Last year someone had contacted me from Michigan, they lived below Detroit. He had been laid off from a manufacturer and supplier of auto parts. He loved cars and had considered starting a mobile car detailing business. The young man was a hard worker and didn’t have enough money to start an auto detailing shop, but he thought he could start mobile detailing. It was spring and he hoped to save enough money from the details in the summer months to be able to find an industrial building to lease in the winter.

That sounds like a good plan, but it may not be as easy as he thinks. Mobile detailing is good business, but the costs over the years have skyrocketed. Mainly because of fuel costs, and when the economy isn’t doing too well, you have to drive farther between jobs, which costs even more fuel. Nowadays, there are other costs like health insurance and what you have for your workers. Just starting out, there are business licenses and equipment to buy. Don’t forget, you still have to have some income to live on.

In fact, I advised the gentleman that his plan might work, but what if it came to the end of the summer and he didn’t have the money to open a detailing shop? In that case, what would he do? Well, it just so happens that I’ve talked to other people in the same situation, and what they’ve done is go into the snowplow business in the winter, and they also made money changing the oil for small business fleets around town. . This does several things. First, you create synergy between your clients and add to your list of potential clients.

It helps with networking and referrals, and with a mobile type of business like this, social media just doesn’t work as well as personal referrals in the real world. If the weather is bad, there aren’t too many people who want you to come to their office building in the parking lot while it’s snowing and get a detail on their car. Why should they detail your car when it’s going to break down again as soon as you take it out on the road?

Of course, that commercial parking lot may also need snow plowing in the winter. Guess what, if you go there to detail cars, you’ll know who owns the building and all those people who work in the building: they need to clean their driveways or they can’t come to work. Like I said, you’ll have clients onboarded this way. Please consider all this and think about it.

Mobile auto detailing in the summer, snow plow and oil change in the winter

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