Making a Profit In Your Business. Plus Pad Choices With Compound and Polish. Episode #929
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Making a Profit In Your Business. Plus Pad Choices With Compound and Polish. Episode #929
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50:17
Term
ceramic coatings
Ceramic coatings are special products that protect a car's paint. They help keep the car looking shiny and make it easier to wash off dirt and grime.
Term
heat cycling
Heat cycling is when something is heated up and then allowed to cool down repeatedly. For brake pads, this process can help them last longer and work better.
Part
pad washer
A pad washer is a device that heats up brake pads. This heating can help the pads last longer and work better by keeping the glue that holds them together in good condition.
Term
glue
Glue is a sticky substance used to hold things together. In brake pads, it helps keep the different parts attached, and it needs to withstand heat to work well.
Car
Kia EV6
The Kia EV6 is a new electric car from Kia that looks like a sporty SUV and runs on electricity instead of gasoline.
Term
supercharger
A supercharger helps an engine produce more power by forcing in more air, which means it can burn more fuel. This makes the car faster and more powerful.
Term
EV
An EV, or electric vehicle, is a car that uses electricity to run instead of gas. They are often better for the environment and can save money on fuel.
Company
Velo
Velo makes parts for cars, especially brake pads, which help your car stop safely and effectively.
Part
brake pads
Brake pads are parts of your car that help it stop by pressing against the wheels when you brake.
Part
Orange Lake Country Pad
The Orange Lake Country Pad is a type of brake pad that helps cars stop better, especially in tough conditions.
Part
Orange Pad
The Orange Pad is a type of tool used for polishing car paint. It helps to fix scratches and make the paint look smoother and shinier.
LIVE
Welcome to the Pints and Polishing Podcast, the most influential and listened-to podcast in auto-detailing.
Welcome to the community.
All right, yes, technique.
Brian, you and I texting each other, we sent a message that I responded to, was this their first time?
Right, like, hmm, what, first time?
Now, for me, it was a shock.
I don't read, you know, the newspaper, I never really read magazines.
But here it was, what was that, a road and car?
Road and track.
Road and track, there you go, I see, I'm going to butcher even the name, right?
Like, not for me.
But I was very, like, wow, they, the first time hearing about ceramics, like, is it really?
But you're like, no, no, no, this is all SEO.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, if you look at, they did a list of what, like the top ceramic coatings of 2025 or whatever, some like year-end thing that they're doing.
And they've been doing it for a long time, you know, motor trend and road and track and different YouTube videos and YouTube people and, you know, is it good?
You know, I think any of us listening to this would say it's pretty misleading.
You know, it's basically, they just go on the internet search for whoever's companies come up first and then, you know, they put it on their list.
And then they link back and there's sort of all this SEO nonsense, right?
That they are partaking in.
But is it a negative?
Yeah, I mean, to people like us, it is a negative, right?
To the people that know what they're doing.
But that's just the state of the internet.
You could say the same thing about detailing TikTok or detailing Instagram that there's this very minor bit of good.
And then there's a lot of things we would all change.
Yeah, I could definitely see how there would be some good, like some crossover into that world where they're going, OK, what's the top things in the detailing world?
Let's make sure we get it over into our world.
I could definitely see that.
So you're saying, though, it was just all, all letters, all words, all paragraphs, all senses.
There was no actual, like, let's put some coding on a car and see.
No, no, no, no, it's never, and they can play like it is.
But no, I mean, I've, I've been in these worlds, you know, I've been a part of magazine shoots, detailed cars for clients that were in magazines.
Let me tell you, man, there's a lot of people just wouldn't believe.
And that's why we joke sort of on clutch culture all the time as we do the air quotes journalist.
It's like there's no, there's no integrity to any of this, right?
And I'm not saying there should be.
I don't run the magazine.
I don't care.
Many of you don't care, but, you know, this is sort of the slop that's out in the world.
And I think that's something that's going at hyperspeed with AI.
So now I don't even think anybody really probably has to do a ton of work to do these like best of 2025 things.
I think they probably just send out Claude or chat GPT or whatever out onto the internet.
They, I mean, we had another post in the group where one of the guys caught basically that that yeah, that it was just 100% AI generated newspaper article like in a physical
newspaper.
So I just think many of us need to wise it up.
You know, I mean, we see it in a lot of detailing groups and different things.
It's like it's time to wise it up because now this stuff's going to have real effect, I think.
I think as people have us ago, they can't believe, right?
Like we really can't believe that an automotive journalist or just a newspaper journalist,
anybody in journalism would take and copy and paste something that that wasn't their own.
Really?
We can think that I'm sure that's been going on forever.
I would just assume it's always been happening.
Yeah.
We gave them too much belief, didn't we?
It was crazy to see that they're like, how did that put it down?
You know, hey, ask Nick because he's an automotive journalist, right?
Like I asked you guys do joke about that.
But I mean, in your, I mean, how is that even possible?
Making it to press getting pedestal approved?
We kind of talk about this to everybody that listens to us and I really mean this.
Like be very cautious about being on your Facebook or your Instagram or wherever
and representing things as your own thoughts that it's very obvious to everyone else
is an AI generated thought.
Like I'm not saying you didn't put a couple of sentences into AI.
What I'm saying is everyone can spot that you can't you're not a coherent human being
when writing stuff and all of a sudden you're putting 15 pages on your Facebook page.
Like guys, this is like going to have it's going to damage people's reputation.
You think it's not because you think you're ahead of the curve.
You're not ahead of the curve.
Everyone's well aware or the people you want to impress should be well aware
that AI is everywhere and people are using it to kind of fake knowledge, right?
To kind of fake professionalism.
And I don't think that plays the way you think and this journalist quote unquote
in a newspaper showed you just don't write the article.
You just torched your reputation over trying to write a little snippet
in a newspaper that you didn't even write.
It's like doesn't really do anything.
And again, this is what road and track is doing with best ceramic coatings of 2025.
They're setting a chat bot out there to look at search results
and then they're just writing from the search results.
Not saying there's anything wrong or right about it.
That's what's happening.
And it's by the way, it's been happening for years and years and years.
Okay.
So that's what I was going to kind of ask is kind of come back to that question
about ceramic coatings and then the magazines and be like,
what is the thing?
Is it always ceramic coatings over the past years?
You know, yeah, yeah.
They take the low hanging fruit.
I mean, that's what they do.
So ceramic coatings, we definitely because it's such a big key.
But you know, I didn't read the article.
I am curious.
So I'm really like as we continue to venture on over into,
I say over into this world because it really isn't something that I,
you know, we joke, not a car guy, right?
Like, I don't speak all the language that everybody does.
And I don't remember the amount of leaders in an engine and,
and what type of, you know, this was that.
And you know, this is a dot this, you know,
I don't remember all that stuff.
So I get out of their lingo and I don't actually get to have a
conversation, but I am curious what really they think,
or do you know of, you know, like,
what is the sort of the top things that kind of come over from
detailing into regular car care, regular car people.
Is it only ceramic coatings?
You know, they just go, go wash your car.
I think most of us would say it's,
it's a pretty sad state of affairs.
Right.
My entire career.
Okay.
Everybody, I think one thing we try to avoid here is that
everybody thinks it just started happening now.
You know, they're like, well, you know, it's crazy now.
It's like, no, it was always crazy.
Like, you know, once you learned how to polish a car
and then you went to like a local car show,
you're like, whoa.
And then you talk to that first like classic hot rod guy
and you're like, boy, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
By the way, that happened in 2000 in 1990 in 2025.
Like this has always been the ecosystem.
And it's usually something that happens inside of detailing.
I think that then or cart like just car washing in general,
that then it pops over there.
And I'm going to go with one that happened across
over back and forth.
And that was that shammy.
You want to talk about a moment where people started to have these.
Yeah.
You could see who used the real shammy.
One that was, I mean, it was dry and criss.
Remember how crusty those things?
And you had to go through and get that ringer.
Yeah.
I mean, you had to do this process for them,
but that was what they used, right?
You then you go to the synthetics, the sham wow style.
Now we're at the twist loop.
Right.
So you can kind of see over the, you know,
decades.
Yeah.
Decades, I guess.
A couple of decades.
A little bit of a transition.
But those moments of when we used to look at people with the shammy.
I mean, it was like, oh, how dare you?
Yeah.
No, look, I think the best way to come at this stuff.
And this was kind of the interesting thing of seeing that pop up is
this is just always the way it's been.
A bunch of people talking about a bunch of shit.
They don't know anything about.
I think it just started happening because of tick tock.
You know what I mean?
That's not the truth.
It's just always been this way.
Like we talk about this a lot.
The biggest cancer in car culture is our guys that act like they
know what they're talking about.
Right.
They get people into bad purchases.
They get people into bad habits.
They get people to believe they know what they're talking about.
And it's like, this guy's done nothing but like watch some
YouTube videos.
That's not actually real knowledge.
Right.
And go back to guys that only read magazines, guys that would
would look at the classifieds and news.
I mean, this stuff is just always been there.
It's just a different thing now and it's just more widespread.
You know, you have guys that get on who are representing
themselves as detailers and they've never actually detailed.
Like they just kind of hang out in their garage and detail.
I got no problem with it, but I know what that guy is
because I've been watching that guy for 25 years.
Now he just happens to have a camera.
Like, but you we've all had a neighbor down the street that
acted like a car guy.
And you go, dude, you don't know what you're talking about.
Like I had one in my shop.
I've shared this.
I think I shared on this podcast.
Like I came in my shop.
They were doing the electrical work here.
Like he was trying to act like he was like a mechanical
genius with BMWs.
He knew nothing about them.
Like just simply didn't know who he was talking to.
I guess like I'm not the perfect BMW knowledge, but I
got news for you.
I got a lot more than him.
And I wasn't even trying to talk about it.
He was just trying to run his mouth.
That's just been part of the ecosystem for as long as cars
have been around.
And for detailers and detailing people, they've kind of got caught
up in a whirlwind that this took off sort of right when
social media got bigger.
And all of a sudden now we have 98 out of 100 people talking
about detailing just don't really know all that much.
I mean, nothing against them.
They're allowed to do it.
You and I don't lose sleep over it.
But I mean, you and I get sent a lot of stuff and I'm like,
whoa, that's pretty bad.
Well, it's becoming right.
So much and so many is being spent and time, energy,
effort, all that to be online, right?
To be a presence, to have searchable, right?
Everything that we could go into.
And we're all trying to compete for it.
So we're all going to buy all the stuff, all the
things and then we're going to sit there and tell people how
great we are.
It is always interesting as the tide continues to rise in a
sense.
Who's going to be which way?
We'll go into this when you say who's going to be which
way?
I've always been not a pad washer, like never used a
pad washer.
So William inside of the specialist group was asking a
question about pad washers, you know, I had a problem
been using one because we're in business with them.
I mean, they pitch us on it.
I mean, late country has probably the most famous pad.
Well, I don't think we have to dodge that part.
I mean, they talked to me about it.
I don't know like it doesn't speak to me.
So how do you wash pads?
Oh, yeah, I've always been now this is where this depends
on which season in a sense of my life.
There was a time when it was APC because that's what we
had.
I mean, it was APC straight into the pad, little
toothbrush, rinse it out.
Yeah, like the hottest water that your hands could
handle like back then.
Yeah, if I had it, but if I had it.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, if you had it.
I mean, it's APC scrub them, rinse them.
Well, first of all, the first thing I started with
was a spur.
I didn't even know about anything else to clean a
pad but a spur.
Well, yeah, you're right for the wool.
Yeah, but here's the deal.
I like didn't, you know, that took me a little
cleaning ever.
Yeah, yeah.
And the best.
Probably fun too, right?
You just be like, see everything going.
Spray it on people.
Yeah, just, you know, yeah.
So I was kind of similar.
You know, whatever I had is kind of what you
had to use.
I'm a pressure washer guy.
So that's kind of what I do now is as I set up
a little station and pressure wash them and then
use, you know, some type of, you know, air
tool or whatever and kind of blow them out.
The pad washer, if it works for you, I mean, that's
kind of where we've, even when I talk to late
country, that's how I talk.
I'm like, Hey man, if I get one, I get one and
I'll try it and I'm sure it works.
I'm just not that caught up in the pad washer
thing as being good or bad, but it's hard
for me to think it's going to be easier for
me than doing the whole car, taking the
pads and pressure washing them out.
I mean, it's hard for me to believe that I
can make it any easier on myself, but I
certainly understand everybody has like a
thing to do.
Yeah, I went with the power washer when it was
me, but a lot of times, you know, you can't
scale that.
You can't scale it.
Yeah, a lot of times if you pass that off to
a team member, boy, that power washer needs
a little close.
Yeah, and you're going to have like rocks on
the back because they fell on the ground.
Yeah, you got to be careful who's doing
that.
I mean, if we're talking about ourselves, I
don't know, man.
I can never see taking time out of the middle
of a job to do a pad washing.
Like it's just, I'm not built that way.
I'll just rip the pad off and put another one.
It is something right like that.
We'll talk about seasons all the time, you
know, that there is things that have flown
into the ether of detailing that I just
probably will never adapt to just, you know,
that old dog new tricks is just, there's
just so far I can go into it, right?
I did put my cycle down.
So I did make some evolutions.
Yeah, there you go.
But I just not sure I'll ever be a guy that
uses a pad washer, you know.
I love when we don't love it.
Thank you, William, for asking a question.
Um, yeah, it's just not something I could
ever weigh in on.
I just always did the...
Yeah, I mean, I figure for most people,
I mean, I'd rather just stick them in
the washing machine.
I mean, if I'm going to go to a pad
washer, I just jam the thing in the
washer.
I mean, I'm just not going to do that.
The problem with that runs into the backing
plate, right?
Not the backing plate, but the glue on the...
Sure.
Yeah, I mean, look, I...
I am always okay with my pads having a
lifetime.
I don't know what that lifetime is, but
if you buy enough pads, I think you...
You do your best to care for them.
You do your best to be responsible in
your way.
Like you said, don't get the pressure
washer all up in the pad.
Yeah, I mean, I just...
I think this is kind of one of those
things that people...
Especially if you're doing this as a
business, but even if you're doing it as
a hobby, like, you know, pads are 10,
15 bucks.
They last a good amount of time.
I'm not really trying to, like, extend
the life another, like, two years or
something.
Like, it's not going to work out.
Even if you take the best care of it,
you're going to find little things that
you don't like when you pick up a pad.
You think you've extended its life,
time and the pad's dead.
And we get into this, like,
if I...
If I was able to get,
I don't know, a year out of a
pad, let's just use a number.
I don't know what the actual number is,
okay?
I can't imagine you get a year.
Oh, 100% I can get a year, but you got to realize...
Oh, that's right, because you only use it per panel.
Yeah, I'm only using it on a panel.
So that's how you extend life.
It's not the cleaning of the pad that
extends life.
It's the heat cycling of the pad.
And guys are using these
pad washers, and this is
something I've said directly to the company.
They're using this pad
washer to basically
heat up the pad and the glue,
which is what we're worried about here is the glue
you talked about.
I'm heating it up on the panel,
then I'm washing it out, cooling it down
rapidly, which I don't think glue really
takes very well to.
Then I'm going right back to heat it up.
So whose pad is going to last
longer? Mine or yours?
Right?
And that is what people, I just
don't think talk about. Now, if you say, I only
use the pad washer at the end of my job
and it's just a way for me to wash
my pads out, I think, I think that's
something I would understand.
All right. Well, so
your boy Saturday night, you know, was feeling
pretty good. I had a good
end of the week, you know, feeling good
about it. So I went ahead and
upgraded the Uber. I went to the
Comfort.
You're not an Uber black guy?
No,
not in Oklahoma. We didn't even have that option.
Oh, okay. No Uber
blacks in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
No, no, I splurged and went
Comfort. There's only a couple bucks
more and we were headed down to a ballgame.
Guess what pulled up? It was
a Kia
EV6.
Hmm, didn't know that was Comfort.
Yeah, hey, they're loose and fast
with what's yeah, yeah, you
they're loose and fast. There's no doubt.
You know, I guess in Oklahoma
I'll tell you the ones that
dude, we have Zooks everywhere out here.
That's like the company Jeff Bezos
he invested in like it's everywhere now
big square, those like little square
boxes that you get inside of.
That's that's the big you haven't seen
them. Oh yeah, you got to look them up online.
Like it's wild to drive next to these
things. By the way, I've seen like three of them on
tow trucks already. So
yeah, no, it's it's it's pretty
interesting. Well, the guy was raving
you know, of course had to
ask him about what he thought.
He'd been an Uber driver for a while. So he
was raving about, hey, he buried two
other cars. The first one he's
had that was EV only take
some 40 minutes to charge.
So what do you
do during that time? Oh, it's nothing
it's real easy. Just go over, you know, there's a bunch of them around town.
Oh, he's going to a supercharger.
Yeah, supercharger, but still 40 minutes.
Oh, I
you're not going to you're not going to get me to
be a defender. Again,
if you do it at your house, I think
an EV makes all the sense in the world.
Well, that's what he said. Yeah,
really got to get it at your house. Yeah, the rest
of it, it's just not there.
Because I guess there's a club. So he's
like, well, I'm a part of this club and then I
can get a deduction off of like, what the
hell? I don't know, man.
It's a lot of it seems like a lot of work about
your EV. And he goes,
well, it's pretty much maintenance
free. I don't do anything.
Besides the 2x tires you
have to buy.
I really just buy tires. Otherwise, I don't
have anything I got to do. It was like,
hmm, right. So of course
you want to go, oh, why is the outside
look the way it does there, right? Like, no,
you don't take that jab. But, you know,
we had a question inside of
inside the specialist group around
Akia. And Ryan
was working on Akia, said that he had
Velo and was using
another brand's pads that we
didn't go with. I was having some issues
and then he grabbed
the Orange Lake Country Pad
and magic, it worked.
So
let's talk about that Orange Country
Pad and let's talk about Velo.
It's not specific to
Akia. We just both happen to be,
you know, having a good joke about Akia
and enjoying Akia. Akias are nice cars.
What's the paint?
I haven't really worked having
on Akia paint. I haven't been on Akia in a while,
but there's a tendency
for some of those Korean brands
to have
you know, sort of like on the softer
side, sort of like Japanese paint at times,
you know, it can get sticky.
And so when you use more
aggressive stuff, which
I see more and more guys
leaning to always going
to a more aggressive pad
instead of, you know, maybe
manipulating the liquid a little bit more.
But what he found is
kind of what I found when
you know, if you look at our four pad solution
inside of Lake Country
being offered with our stuff now
I think
you pretty much
are going to be hard pressed to find something
that it can't handle, right?
And one of the
things I really want to get guys
into habit of because it helped my career is
you need to find
a pad brand and you need to
find compounds and polishes and you need to
stick with them.
Unless something crazy happens, they start having
massive quality control issues or something like that,
but there's too many guys
carrying in four different brands of pads
and 12 different liquids
and they're wasting way more time
than they think.
And one of the reasons we didn't go with other brands
was because there was a quality issue that I've seen
from other brands. And by the way, I'm sitting here
today.
I think I have like four giant unopened boxes
from some of the brands you guys use
because they sent me so many pads
trying to get our business and when I tried
their pads, I'm like
I don't know, but
this isn't going to work.
And so I have tried to things that you guys
list off a lot of times. It's not that I haven't.
We went with this brand
specifically because
I think they're doing it the best
right now. And so
if you're going to be in our system, I would
highly recommend getting the four pad
solution that we've put together
and I'd be hard pressed coming
across something. I mean, I had something really
finicky actually with our stuff before we launched
it. Remember with that navigator
what they got really damaged pillars.
But the longer I just worked
in the pad system
and started to figure out
what was going on with those pillars that had
been heavily damaged, I realized
I'm going to heavily cut these out
and then I'm going to use a softer pad
and finish them down instead of trying to do it all
in one step. Had I not had that four
pad solution, I couldn't have done that
right is I
needed variance. But again, I
didn't vary to a whole other brand.
You know, I stayed in and worked
within the system and said, okay, let's cut
it out on this one and see if that works.
And so one of the things about
seeing that post is I'm glad
that it all got figured out and we've got a great finish.
But
it's time to put down multiple brands
of pads and multiple liquids.
I'm telling you guys are costing
time. You're costing
effort. You're costing yourself a headache
and take it for me because I've been there.
I'm not saying it as a judgment.
You've done it. I've done it. We can talk
to anybody that's been around. You've got a whole cabinet
full of crap and
what it does is just muddies the water and you actually
get less result.
You know, I think there's a particular
brand that I'm thinking of that
will tell you that their abrasives
won't work if you
don't use their pad and also say
their pads were designed
to work with their abrasives.
They're pretty staunch at it.
I've heard some of their trainers
when I've been up there telling people
that's why you didn't get the results
like we get because you
went outside of the system.
And there was one that talked to me.
I talked to you about it. He was previously
a salesman for you
and
he basically was complaining that
American detailers
don't like a system. They won't
stick to a system.
And then here we are going
listen, we did put together a system.
We just aren't saying that we created
the pads.
We created the abrasives
and then we found the pads
that we think works the best
and I'm going to say
this definitely was a deference
of the pads over to you.
You spent a lot more time
on the paint with the pads.
So if anybody has a question about
why did you choose
Lake Country with
for instance right here, Velo
why did we get such a great result
with that Lake Country
Orange Pad
and Velo. It's got to be right
the texture, the density
everything all combined.
I think on a softer you know
on medium to harder clears
for a one step. The Orange does
a really nice job on softer stuff
GM, Kia, Honda
doesn't matter what brand you want to say.
It's
you need all of these things in your
toolbox but you don't need them from
10 brands because it doesn't mean that
all 10 brands are created equal
right. Reason
we went with Lake Country and again guys
if quality starts to slip
you know these aren't our pads
we can go to whoever's building the best thing
that works best for people with our abrasive
so this was endless
name every company out there
I got boxes full
of stuff that they sent me and I used it
all and I just go I like this
but I don't like that. This was a good
four pad solution that fits
but yeah I mean
the Orange pad is a little bit softer
but it still has good density
it doesn't cut as hard
and so with something like Velo on softer clears
you can find a good result on a one-step with Orange
but you may go to something like
you know Audi or BMW
and have to step up to blue
or even the Orange microfiber
to get the one step that you want
but not varying
too much is what causes you
to save time, get a better result
get comfortable in a system
and so you know
we're talking about there might be one more pad to add
from Lake Country but we kept it simple
enough that you could work in these boundaries
but yeah I mean we find what everybody else
every other brand has found this
that people struggle with a system
especially in the American detailing culture
but I can tell you
every good shop and every good detailer
they have a system
it just seems that everyone else is the one that bucks it
Good point
Alright so my Uber driver and I
we were talking he let me know
he was I think he said 31 right
young 30s and he made
some point to me
it was really interesting because
he wanted to say that he was really kind of
the prime age
for everybody else
he's like listen you don't know how much I've been able to experience
he's like in his 30s
telling me of this and he was like
hey this is the best
because I've been able to see
and he started listing awesome things
one in particular we joked around
about the iPad right
the iPod I mean not the iPad
the iPod and you know
the mini you got the big ones
he was like ah you know if you could ever find one
and get it turned back on
we were having a good joke and talking about that
it was like it's interesting because
something you and I actually were talking about
recently too right we
we're talking detailing right we've been able to see so many things
and over the years you and I
you know we talked about ah remember this one
and ah remember that one right these
these tools but one thing
it is very interesting around detailing
and around you and I have been
you know I guess so many different
generations over the last years
I mean I'm going to see so many things
it's also
the business of detailing
and you made a statement
last week that I thought was
pretty interesting
like when it comes to business you either make it
or you don't
haha it's like
ah it's pretty blunt you know like
when it comes down to it doesn't matter
when what time
are you in 19 whatever
you're in 2000 whatever
when it comes down to it
you're either going to make it or you don't
and where that rubber meets the road
that's actually my fun my favorite
part right that the commerce
excitement to go get the hey
if you're going to make it you're going to have to go do this
well if you don't
you know you have a little RIP
you kind of move on for the fallen
warrior so to speak but
but we just keep rolling you know you
make it or you don't
ah
let's go into the small business
entrepreneur bro
discussion around that
because that's not really
the big theme anymore
you make it or you don't it's hey you can make it
no matter what just keep hanging on
and there's always tomorrow and
let's keep grinding until we make it
you're talking about a specific
post so do you have the
post pulled up there was a post in our group
okay I
I wasn't thinking of a particular
post so there's
there's a there's a post in our group which I
think is an awesome post where it's like
people are talking about
business and profitable and
what's profitable and how do you define it
you know how do you define business
and being profitable and basically my statement
was
you're either profitable or you aren't
right like that's
that's the nature of it how do we get
so far away from the basics
of business
if you're profitable you're profitable
if you're not profitable you're not profitable
and I think we've gotten
to this point because of
so many people talking business all the
time the Gary V's
the Alex Hermoses the Grant Cardons
and everybody
is making thousands of clips about
business every month
so there's no shortage
of probably millions of clips
every month when it comes to business
because you just listed off some of the top
ones but you start getting into like
the the B list
you know the C list
it's always fun in time
economic times like this yeah billions
of clips there's billions of pieces
of advice
they never talk about
you making money in your
business they talk about like you said
passion and working hard
and you know this marketing tip
and this sales tip and this
and you go okay
when are you going to tell people
that if you don't make
money none of this other
jargon matters
because we almost try to make people
feel bad about talking about it
and it really only hurts
sort of like middle class and down
it's really kind of amazing
they're like targeting this middle class
and lower type of business owner
where nobody ever
talks about the money
yet everybody who
has a big shop
or has made lots of money
their conversations are like
hey what's your margin like
hey when you switch to this did that help
the finances of your business
but everybody sort of middle class and down
they're just using buzzwords
it's almost like it's just a feeding
frenzy on getting these people that don't
have the money to spend get it to
spend it with you and then you'll give
them the secret and
I think this whole conversation
around busyness is interesting
most business
owners that you and I talk to
are so quick to tell
you how busy they are
right I'm so busy
yet the most successful
people you ever talk to never
bring up busyness
they like never talk about it
you and I don't talk about
being busy
we never get on the phone and go
I've had such a busy day and so busy
over here we don't talk that way
we don't speak that way
maybe it's experience maybe it's
you and I have been in business
combined well over 30 years for ourselves
and going into...
I think it's because it's a pet peeve
I think it's a pet peeve
I think it's really that's why
because I know I'm always busy
I think the fun times of people
is busy but it's busy good like
I don't know like it's busy always good
is what I always respond like
everybody wants to know hey how's it going you busy
I mean yeah I'm always
busy I mean it's busy good
I don't know well but you don't talk
about it right that's my
that's the way I choke around
what you say is like
this is just what you have to do
and so basically one
of the things that you and I have found
in the last five years working together
and talked to a lot of successful
business owners and they'll say the same thing is
there's this fascination
with being really busy
but nobody's asking is that
profitable busy
right so
it's almost like a societal
thing and Brian Brian
is the one that said it perfectly one
time people think because
they left their house at a certain time that
that whole time they've been doing work
like especially mobile detailers
like I left the house at seven didn't get back
till five yeah but you had a two hour
lunch at the restaurant by yourself
or with you know whoever not a client
you then had
your drive time then you stopped at the gas
station then you did
so you were out of your house
for ten hours but you weren't actually
busy for ten hours
but you think you're busy so you
think you made money because
you never asked yourself how many hours did I actually
work and
you could just drive to your shop
and say the same thing well I was at my shop
from seven thirty to six
but if you watched YouTube for three hours
and you you know waste of time in the restroom
and you walked out to the trash five
times and you were you busy
maybe
but you weren't profitable
and so we've gotten away from
like the simplistic of
profitable means profitable
busyness really doesn't have a lot
to do with anything in my opinion
we think you know we
get to the end of the week into the month
or whatever we do all
I think most of us would go
you know if I made more money
I was busier
if I didn't make as much money I was
less busy I think most of us would
say if you're busy
you're generally making more money
but there's where you would go
into a lot of us would go that's where
you should know your numbers
there's always great this is like that's one of the
biggest you know seems to be one of those
big cliche you know
words you know know your numbers
know your numbers and I don't
really want to go into that you know we've
done that discussion I'm sure we'll do it
again when there's a right
time for it but that's
almost like a horse that you can keep beating
or like a drum and it's like if you just keep
saying know your numbers you know you
eventually get people to
do something I guess I don't know I
find it interesting too what we see coming
out of SEMA you know
some people are saying
know your numbers
and you should cut your chemicals
I saw one people talking about
hey use this chemical because
it's going to shave
your expenses
like hey you know we did
this magic thing and now you can have
this product that it will
shave off so much of your expenses
that you'll now become profitable
yeah you're not and in the
detailing business you're not going to
shave chemical cost to become
profitable that's that's
a fallacy if you
have to concern yourself with chemical cost
you got major issues you
you've got a dollar
amount being charged for a service that
makes no sense right
the even you know
you were in the car wash world
the best owners
care if the chemical works
to give them the best car wash
they're less concerned with the cost
because they go well so I just got to get
like five more cars in here a day yeah
we're going to do that not saying that
they don't look at the numbers
I'm saying they're not fascinated
with let me buy a cheaper chemical
possibly burn some
cars up causing a bigger headache to
myself putting out worse cars
giving my reputation a ding
they're just like hey man
make sure the car wash works properly
we need to go worry about getting
cars in here and so
every time I go to
or have somebody send me a post off a detailing
group I watch people
go you know Riley's is running
a deal that's like the big thing right now
I went to
10 of them
and I'm like how'd you have time to go to
10 O'Reilly's
but guess what that guy went home and told
his family he was busy
you weren't busy making money
you were busy wasting time
and as a business owner who's screwed up
a lot because all of us business owners have
things we wish we wouldn't have done
once you don't value your
time this thing's a ticking time
bomb it's a wrap
once you worry about the wrong
things for long enough
you and I've shared this story and it came
to my mind when I saw this post in our group
you and I
had a guy who was one of the first
people to join the Sparta program
and I remember talking to him I've shared about it before
and he complained about the
price of Sparta
okay
but you called us because the coding
that you're using is failing on all your
customers cars
at that point I'd be out of the cost
business and be like my reputation isn't
worth all this now here's what ended up
happening
bought a couple bottles
he knows it works he sees it
he goes I just can't do the cost so I went
back to my previous supplier and he cut the cost
even more so I can't turn it down
before today's episode
I went and looked at his website he's out of business
now
is he out of business because of the cost
of chemicals no he's out of business
because his reputation sucked
that's why
and again
maybe he was great at polishing paint
maybe he could wash a car really well
but dude you told me
on the phone who's not even a customer
your reputation meant nothing to you right
so
cutting the cost of chemicals did what it damaged
his reputation he's out of business
but he thought he was doing a smart thing
cutting costs of the coding
well if I'm putting a coding
on a car the first thing I care about is does
it last
I don't worry about the cost I worry
when I put this on a car is it going to
last
if your first thought is
what's it cost
that's the game
right and so these are the little things
like you said coming on a semen
when somebody says I can save
X number of dollars
I'm not saying save money is a bad thing
I'm saying
I care about how the car looks
when I'm done
more than I care about the chemical cost
just like I care about
how profitable we were
at the end of the week
and not how busy I was as an individual
that's not my concern
my concern is is my business
operating the way it's supposed to
so we have like a societal thing
I mean you're
you have a kid in soccer right
parents have this fascination
about how busy they are
and their kids are
if your kid just practiced
three hours a week
but for real practice
instead of the ten hours a week
and two hours he's doing real work
who's going to be better at soccer
but there's a fascination
on the kid being there for ten hours
then the parent says to you
we're working over here and we're so busy
there's this like societal thing
that a certain group of people
very large percentage
if not the majority of people
they think it's a badge of honor
talking about how busy they are
yet nobody successful
talks about how busy they are
and to me the lesson
is when I stopped worrying about
my busyness and I started worrying
about if what we're doing
is the right thing the profitable thing
the right thing for the customer
all of a sudden I never thought
about busyness I thought about
are we doing the right things
and some people listening to go listen
if I reduce the amount
I spend on my chemicals
then I am increasing my profit
okay man
you are correct
but by the way
if you worked that hard
at that thing
and you were able to get one percent
increase in profit
at the end of the year that is
miniscule in the detailing world
so what I was going to say is if you quantify
that into at the end
if you're always constantly
thinking I'm going to be making
more money if I shave and shave and shave
and cut
it's the wrong
I'm not saying you should not cut
your chemicals okay
don't misunderstand me now Nick and I
we both are going to listen use hyper clean
don't talk about that I'm just saying like
don't think that if I dilute something
a little bit you don't understand
the quantification of what time
it takes to do all that
not only the pouring it's your thought process
it's all that you map
all that out into hey
just a question
that three hours you spent the month
trying to worry about that
you took those three hours and you went
into something you really struggle with
maybe that's marketing yes maybe you took
three hours to learn something
okay right yeah this is why we bring
up these type of conversations because people are going
to go hey man if I could you're right
but
we're trying to talk long tail long term
you know all that out of there
uh so
the
maximizing profits by cutting your chemicals
actually I just looked it was actually
a post for somebody's going to give that
discussion in MTE
coming up
yay okay here we go
right and again
by the way when you cut things or when you
use less quality
materials guess what increases your
time of doing something
so every time
I've watched people try to cut
what they don't realize is
now their team works longer
so this happens a lot in the ppf
business guys are tired of the
cost of ppf
then they go to a less quality ppf
it's harder to get it to stick it's harder to
wrap edges it takes longer
but they saved on the roll
but you paid
three x and man hours
you're underwater
all of this conversation
is
when you look at things
chemical cost
in our business is the least of your worries
it will always be the least of your worries
just like at a car wash
the chemical cost
is the least of their worries compared to
is the machine working
how many cars are coming through the door
did you damage anything
that caused an insurance claim
chemical cost
and you dealt with these people
when you probably talked to them
dealerships are in the same position
yeah you cut the chemical cost
I'm not saying you didn't
but you burnt 25 cars a week
when we were burning zero
the old way
you've had 10 insurance claims this month
or something equivalent to that
maybe you paid it out of pocket instead of going to the insurance
what did you save
all you didn't
you actually lost massively
and this happens in every
business and that's why
there's a terminology of major
and minor in the minors
chemicals should be about
quality
does it help me do things efficiently
does it work
I still haven't said cost
okay
when it comes to hiring
team members or keeping team members
do they do a good job
are they on time
are they reliable
I haven't even talked about
are they costing me too much
because at the end of the day
if they do all of those things
the odds they're ever going to cost you too much
is slim and none
now it doesn't mean you can pay them $250,000 a year
but
I want to pay this guy 18 instead of 22 bucks an hour
which would keep him
really loyal to me
those 4 bucks an hour I got news for you
ain't breaking the bank
it just not
so there's a word around that
you and I talked about when we were talking
I think people that have this mindset
they're probably really great managers
you know
they don't really fail too much
but they don't really succeed a whole lot
they just kind of stay right in that middle
just managing and just kind of operating
just keeping steady and
let's just say it
if you can sustain your business
and you can manage it through the tough times
you'll always grow
because you eventually just make it
beyond what other people failing at
you'll eventually have success
so you can have success
as a manager
you just manage everything
everything just
it's actually though
a greater chance of failing though
because you're never
my favorite word that climb
you're never taking a step up
you're never going okay this part's good
this is under control
now let me go fill in the blank
we would always go let me go hunt
that guy
let me go get it
there is a difference
between the motivational guys today
and the get-or-done guys
and those motivational guys
they'll talk to you about things of hope
and all these things that you could do
and then there's the people that just
get it done
cool this is all good
let me go hunt
let me go get more people
I need profit it's not about shaving
getting more people that will pay me
what I need
and
there's also
I think
most small businesses fail
because they just don't understand how this all works
at some point in time
if you're sitting there and you're stagnant
you're usually stagnant
because you're micromanaging the wrong things
right
and like I said
obsessing over chemicals
micromanaging the wrong thing
obsessing over your marketing and sales
process that's valuable
that's a good thing
you can never manage that too hard
it's like we want to market better
we want to sell better
we want to sell better
I want to go back and look at my chemical cost
now which one of those people do you think
is going to be more successful
you guys don't even have to have my experience
just think of it logically
the more people I market to
sell them on my services
take that guy versus the guy
who's measuring his chemicals from his team
at the end of the night
who's going to win
because I got news for you
I say this all the time
I'll give you guys my experience
my accountant can't believe
what it costs to run a detailing business
he's like
I cannot believe this exists
this is insane
because he deals with all kinds of other businesses
he's got a lot of money
guys
I have always bought the highest quality chemicals
I could get my hands on
I've never had an accountant look at me and go
you're spending too much on chemicals
matter of fact they all laugh and go
I can't believe this
so if you're worried about it
and somebody who manages money
for a living for businesses
is laughing about how you can do
high quality stuff
and still only have this amount of cost
not a car guy
not a detailing business owner
he's an outsider looking at the pure numbers
then you concerning yourself
with it probably isn't
the best use of your time
but I tell you what it'll make you feel like
is that you're busy
you'll feel busy
because you spent like you said three hours
looking into something
but wait a minute you already have stuff that works
you already with hyper clean
you already have coatings that work
you can still sell more coating installations
so
busyness can become an addiction
but you don't
if you don't ever look at what is causing
your busyness you and I have this
we have a funny joke inside
the person that tells me they're busy
also struggles to send an email
in a timely manner
so are they busy or are they goofing off
and you and I would say
people that talk about how busy they are
are usually goofing off the most
because people that
are truly busy just
get shit handled
and maybe you're unorganized too
which was my problem you know early in business
I was very unorganized I've always said
my biggest weakness as a human being was
organization so
you're right maybe
maybe is also having too much on your plate
with too much going on and you just
ah not good
I think a great part of the end of the year
with this go back and look at your year
start to
estimate what time you spent on what
in a small business is pretty simple
marking sales
and selling or doing the job you sold
that should be your
that should be what 95% of your time
if you didn't
spend 95% of your time on that
you've
spent your time unwisely
because that's really the business
where people need to spend their time
on the hyperclean specialist group
I will see everybody there
because there's a lot of great posts
there's great stuff to talk about
a lot of questions like you said we mentioned here
we talk about them through
inside at the hyperclean specialist
Nick always voices his opinion
I'm not always so
opinionated and just sometimes hit the like
but you almost always get Nick
to tell you something I think that's why
people text you more now Nick
that's why you get much more
a lot of text
see you guys next week
About this episode
Diving into the world of auto detailing, this episode tackles the often misunderstood relationship between business profitability and the detailing industry. The hosts discuss the pitfalls of relying on AI-generated content in automotive journalism, emphasizing the importance of genuine knowledge over superficial trends. They also explore the significance of choosing the right products, like pads and compounds, and how sticking to a consistent system can enhance results. The conversation wraps up with insights on the true meaning of being busy versus being profitable in business, encouraging listeners to focus on effective practices rather than just appearances.
Original notes
In this conversation, Marshall and Nick discuss the evolving landscape of automotive detailing, focusing on the rise of ceramic coatings, the impact of AI on content creation, and the importance of quality products in the detailing industry.
They explore the challenges faced by small business owners, the misconception of busyness versus profitability, and the significance of having a structured approach to detailing.
The discussion also touches on the maintenance of electric vehicles and the necessity of choosing the right products for optimal results.
Chapters
00:00 The State of Automotive Journalism
02:52 The Impact of AI on Content Creation
06:12 The Evolution of Detailing Practices
09:10 The Role of Social Media in Car Culture
12:01 Pad Washing Techniques and Preferences
15:07 Insights on EVs and Maintenance
17:56 Kia Paint and Detailing Solutions
22:00 Optimizing Detailing Techniques
27:58 The Business of Detailing: Profitability vs. Busyness
32:33 Understanding Profitability in Business
39:34 The Myth of Busyness in Business
46:00 Maximizing Efficiency Over Cost-Cutting
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Nick Walters and Marshall Hill
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50:17