Facebook
$199 job from Facebook (old lead I followed up with)
$249 job from Facebook (nvm it was my friend trolling smh)
$100 price shopper from Facebook who I gave a discount to
$249 job from my Google Page

All on $60 ad spend!

I'm booked out for the next 3 days in a row and have $750 coming in. I also made $340 today and $300 yesterday. Things are going great. If my ad keeps performing like this I'll be over the moon.

Heres a detail I did a couple months ago and heres my new and improved work:

Finished detail I did 2 months ago:
View attachment filtered-9586D9B9-0124-4DF8-895C-E38C197BB0CF.mp4


Detail I did this weekend:


Detail I did today:


I’m still improving my skills and trying to get better every time I detail. I need to provide as much value as I can to my clients so I can get that $.

 

[perchboy]

I'm 15 years old going to highschool in Canada right now and have a car detailing side hustle going on.

I started detailing cars a couple weeks ago and last week I made $800 profit.

I've been finding my clients by spamming posts on the Nextdoor app but there are only so many people on there who need their car detailed so its starting to die down.

Right now my plans are:
- getting my website built by @AlexYega so i can run google ads
- test out facebook ads again (not profitable last time i tried running them
- send out ringless voicemails to everyone in my city and hire a receptionist to answer the calls back and schedule bookings while im in class
- get some business cards printed so i can get referrals after i do jobs
- test out doorhangers

Eventually i want to be so booked up that I have to hire other people to do the jobs. I will get there by putting all my profits back into the business

 

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[perchboy]

Stopped trying to scale as I have a new business venture but I still want some money coming in right now for the sake of it.

I had 3 ways of getting clients:
- GMB - generating tons of leads FOR FREE
- Facebook - was barely breaking even on ads but easily scalable
- Google Ads - decent ROI with poor volume

I was ignoring GMB which was the Lebron James of my team and was instead trying to feed money into the Facebook ads bench warmer. As a result, my sales plummeted in June and July.

Note: searches for mobile detailing went from 210 in may to 70 in June as well.

Here's what I did now that saved the failing business:
I PUT ALL MY FOCUS ONTO GMB - the 1 source that is getting me 90% of the leads
I optimized it until I got ranked not only for "mobile car detailing" but for "car detailing" as well.

Now I'm getting 5x the traffic since car detailing is a much more common search than mobile car detailing.

People call me and I tell them '$200 for us to come out, $100 for you to come" here and they always prefer to come get it done in my driveway.

I finish off their car in 1 hour and I'm done for the day. No advertising costs. No Ubers. No travel time. No mental breakdowns over feeding money into Ads that are not converting. Just a $100/hour side hustle.

 

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[perchboy]

I MADE $620 TODAY

Today I did 2 clients who each had 2 cars and I charged $300 each client for a total of $600. Got a $20 tip as well

Word of mouth advertising is crazy! I gotta focus on doing a good job now and not just trying to hunt down clients. If each customer refers me to one person, I will have an infinite amount of clients and it will keep doubling.

I’m gonna invest into real materials now so I can do a good job. I’m still going to be running google ads and Ringless voicemails though for some quick cash and clients.

I made in one day what I would be making per week if I worked full time at the grocery store

 

[perchboy]

I've been getting 50 calls per month from cheap a$$ price shoppers who are so rude and have the dirtiest cars. I've been sending my friend out to do them and splitting the pay 50/50.

I've also been running Google Ads (properly now) which I landed a few high ticket jobs and a commercial job so now I'm at 10x ROIs with it and not counting the commercial job about a 3x ROI.

With Facebook Ads I'm at a 3.5x ROI and its still freezing now so I expect them to do better once it gets warmer. This targets premium neighborhoods with premium pricing ($199 inside only detail) and I do my best to provide them premium service. The difference of price shopping cheap clients and premium clients is night and day. When I do a $100 job they yell at me and expect a showroom detail but when I do a $199 job the client is so nice and is understanding and I even got a $100 tip today lol.

The plan is to target premium clients only and shoot for referrals. I didn't understand when @Andy Black told me referrals + recurring customers = profit but now I fully understand it. Its all about increasing LTV and then outspending your competitors in customer acquisition.

Referrals have been crazy for me. So damn powerful. I did a referral job yesterday and the client was so nice, tipped well, and promised me she'd get me more referrals too. I want to get to the point where I run purely off referrals.

Now I must:
1. Run ads to acquire premium clients
2. Provide awesome service
3. Get referrals

 

[szalek]

Facebook ads question:

I’m running an open in messenger ad where it automatically asks the client if they’re interested in my $199 special when they open it. Once they reply, I instantly respond to them asking for their phone number.

1/6 leads send me over their phone number but so far I have a 100% closing rate when I get on a call with them. When I ask for phone number, some people don’t even read my message!

Using Facebook form leads in the past, I’d get a bunch of phone numbers that people don’t pick up.

What do yall think I should do? If I can get 1/3 people’s numbers instead of 1/6 numbers then I’ll double my ROI.

@The-J
@Andy Black
@szalek
@Johnny boy

My pov:
You are targeting cold traffic that means people are seeing your ad for first time in they life. And you are trying to convince them that they are needing pro car detaling for 200$. Most of people that you are targeting are washing their cars on automatic car wash for max 10$. Ask yourself why Joe Sixpack would buy something that is 20 times more expensive.
This is the first thing that affects the high cost of your ads Your product is high ticket and is really hard to convince one that your product is valueable.

Think like your customer.

I have to solutions to you

First one: remarketing
Your ads are so expensive because you are trying to sell to people that don't know even that they have to clean their car. So my piece of advice is to:
first create a commercial, e.g. a roll, where you show how you clean the car, the before-and-after effect. Make it so that it goes viral. Set up data collection so that the purpose of the ad is, for example, for the person to see 30 seconds of the ad. Why? So you can collect people who are actually interested in cleaning the car.
use "traffic" or "engagement" as a target for this ad, it will be much cheaper, mean that it will reach a large number of people and build your brand recognition.
THEN
gather a group of people who will watch your roll as you tell them to (I'm talking about the 30 seconds of exposure)(30 seconds is just an example depending on how long the roll lasts) and only to this group of people use the target "Leads". This will be a small group of people who like car detailing and there will be a greater chance that they will buy your high ticket from you. This is a very simple explanation of how remarketing works

the second piece of advice is: create cheaper product
You could try adding a cheaper product to your offer which will be a 'lead magnet'. It will be easier to encourage people to buy the cheaper product first and only then to trust you and buy the expensive one.

Other important advices:

Check that you are using the target "leads" to advertise, this is a very specific advertising target which is difficult to configure correctly.

Check frequency of your ads if is above 2/2,5 (for cold traffic) that means people from your ads are not interested in buying something and you are reaching to same people. You are simply burning money

Getting lead from messenger always was hard for me so i prefer to make some landing page to convince client and get phone numer and call to them but its diffrent for every niche.

 

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[Hugh Thyer]

Hey, I hope you're still reading this.

I've got some advice, in fact a real paradigm shift you need to act on.

Everything I've read so far is great, and your journey is amazing. In fact I'd love to invest in a car detailing business because of what I'm about to tell you.

However, everything you've posted so far is about bringing in the clients on the front end. The real money though is in the back end.

You've hinted at it couple of times but it's way more important.

The big $ is in LTV - lifetime value.

Work out how often your customers need their cars done and contact them at that time. So if it's every 3 months, call them in 3 months time. Put it in your diary or CRM or whatever you use to track them. Google sheet, excel, whatever. I've got a google sheet in my business for all the different markets we go after, and every single contact has a follow-up with a date, and a view of all actions by date and when something is due, it appears in red.

Fact is, they won't call you when their car needs doing again, or if they do it'll be well after it needed doing. So you call them and they'll get you back.

Now, the smartest thing to do is to put this on steroids with continuity.

This is where you create an offer for 12 months. It might be cleaning every month, detailing every 3 months, another service every 6 months. Whatever you can come up with, some kind of calendar of different things you'll do.

Work out the price, given them a discount and then divide the amount by 12 and charge their credit card (assuming you can get credit processing facilities) every month. Put all the services into your calendar and now you're getting booked up 12 as far as a year ahead with guaranteed work.

Now you've got guaranteed income and certainty, and you can pay a lot more for your lead generation because you know how much each customer is worth.

This raises another problem you'll have to solve which is operations, and putting staff on to help you get through the work plus admin. That's a good problem to have though, and one which is solvable.

 

[perchboy]

GMB Success
I'm now the first business that shows up when someone in my area searches "mobile car detailing"
I've been getting at least 1 call per day just from my Google my Business profile. I've booked 3 appointments today alone from it!

Fulfillment Problem
However, now I'm having a fulfillment problem. My business is supposed to be located in only my city which is an 8 mile radius from me but I'm getting people who are 20 miles away from me. Uber costs $50 one way and the bus takes 2 hours to get there. 2 hour commute for $125 is so not worth it.

I have a few options:
- hire a worker who is able to drive - ill need to get insurance and register my business and all that shit or i need to trust them collecting cash
- send my unreliable friend to these appointments where he is always late and sometimes doesn't show up. we'll split 50/50
- say no to bookings that are far and lose money and chance to scale
- start calling my driveway a "shop" and getting people to come here instead - that takes away the whole appeal of "mobile detailing"

I think hiring someone will be the best but there are so many complications. I need to supply them with a truck and the equipment, make sure they're insured, make sure i have enough jobs for them if im paying them for every day work.

I'm going to have to register my business one day anyways if i want to open a shop and hire. Maybe I should just do it now and get a VISA processor so my worker doesnt run off with the cash. Maybe if hes legally working for me he cant steal? Im clueless about this stuff

 

[perchboy]

UPDATE

July - August
Since last June where I was making around 2-3k/month from detailing, I switched from business to business gaining a bit of traction but then getting bored and switching to the next.

I ran:
- a pressure washing company that I got a couple jobs for on the side but never committed to growing it (1 week)
- a driveway sealing company where I got tons of bookings but couldn't fulfill them so I quit (1 week)
- a marketing agency where I was able to acquire lots of clients on a free trial but then I couldn't deliver them results because I was still pretty new to the game so I quit (1 month)

September - November
In September I decided I wanted to start a home service business. I started with carpet cleaning as my first service and got to 6k revenue 10% margins while paying my employee 2.5k/month. We provided 0 value and it was basically a disorganized scam company. We were running purely off of break-even Facebook ads that I didn't even understand. I ended up losing a bunch of money from a new hire and it was downfall from there.

December
In December when my carpet cleaning employee quit and I couldn't find a replacement, I started doing jobs myself and things were going good, I was providing good service, but it sucked since I needed my mom to drive me everywhere. At that point I weighed out my options and decided to just go with car detailing since I had more progress in that business. I could do jobs in my driveway, I had my GMB page that was still getting me free leads, and I had a couple loyal clients.

January - February
These are the slowest months of the year thanks to all the snow in Canada and I was desperately waiting for March to come with better weather and me finally getting my drivers license. I am completely impatient so I was still hustling and doing cheap price shopper jobs in freezing cold and snow. In January I got like 20 calls from my GMB page and in February I got 49 calls (insane since my best month before that was 30 calls in August).

March
On March 15th I finally got my license. My biggest obstacle was finally gone. For the past few weeks I've been crazy booked and things have been going absolutely great. Today I had my biggest day of $675 and the weather is still freezing here which means we're not even in season yet.

Things seem 100x more clear now. I used to have no clue what I was doing and had 0 common sense compared to now. I've learned so much from all of these failed business experiences. Although I made some bad decisions, I was always taking 100% action and for that I am proud. I was always trying out new things and taking risks which granted me with wisdom and foresight now to succeed.

 

[perchboy]

See if you can turn this into a flywheel:

CHAT - Figuring Out Flywheels

Thought I'd create a thread where we can discuss flywheels and how we're applying them to our businesses. I'll keep this opening post updated with a summary and insights. A simple flywheel to get more clients: One of my friends has a simple flywheel to grow the small carpet cleaning business...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Right now I’m leaving the customer with an air freshener, hand sanitizer, and a $25 off first-time booking coupon so they have incentive to share me with their friends and family.

For repeat bookings, I have a CRM and I’ll call with special offers for holidays and call asking if they want to book every 3 months. Car detailing is awesome for repeat business since cars get dirty again quickly and people have a personal attachment to their cars.



I’ll implement the QR code for reviews too as right now I only have a few real ones and like 60 fake ones from my friends

 

[wyattnorton]

yes mobile service.

last week i was booked every day but this week i only have 3 clients.

no recurring customers as of right now. i will start trying to implement it as i know my clients who have kids, their car's interiors get dirty quickly. i'm not providing quality service right now though so they wont want me to come back. i need to solve my transportation problem so i can bring the good tools with me. right now i take the bus to the houses and i can only carry a vaccuum and the other simple supplies. no pressure washer or anything.

I respect the hustle man.

Make sure they understand that you are only going to improve. So by them working with you now they will receive some type of future value (discounted services?)

When I built my first retaining wall (landscaping), I told the people that it may not be the best in the world, nor perfect, but it will be safe and last a long time. I gave them a discount because it was my first one.

They respected it and loved the outcome of the wall. I did 3 more projects for them and they referred me to 2 of their neighbors.

Don't be afraid to be upfront with your experience.

But man, you are hustling for 15 years old. I love it.

 

[biophase]

Charge $200 per car and probably make 6k/month but Ill be tired asf doing the work with no scaling.

Why would you be tired? This is one car a day. You want to make $200/day but don't think you can wash one car a day? Many people work a full day and wash their cars when they get home.

I had my cousin who was 18 come into my warehouse to work for a day. I gave him a task to open a box and separate the things inside. He did it and I said, now do the rest of these boxes, which was like 100 boxes. He said, whoa so many. I said it should take you 2 hours, you're here for 8. LOL

I feel like kids don't understand how LOOOOONG a normal work day is. I'll tell you the exact date I realized how long a work day is.

Many years ago I was in Denver staying with a friend. Me and my friend planned to go mountain biking that day at a trail that is 3 hours drive away! We woke up at 8am and left, which was the same time my friend left for work. We got to the trail at 11am, rode bikes until 3pm, then drove back to Denver. We got home right when she was getting home from work!

This may sound crazy but I feel like im pushed for time. "WTF! you are only 15 years old and have your whole life ahead of you!". I know but I feel pressured to have a 4 hour workweek 20k/month profit business by when im 18. that way i can gtfo of this city and move to the other side of the world with ABSOLUTE FREEDOM.

If you want a 4HWW at 18, you need to put in the 40 hour WW right now.

Your first goal should be to make enough to get a car or van so you can drive to all your appointments. So wash all the cars you need to until you've saved up enough money to get yourself a car.

 

[perchboy]

Things are now going good and have a good projection for the future.

Changes I've Made:​

- Started Charging More
I dont charge significantly more but I now have concrete prices for different types of cars. It's nice to slave away detailing a van for $250 instead of $150.

At first I wasn't able to charge more because I was operating unprofessionally. When calling my business for a quote, you would get sent to voicemail and then receive a phone call an hour later from a kid who sounds like he's clueless. Now I have my customer service rep answer the call right away in a professional matter. I am closing these new pricing sales now as much as my cheap old pricing despite the price difference. Thanks @savefox.

- Hired a Customer Service Rep and Weekend Helper:
This new hire is my mom. I wrote about how she disapproves of the biz but now she is okay with it and always offers to help me. It's because now she sees that I'm really getting results and I'm legit.

I set up call forwarding from my phone to hers so that all day (especially when I'm in school) the calls go to her instead of me. She's at her office job anyways so it isn't a problem for her.

She has also been coming to help me with the details on the weekends which is great - not because of the detailing aspect but because of referrals. Shit, she doesn't even detail she just chats away with the client the whole time! Anyways, most of the clients are moms so they relate with my mom a lot and give me referrals. I need to become more personable myself so I can develop a connection with the clients and get referrals.

Improved the Quality of my Work:
I've started to really care about doing a good job and I have invested into new products that allow me to do a better job. I used to feel like a big bossman because I thought "they pay me no matter how shit of a job i do!" but the best form of marketing really is word of mouth. It's free!


- Followed @Andy Black 's Google AdWords Course:
Bought Andy's Google AdWords course and have set up the campaigns. I dont really understand it that much but I think I have the basic idea. The campaigns have been running for a couple days but no conversions yet. I can see Google Ads being where I scale and get all my leads from in the future.

 

[Guest931Xfjyx]

You already have more business experience than most people will have in their lifetime.

Would not surprise me if you're making over $100k a year before 18yo if you keep up this hustle.

 

[perchboy]

Spent $100 on google ads in the past 2 days and got 2 people to fill in the form on my website. Just closed them for $150 and $250.

I am pretty booked up for this month now which is good. Im gonna keep blasting all my advertising to the point I need to hire an employee.

 

[BizyDad]

I MADE $620 TODAY

Today I did 2 clients who each had 2 cars and I charged $300 each client for a total of $600. Got a $20 tip as well

Word of mouth advertising is crazy! I gotta focus on doing a good job now and not just trying to hunt down clients. If each customer refers me to one person, I will have an infinite amount of clients and it will keep doubling.

I’m gonna invest into real materials now so I can do a good job. I’m still going to be running google ads and Ringless voicemails though for some quick cash and clients.

I made in one day what I would be making per week if I worked full time at the grocery store

You already have more business experience than most people will have in their lifetime.

Would not surprise me if you're making over $100k a year before 18yo if you keep up this hustle.

Hey @JLE it's still rattling in that head of yours, isn't it? What would your life look like if you could make $620 in a day? Is there any advantage this 15 yr old Canadian has that you don't?

 

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[Antifragile]

I MADE $620 TODAY

Today I did 2 clients who each had 2 cars and I charged $300 each client for a total of $600. Got a $20 tip as well

Word of mouth advertising is crazy! I gotta focus on doing a good job now and not just trying to hunt down clients. If each customer refers me to one person, I will have an infinite amount of clients and it will keep doubling.

I’m gonna invest into real materials now so I can do a good job. I’m still going to be running google ads and Ringless voicemails though for some quick cash and clients.

I made in one day what I would be making per week if I worked full time at the grocery store

Congrats!

I have my cars detailed at least once a month. The business that does is a downtown parking garage, where two guys rented out stalls, got all equipment there and are servicing business community. We all go to the same guys and keep them very busy! During peak times, they also hire help.

I am picky too…

A typical wash is about $75. Includes hand wash, dry, interior including glass.
A details is about $300, very thorough.
Paint correction and nano coating sets me back a little over a $1,000 (once a year).

Question: how are you doing it without proper tools and mobile and for $300?

Good hustle, and amazing results for your age! Better than what most 15 year olds are doing with minimum wage x100!

edit:
P.S. Consider if you can get some help. There must be plenty of people who could solve your transportation problem by becoming “partners”. Key is to have enough new business… which by word of mouth (must go great work) should be a non-issue as you are heading into the summer…

 

[fridge]

Great work man! This is going to be an awesome learning experience for you.

Having experience previously running a service business, heres a few pieces of advice:
1) yard signs can bring in a lot of money - if you can pay some classmates $10-$15 an hour to put out signs, they can be just as effective if not more than digital marketing
2) google my business is free and will bring in lots of leads. Post photos and get about 20-30 five star reviews and its essentially a lead machine that keeps going with very little backend management/maintenance
3) hire a VA for $4-$6 an hour from the phillipines once you get some more $$ coming. Have them handle the basic tasks like optimizing GMB, research, etc while you focus on the business and work.

Good luck!

 

[Saad Khan]

Congrats @ChrisK you're doing really well for your age. Don't let others tell you otherwise. When I was your age I was spending 12 hours/day playing counter strike.

Business has up and down cycles. You should now focus on getting a steady flow of bookings.

Good luck!

 

[perchboy]

9 days into the month and things are going great.

I'm at: $2385 revenue and $1124 in expenses. I have $290 overhead, I spent $400 on fb ads, and I paid my friend $430 to do some jobs for me.

I've spent $400 on FB ads and got 1300 back. I'm currently split testing a whole bunch of strategies so I can see what sticks and double down on it. The rest of the jobs are coming from my GMB page.

If I stay at a 1:3 ROI:
3 jobs per day = $600
x 5 days per week = $3000
- 1000 ad spend per week = $2000
- 1000 employee expenses per week = $1000

That's without counting repeat business, referrals or me improving my ad ROIs. I can have a guy doing 3 entry level details a day and then I can add them to my CRM marketing to them for upsells to high ticket services, repeat jobs, and referrals so I can maximize profit.

 

[mamamargaux]

I'm 15 years old going to highschool in Canada right now and have a car detailing side hustle going on.

I started detailing cars a couple weeks ago and last week I made $800 profit.

I've been finding my clients by spamming posts on the Nextdoor app but there are only so many people on there who need their car detailed so its starting to die down.

Right now my plans are:
- getting my website built by @AlexYega so i can run google ads
- test out facebook ads again (not profitable last time i tried running them
- send out ringless voicemails to everyone in my city and hire a receptionist to answer the calls back and schedule bookings while im in class
- get some business cards printed so i can get referrals after i do jobs
- test out doorhangers

Eventually i want to be so booked up that I have to hire other people to do the jobs. I will get there by putting all my profits back into the business

I admire you for being enterprising. I suggest focusing on your area and work within your radius. Maybe talk to gas stations, convenience stores if you can leave flyers. I think you can create a google form that your customers can fill in when they scan a QR on your flyer to book an appointment with you. You can put a form on your website too and link it to your Calendar. There you can get a database and send them emails or texts asking if they want to book a car wash two weeks after. You should also get feedback from customers and post the quality of your work on your website.

 

[Guest931Xfjyx]

Hey @JLE it's still rattling in that head of yours, isn't it? What would your life look like if you could make $620 in a day? Is there any advantage this 15 yr old Canadian has that you don't?

Aside from more free time, no. He's doing spectacularly well for his age and with minimal available to him.

There's no reason I couldn't do something like this as well.

 

[perchboy]

Question: how are you doing it without proper tools and mobile and for $300?

300 CAD is 225 USD btw

Most of the leads I speak to I just jack my prices up and then tell them I'll give them a discount because of x. Told her I normally do $200 each but I can do $300 for the 2 cars since she has 2 in the same lot and there will be no extra travelling.

The biggest skew that I have right now is that my service is mobile. No one likes when their car needs to get serviced and they have to wait for it in the lobby or call a taxi. These people are happy that its convenient for them and are willing to pay more.

Local shops in my area charge $90 for what I do but they do a way better job than me. I had one old guy drive to my house (not mobile, he had to drive to me) and I only did the front of his car and gave him the "spring special" that was $200. My mom yelled at me saying that I'm scamming him lol. He was pleased with the job though.

 

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[Cano]

she started screaming "why do you even want money!" "what are you gonna do with it?"

ill retire you in the future

Love it. I wonder what her answer would be if you had responded with that sentence?

 

[Andy Black]

I've been getting 50 calls per month from cheap a$$ price shoppers who are so rude and have the dirtiest cars. I've been sending my friend out to do them and splitting the pay 50/50.

I've also been running Google Ads (properly now) which I landed a few high ticket jobs and a commercial job so now I'm at 10x ROIs with it and not counting the commercial job about a 3x ROI.

With Facebook Ads I'm at a 3.5x ROI and its still freezing now so I expect them to do better once it gets warmer. This targets premium neighborhoods with premium pricing ($199 inside only detail) and I do my best to provide them premium service. The difference of price shopping cheap clients and premium clients is night and day. When I do a $100 job they yell at me and expect a showroom detail but when I do a $199 job the client is so nice and is understanding and I even got a $100 tip today lol.

The plan is to target premium clients only and shoot for referrals. I didn't understand when @Andy Black told me referrals + recurring customers = profit but now I fully understand it. Its all about increasing LTV and then outspending your competitors in customer acquisition.

Referrals have been crazy for me. So damn powerful. I did a referral job yesterday and the client was so nice, tipped well, and promised me she'd get me more referrals too. I want to get to the point where I run purely off referrals.

Now I must:
1. Run ads to acquire premium clients
2. Provide awesome service
3. Get referrals

When you leave a happy client ask for a Google review and send them a link to where they can leave one. A friend does this and has hundreds more reviews than his competitors.

 

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[perchboy]

Facebook ads question:

I’m running an open in messenger ad where it automatically asks the client if they’re interested in my $199 special when they open it. Once they reply, I instantly respond to them asking for their phone number.

1/6 leads send me over their phone number but so far I have a 100% closing rate when I get on a call with them. When I ask for phone number, some people don’t even read my message!

Using Facebook form leads in the past, I’d get a bunch of phone numbers that people don’t pick up.

What do yall think I should do? If I can get 1/3 people’s numbers instead of 1/6 numbers then I’ll double my ROI.

@The-J
@Andy Black
@szalek
@Johnny boy

 

[perchboy]

Something just changed and things are going crazy!!!!!

I’m way too booked up now and have 3 friends who do some details for me and also a new illegal contract employee.

A new fb ad Im running is going at a 6-8x ROI which is insane! These are my ideal clients as well! My Google page has been getting multiple calls a day and I’ve been booking in cheap shit customers from there as well.

Acquisition is going great, fulfillment is going bad. My friends are unreliable (they don’t even have cars so that’s why) and my employee who has HIS OWN DETAILING BUSINESS does shit jobs so I had to fire him today.

I want to focus my time on high leverage tasks and leave the labour to someone else. I’m gonna hire a real well-paid employee to do my FB jobs (ideal clients), and then I’ll drive my friends around doing the shit cheap jobs and while they do jobs I’ll be on my laptop focusing on high leverage activities like ads and systems.

 

[perchboy]

Great stuff man. I'm assuming this is a mobile service?

Inside and Outside detail? How many customers do you have? Are they recurring?

A cheap option for business cards is printing out 6-inch by 6-inch cards on paper and handing those out for now.

yes mobile service.

last week i was booked every day but this week i only have 3 clients.

no recurring customers as of right now. i will start trying to implement it as i know my clients who have kids, their car's interiors get dirty quickly. i'm not providing quality service right now though so they wont want me to come back. i need to solve my transportation problem so i can bring the good tools with me. right now i take the bus to the houses and i can only carry a vaccuum and the other simple supplies. no pressure washer or anything.

 

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[perchboy]

this was a slow week for me. 3 jobs $125 each.

starting Tuesday after the long weekend I'll have a Filipino freelancer babe working customer service from 4-8pm. ill send out 1000 ringless voicemails at 4:00 everyday saying "hi i recently detailed your neighbors car and they referred you so im offering 25% off."

Worst case scenario:
1000 voicemails generates at least 1 $125 sale
1000 costs $40
Paying customer service $44/day
Worst case scenario I will get a $125 job for every $85 i spend but that is highly unlikely and Im expecting 2 jobs per day so $250

i set up google ads to run for $29/day and it said that its estimated to bring in 25 lead form answers per week. the ads are being verified right now so they will start running tomorrow

I've generated 2 referrals so far from my work and my work is honestly horrible. I will buy a steam cleaner so I can improve the quality of my work and get more word-of-mouth advertising

The fakebook ad i ran was not profitable. The first one i put up i got one lead for $20 but the number they gave me in the form didn't work and the second one I put 50% off in the ad and i got $3/lead but everyone were cheap anti-customers.

Handing out 300 door hangers gave me 1 $200 jobs and i got a couple of leads that didnt close.
Worst case scenario 500 door hangers will generate $125
Printing + delivery costs $0.17c per hanger
Worst case scenario I will get a $125 job for every $85 i spend

I will look into working a promotion with my local convenience store where if someone buys an $x amount worth of items then they get 25% off detailing.

Or maybe in the future when I'm registered I can detail cars for people in the parking lot while they are getting a salon or massage.

 

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