Raise or Lower Your Prices while Building Packages. Plus, Handling Customers. Episode #946

Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most influential and listen to podcast in auto detailing. Welcome to the community.

All right, Nick, I barely got that one. We ready? Let's go. This is fun because we've had a great little previous discussion ready to get into this episode. Nick, I think most people don't realize how much slack like shrapnel how much we just call it crap.

Well, actually, they probably do. I bet you they probably do think that Nick gives me a lot of crap throughout the week throughout the months, maybe even just just think about the years we've been knowing each other.

How much crap you've given me. Do you think you've given me more crap or I've given you more crap?

Oh, definitely me.

Definitely you I'll tell I'll wear it. Yeah, but when you make silly decisions on your cars and just so everybody's aware, this is not business related. Okay, so don't make me the bad guy here. Okay, because that's what people like to do.

You are you got your you and I largely when it comes to the business side of things we have our place very rarely does it overlap. We Hey, this is what you handle. This is what I handle. We'll ask each other questions.

So everybody understand what he's talking about. It's car decisions that mainly he's talking about. So you're not going to paint me into the corner that it's everything. Okay, car decisions. Yes.

So the analogy I have for you if people have seen the Lego movie, there's a guy named Lord business, right? That is Nick. Right. So once his daughters get old enough and he's forced to watch Lego movies, he will understand the pun and the joke.

But here I am is a Friday afternoon, ready to go enjoy the weekend in my car that I'm starting to design out the way I'm choosing it to look, you know, we're calling it design.

That's what we're calling this. No. And by the way, this is in a group text with other people. So I got witnesses. This isn't

it. Make sure you say this stuff properly because I have a witness design. Yeah, you know, design happens, whether you meant for it to work or not, you know, you know, you designed it to go that way.

So, you know, you've got the people in Carolina and Florida, they want to call they say they got this squat, right? The Cal, you know, the California's tried to steal it, but Carolina, they're the number one's Florida kind of

borrows it. No, no, no, no, no. That's the squat. Right. That's the Carolina squat. That's Texas. That's in the south. For sure. Texas has a lean. Right. That's what they go for. Now, I've created the newest one. Because some people like like this performance rake, we're calling it the Oklahoma rake. This is front end up

proper installation. That's what it's coming in up a couple inches back left down a little

Yeah, no, no, it's it was an assault on our group chat. I mean, he you assaulted my eyes, Rob's eyes. Shout out Rob on our team. The host of clutch culture. It was a full on visual assault

of we couldn't believe what we were looking at. So we're not gonna blame Nick. We're not gonna blame Rob. We're just going to say you made some really bad decisions.

And it's okay, because I've made bad decisions. See, I'm equal opportunity. I will crack on myself when I do something wrong. I will crack on others when they do something wrong. This was an installation of suspension parts that friendly way of saying went awry.

I mean, is that a fair assessment? Listen, the Oklahoma, the Oklahoma rake. That's all I got to say. I've created something. You created something, for sure. It has been designed out of pure skill set. Yeah, something like that. Yes, for sure.

So, you know, I did talk to the guy and he's a guy that you know, I love the guy almost like a son, right? I've known him basically his whole life. He's a neighbor. He's done a lot of work here at the warehouse. He's grown up in the auto industry. His dad's owned a car sales business for cheese, I think 30, 30 plus years or so right been around for a long time, work for his dad fixing things.

And now wanting to get his star, which is awesome, right? Like he's created a little handyman service where he does stuff around house, but mostly around little stuff around for people's cars, right? Even now rented a little spot. So he's growing, right? This is cool. He rented a little location so we can install your suspension on a 2000 BMW right this second, but he'll get there. Yes.

We can see though, right? We can kind of understand and I want everybody to understand the crossover analogy too. Those of us that always are starting to grow and step up and get our business to what we feel is the next level, right? He's doing that for himself.

And yet he gave me to your point a vehicle back. And I asked him, man, hey, I mean, did you, did you see it? I mean, I mean, why, why, why'd you return the car to me this way? He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, I, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw it. Yeah.

And you just go, oh, all right, let's, let's talk. It's a tough start. Let's call it. It is. It is. And it's tough start that, you know, make a mistake. I, we can all go. I've made a million of them.

I want to talk through if we can see that analogy of where he's at and, you know, progressing business. There's something that we don't really talk a whole lot about. That's relationships. Relationships, especially when you're around guys like, oh, that's not really something I'm too excited to get into a car detailing podcast and talk about relationships.

I think if I've done it in the past, Nick would have busted my balls over it, right?

100%. That is accurate.

But there is a relationship when somebody pays you money for a service that you are doing. That relationship is built around honesty, I guess we would say like a truth of doing things, you know, hey, so and so gave me this to put on. So at case in point, somebody's going to pay me for a ceramic coating.

I'm going to get paid for a ceramic coating. Do I say that's five years, seven years life? What do I feel that in right because I want to start a relationship so that this customer is with me on a regular long term basis 1520 years down the road.

That's what I'm hoping for this kid. I'm hoping I found somebody to work on my car for the next 15 to 20 years. And here we're at the start of that relationship is already with a broken promise. If I if I promise somebody some long term coding.

I can't. Can I ever really know right like like him. Hey man, why'd you got I don't know why I don't know why I did.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think it is.

The mistake starts not with that you made a mistake trying something right this kid was trying something obviously didn't know everything he needed to know but we all start somewhere and I think that's your kind of view with them as hey man I'll give you a shot.

You know I'll give you a shot you say you know how to do it I'm going to trust you I've known you basically like you said your whole life, we're going to have a conversation about it and we're going to give you the work.

The number one mistake we all can look at here and say is pretty obvious is he returned the car knowing it wasn't right.

That is in a lot of cases irreversible.

Even if you make a mistake and you go to the guy in your case you and say hey man this doesn't look right I can't really get to it right now.

I can't fix it right this second. I want you to know that I know it's not right but I'm going to get it right.

Give me a day to talk to some people and I'm going to get this right for you.

That's the thing that a lot of people avoid in my career.

A lot of customers we've got in the car collection world are exactly that somebody didn't know what they were doing, which is okay.

The first car collection I was ever in can't say I was comfortable.

But I never hid anything. I never acted like I wasn't over my head right it's okay to act like hey I want you to know man I did this it didn't come out the way but I'm going to make it right.

And then you go about making it right. This guy may have come to you and said hey I'm not going to charge you we need to take this to a shop.

I'm in over my head and I apologize for that.

A guy like you doesn't take that negatively at all.

You go understand man appreciate your hard work.

Here's a couple bucks for your hard work we'll get it to a shop and you know let's get it handled.

I think that that goes a lot further with successful people you're in business with than anybody ever thinks.

Because if you think you're not going to have to walk up to somebody with bad news in business.

I think you're in for a real rude awakening of what the next five or ten years in your business because let me tell you something you're going to give some bad news and you better just get used to it.

Yeah and so for he let's just go like could have definitely have seen the large gap between my tire and the fender lip right.

I mean basically look I mean so everybody knows it looked like a lifted BMW.

It's not I mean even if you're trying to take it out of the right.

Yeah if you're trying to take it out of sports you know lowered suspension you had coilovers on it and you go I just don't like the ride and I'm just trying to make it stock.

I think and you and I talked about this this gets at another issue that this this guy had which which a lot of people have.

I'm not sure everybody knows how to use Google.

Because essentially you you send me this picture you and I end up talking later that day.

And I said hey with the way that's all positioned you need to be careful driving this car because if this starts ripping apart other stuff you're going to be real pissed off at the cost this could lead to which by the way was never referenced by him because he doesn't know better.

Right he's at the beginning of a of a business here and I think the thing that that I want to say to people we see it in auto detailing all the time is people rush to places that aren't really knowledge.

Facebook groups somebody's tick tock so you know they don't really vet any of that for this kid he had a simple thing that I did with you on the phone.

I said hey man I just typed in your thing I can get the full suspension package whatever you want back to even BMW OEM.

Here's the price here's all the things that would need to be changed out you know all things he could have done all things that he could have done handed you a bill for the parts and said hey this is what we need to go with.

And I think he didn't do that because talking to him right it was hey you know I just was going to do your shocks and I want everybody to understand this analogy.

I know I in the past would get a car that came in and I did not get all the stains out of the carpet or all the stains out of the seat.

We know that there's been people that could run around a car with a polisher in like 30 minutes right we had some fun jokes on the pub and we had some really fun times where we people get.

I'm pretty sure most every single one of us would know we've all not gotten some stains we you know right we could we could joke about scratches.

But when it comes to stains I'm pretty sure we can all know that we did not get every stain out of a carpet so if I didn't I would always talk to the customer and say hey and I know that we had these stains in that that back you know backseat.

I know we had some stains on your front floorboard that we were looking to get out and I know this floor mat had you know dot dot dot I wasn't able to get it I got it out everything I could do versus the phone call.

Hey I thought you were going to get those stains out of my back seat.

Yep very good analogy because I was always worse.

I could have done that to him right like I knew better.

A. I like the kid.

I want to continue the relationship.

B. I've been on the other side of that phone call so I didn't want to get.

Hey mother.

What the hell are you thinking.

But you can definitely get into some situations where you don't lay yourself up with a hey I tried here.

Right.

He did try.

Turns out that you know it was the wrong control arms.

Not his fault.

Unless he would have done what you did.

I said hey I can just do the full suspension and get it to you for this price.

But but the beginner business problem.

Tough to do the upsell.

Right.

Not sure if this guy's just thinking I'm trying to sell him something or hey I'm not right.

But I would have loved his confidence.

Hey I can take these off but I bet you there's probably a good chance these control arms he could have explained it to me or you say could have walked it out to me.

Yep.

And then I would have been understanding that it wasn't going to go the way it went.

Yeah.

And the mistake is is is fine.

You're going to make him.

Right.

He made a mistake.

It's not the end of the world.

I think if you see it through that lens you'll have a much healthier appreciation of just talking to people and go.

Hey I messed up.

We should have done this this and this is not sitting right.

I'm going to get to the bottom of it.

Give me a day or two and I'll have a fix for you.

Right.

It happens in business.

For all of you that are have these aspirations of doing these bigger ticket items.

You know PPF and things like that.

Boy the amount of disappointment you're going to have to explain to people when you have to keep the car an extra day or an extra two days or somebody something got messed up but you better get used to it.

I mean all of you want to step up to this higher level.

I'm all for that.

The conversations get a lot more uncomfortable with a lot more money on the line.

They get a lot more uncomfortable.

I dropped a forty five hundred dollar headlight and busted it.

I just called him and said hey I dropped it.

We got another one on order.

It is what it is.

I never heard anything about it.

He never even headlight looks identical.

The headlight was there.

Delayed everything about you know thirty six hours.

But you know how many of you can eat a forty five hundred dollar headlight which you take out for PPF not not a lot of people understand that that could be a risk and I think what it comes down to is.

They are horrible conversations to have and they're never fun to have and you're never going to have fun having them.

I don't care how long you're in business.

I think the thing to learn here is like you said you're going to leave some stains behind that you thought you could get out that you couldn't you're going to have some scratches you can't get out to perfect just like you thought.

Are you going to go I hope they don't notice or am I going to preemptively tell them exactly what I did exactly what I tried.

I did everything in my skill set this stain this scratch this thing is the way it is.

If you want me to try more it's beyond what I can do so we can call Body Shop or whoever you'd have to go to.

But I think we we are in a world where I see people five years into their business making this mistake as if it's day one and it's just a part of how they run their business and I just think it never ends well.

Those businesses don't seem to stick around.

Yeah.

Another I think crossover I thought of was when people I see this in groups where they'll they'll get a text message back from a customer somebody asking about how come such and such and they'll respond well I wasn't in your package.

That's pretty that's pretty that's a pretty tough conversation.

And in a conversation that I say if I walk somebody properly around their car and explain everything that I did properly and directly you'll find that you don't get those after the fact conversations when they're at their house.

So instead of a lot of ways that this is presented in groups is like can you believe what Susan did and they post the conversation instead of thinking if I would have just taken an extra five minutes and walked her through everything.

She wouldn't have gotten home and been confused just wouldn't have happened.

Now maybe you did do a walk around and you go well Nick I did that well then you didn't do it thorough enough so the next time you got to do it more thoroughly.

Even have a check sheet if you want to do that and it helps you and you get nervous around people just do whatever you got to do to make sure people don't leave your business or a car in your hands and then leave confused.

And that's exactly what happened to you.

You're texting it almost like confused why this is going on because the guy never mentioned anything.

So your confusion levels out of 10 out of 10.

Had he told you you would have had zero out of 10 confusion you'd be like I he's got to order a couple more parts no big deal.

And those parts he did and he got them in got the control arms put in this weekend.

I was riding really great today on the way into works it was awesome.

Yeah.

And by the way all he had to do to fix the situation is say I'm ordering a couple more parts I want to let you know this isn't sitting right.

Leave it here.

Don't drive it.

Okay I know you got another vehicle another couple of vehicles in your situation he knows that you got other vehicles to drive.

Let me get the parts ordered let me get this sorted out because I noticed when I put it down it doesn't look right so don't don't drive it.

All of it avoidable and you having no confusion confusion versus you having a 10 out of 10 of confusion when all this took place.

So something we all have in common absolutely as we go through life and that's that's I mean it's just absolute guaranteed we all have this in common.

We all have a little time that we regret whether that's an action or something that we didn't act upon.

And they say which psychologists or life people or whoever studies these things say that we always regret things that we don't do right.

Decisions we don't make or actions that we don't do instead of the ones that we do and don't turn out we actually usually regret that we don't do something.

You know usually go back and think like well if I would have you know then this would have happened right it's an if then moment.

If you have fill in the blank well then fill in the blank we can kind of kind of see right go back to the stain analogy I said earlier with the carpets right like if you've got a stain and you didn't get it out then the customer is going to be upset right.

Then I should if they're right we understand we understand.

So I've saw this and the guy the guy asked for his opinion he said hey I want you to see my menu right so this was sent over because it's very interesting menu.

A lot of us all want to know well what I put in my packages this guy had three packages it's got the basic detail it's got the full detail and then extreme detail.

Okay this isn't a group by the way this was this isn't a group yeah somebody somebody sent it to me out of a group and yeah and wanting to know so basic detail.

$55.

Moment of silence like I think we all took a moment of silence there right $55 for a basic detail I don't know that you would use the word detail in the same sentence as $55 but I'll move on full detail is $90 extreme detail we got to know extreme details got to be massive right.

The package of the extreme detail comes with here we go exterior hand wash this is good interior deep clean and vacuum as opposed to you know just just to wipe down the other details just got to wipe down but here we've got a deep clean this is very good carpet shampoo.

Here we go scratch removal and hand wax application all for only $120 if you would have put that out would you regret it later $120 for all that.

I some of the times and this this whole ordeal I'm pretty speechless and this is not out of judgment to this it's the general misunderstanding of what it takes to run a business.

And I think that's plentiful from this guy through a lot of people and by the way through a lot of people to have way more experience than him.

I think one of the things when I get asked about people's packages.

First of all I don't really know what to say.

Because I don't know where you live.

I don't know your skill level.

I don't really know anything.

Okay.

But when I see numbers I know whether you can do mathematics or not.

Or that you just simply haven't done them at one or the other.

Right.

And it's usually the latter.

So for everybody that asked me this question and they want us to talk about packages all the time on the show you get the same DMs you know what you know what do you mean by this and what.

One of the things I can say with probably a lot of confidence is there's not a lot of cities today that you're going to make money below 100 bucks an hour.

When you start to bring in all the cost of whether you run a shop or you have gas in your truck or maintenance or you know time or man the last five years have proven one thing.

Shit's expensive.

It just is.

I mean people want to complain about gas were well over $5 a gallon here.

I haven't seen below four gallons basically in a decade.

$4 a gallon.

And there's people on the internet that I see that I actually know and they're like oh if I had $5 a gallon it's like dude you guys don't have.

You guys just don't know what it's like to live in an expensive place with expensive but guess what I know your city still has to be 100 bucks plus an hour to make it.

I just don't I mean Tulsa which is a very affordable place.

You couldn't run a mobile joint under 100 bucks an hour.

You'd probably be more hundred and twenty five ish to make it really a profitable business where you could hire people pay them well pay your insurance pay for gas pay for a shop pay whatever you're doing.

So for everybody to ask me this question I want you to know I think Marshall feels the same way I can never really answer it.

Not really.

Okay.

But this is a good jumping off point of what you need to do.

If you're struggling in your business and you can't tell me very quickly why you charge what you charge with actual data of this is how much I pay for this this is how much I pay for that this is how much it costs for me to do a detail this is how fast we do it.

This is the time this is you can't answer those questions you can't build a package.

Packages are built on fixed cost and time it takes to do.

This gentleman and I'm not picking on him has done none of that.

Not one ounce of building a package just based on how to build a package.

And by the way, it doesn't matter if you run the biggest shop or you run a mobile unit.

Everybody has to do the same mathematic calculations for their business.

If you're unwilling to do that, which a lot of people are, I would say I'd probably go ahead and find something else to do than own a business because that's just how it works.

You know, I've shared like, there's things I've regretted around, you know, the way I drew certain customers into my business and just into my life, I guess, right?

Like, if I wouldn't have offered such pricing or such deals or discounts, then I wouldn't have the customers who always wanted a deal and always needed some special thing to help them out.

Right, because if I've got a customer that sees $120 and can seal all this stuff inside of the package that they would go, oh, yes, stain removal.

Oh, I need that.

Oh, scratch removal.

Oh, oh, hand wax.

Wow.

And that a great deal of 120 bucks.

Whoo.

So you're going to get a couple types of customers.

I didn't come down to at least three.

Get customer A.

This is a fun one, right?

Customer A.

Well, man, I got five or six scratches, I know at least.

How many scratches are you going to do for 120 bucks?

How many?

And by the way, they don't really know what removal means and capabilities and limitations.

And so you're opening a can of worms with that.

Bingo.

Absolutely.

That's the guy that's the can of worms because he's not going to know what, well, what about this one?

No joke.

We all know that they're there.

Oh, yeah.

Some of us have had those people.

Oh, yeah.

What?

Does this one count?

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

Low prices guarantees that.

That is your A number one customer.

All right.

Customer B.

That sees that deep clean, the steam carpet shampoo and that hand wax and all that for 120 bucks.

My interior and I'm going to get the exterior.

Right.

They didn't even, they're not, they didn't think that didn't think scratches.

They don't see the scratches.

Hell, they didn't even see their interior needed a cleaning two years ago.

Sure.

Let alone the scratches and they love the idea that you're going to hand wax their car in

2026.

Huh?

Lots.

That's an interesting customer.

We can all understand those people.

What do you think that those carpets look like?

You know what?

What do you think that seat looks like once you remove all the stuff out of the cracks

and all the crevices?

All right.

On the final, my favorite customer C, because I just say this, you'll understand the joke

in package A and B. Well, I guess it wasn't A and B.

It was basic detail and full detail.

They got tire shine.

Well, extreme detail didn't get tire shine at 120 bucks.

He didn't list it like my guy.

So I'm customer C, man.

I wanted my infinite shine slathered up and shiny as can be all over those tires.

Yeah.

No, it's this is a pricing as a cannon worms.

People don't think about the can that you're going to choose to open up.

Right.

And is their money in low cost detailing?

The answer is yes.

You know what makes it worth it?

Extreme efficiency and volume.

And I mean real volume, 40, 50, 60 cars a day volume.

Not I did three details that that doesn't work with low cost.

Think of a Walmart.

You know why Walmart can charge so little?

They got eight billion locations and they're going to sell the same lawn chair in the spring.

Eight billion times across the world.

That's what they're going to do.

Nick, people don't really realize they might have heard that you did wholesale.

But yeah, you started in the place to do high volume.

Like just what was that typical day?

What did you look?

What did it look like?

We were sanding, buffing, freshened details.

We were doing everything in between at an auction.

Yeah.

Yes, we would do auction cars at a location.

It would get transported to the auction.

Oh, okay.

You worked for a guy that had a standalone location.

Yeah, like he always thought you meant that he was doing them at an auction.

No, no.

He had like a huge, you know, facility.

Gotcha.

And I worked for two guys like this, meaning when I worked for another company, they had

a customer that was an auction guy.

Didn't really do dealer stuff.

He did wholesale.

They would do everything.

Whatever the car needed, that's what they did.

So if it's like, you know, you go back to the day, you had all this heavy oxidation

on a car.

He wasn't going to run a heavy oxidized car back through the auction.

He was going to jewel that baby up.

You know, you may have to wet sand and run the buffer and do full extraction and they'd

get a price for that.

But when you're talking about what he was doing, he had 10 bays going at all times.

There was no space left.

And this was a massive facility.

Same for any wholesale work I've seen.

There wasn't more space.

There wasn't.

We got three bays open.

We got this part of the warehouse that wasn't going down.

There was something happening on every square inch that was prepping a car to go through

the auction.

Period.

Same at the dealer world, right?

That's what I was going to talk about.

Dealer that's moving tons of cars.

It's a real valuable dealer.

There's not a wasted minute.

There's not a wasted.

I mean, you're barely getting lunch.

Okay.

Well, we had detailers that would work at dealerships making $65,000, $70,000 a year.

Yeah.

It's because they were efficient.

They were getting paid flagged hour, which is basically per car, which is basically what

you want.

Per service.

You know, hey, you get this for this service.

He's knocking them out.

Yeah.

So all of this stuff works.

Low prices work.

High prices work.

They all work, but they all have a reality to them.

And when you're talking about low prices, there's only one way to make it work.

One, do shit tons of volume that 99.9% of people can't do.

They don't have their math down.

They don't know how long things take.

They don't, they're not organized enough.

Their systems aren't good enough.

When you are talking about low prices for people that have never seen it, all of the

systems are based around moving cars efficiently.

Like one of the big things for me that I learned from, from, from my first guy I ever worked

for, when you parked a car, it was parked because if you moved it, it was wasted time.

So you don't move it until it's done.

And I'm telling you, people would get in so much trouble if he came out and saw a car was

not right.

He go, why did that get moved out of the bay?

Because he knew all the things that had to happen to move that car out.

He's like, you could have just kept it there.

Come found me.

Come find me.

And I could have come and told, but you move these three cars and those fork, what were

you doing?

He wouldn't get mad at a whole lot, but that would just send them over the edge because

he knew all of the minutes and hours that could get wasted if everybody was moving

around.

There is nothing wrong with lower prices, but in our world of working on cars, there's

only one way to make low prices work.

And that's to do more cars than anybody in your city.

And I mean by a long shot.

I don't mean they do three details a day and I do six.

No, no, they do three details a day and you do 48 details a day.

You do 60 details a day.

You do 70 cars a day.

That is how low prices work.

And so when I get these questions, I don't want anybody to ever think I'm dodging the

pricing question.

I have just seen all parts of the spectrum and they all work.

The one that I don't see work for most people is low prices because they have no idea how

to be efficient enough and bring in the volume to make it work.

Efficiency, I know as well.

Yeah, both can't say either, right?

But volume because so many of us struggle with marketing and sales, right?

We just admit it.

We struggle with marketing sales.

So volume is always going to be a thing that's a struggle for us to get the amount of customers

that are just unending, right?

Volume, not to your point, I got four or five a day.

I'm talking you could get to the point of hundreds a day.

Do you have the marketing and sales?

And by the way, I worked for a company called Color Tech after my original job.

They had like two wholesalers and like 15 dealerships going every day.

And by the way, they paid people 50%, 50% on everything you did.

And I remember looking back and everybody was like, and people would ask now probably listening to this,

how are they able to pay their staff 50% but the volume was so never ending.

They weren't, I mean, dude, we had touch up paint on the vans that we mixed ourselves with the color codes.

Like I was putting pinstripes on cars and just cracking.

They were just cracking heads to put pinstripes and graphics and buffing and sanding and freshen ups and quick cleans.

But you were going eight to 10 hour, they were running eight to 10 hour days at every dealership.

And if dealerships weren't busy enough, they just said, we're not doing business with you.

You don't have enough work.

They were firing dealerships like, hey, you don't have enough for two guys to be there all day or five guys to be there.

Whatever their number was for that dealership.

And as soon as it started to decline, they were like, we're on to the next one.

See, they had pressure washers and bays and everything was set up and they just churn it and burn it.

And it worked.

And this was in early 2000.

They had a divorce.

It was a husband and wife team in early 2000.

They were net profiting close to a half a million dollars out of that business.

That's take home, not even counting all the bills they paid, you know, through the business, etc.

In early 2000s in the detailing and had to have years to get did over a million, meaning they took home a million.

Yeah.

So they're that other part is the efficiency.

Yeah.

Boy, not only do most of us not have the marketing chops, but when it comes to really doing the simple things right,

efficiency is the key.

Efficiency being efficient.

Does that mean filling up your bottles the night before so that when you're in the day, you're not having to stop what you're doing.

Yeah.

You know, do you?

How about this full on chemical systems?

And how do I not even how do I quickly fill things up and how do I quickly get compound?

I mean, they were the first people to show me that that specific couple what were the first people to show me.

And this is with Rotary.

They made you lay your compound all around the car.

You weren't going to stop.

There was no you put the compound around the car once.

Boom, bead, boom, bead, boom, bead.

And if they saw you picking one of those up, boy, I mean, it was like the world was coming to an end.

Well, how did you not know?

But now it sounds dramatic to people.

I know people that have never been in that world, but they also knew if this car is supposed to take two hours and it goes two hours and 30 minutes.

There's a huge problem because it's not about the one car.

I now have a technician 30 minutes behind.

I now have less cars I can push out less cars he can do this might back this up this might back that up.

So I don't want anybody to think that I dodged these questions.

But I don't know what everybody's capabilities are.

And, you know, this is the problem with this guy asking a group about pricing that just on the face of it is not going to work.

It's not going to work.

And you don't want to discourage people.

That is never the thing you want to do when you get asked for advice.

But when you're this far off, you go, Hey, man, go get a job working for somebody that does this and get things figured out and then try again.

That's what I've always advocated.

Not because I don't want people to start their own business, but because when you're this far off, this guy's probably 10 X off.

10 X off is not recoverable.

You're not you're not going to outpace that no matter how hard you work.

And so that's why hard work has always been the lie that it is.

Because this guy can work as hard as he wants.

He's never going to win.

Now, if he starts to work his ass off and in the first three months he goes, I got to raise my prices two, three, five X.

He can get out of the hole.

You and I have been around long enough to know he's never going to do that.

And that's just that's just a really tough thing to say.

Yeah, it is tough.

It's tough.

You know what else is tough, which was full display, full display.

I know I've done it.

I've reached for something.

I grabbed it.

And as I'm bringing it, lifting it up and just you start to in a half second, feel it kind of slip out of your fingers.

And then you hear that you go, Oh, I just busted a TRX bottle all over, all over my leg, all over the floor, the trigger busted.

I just had it happen.

Last week when I was in the shot, I go, Wow, that created a lot of havoc for such a crazy thing.

Corey, we feel you man.

Yeah.

By the way, Corey, I love the post because in the comments, he was just like, What are you going to do?

You know what I mean?

Again, buddy, I feel it because I've been there my whole career.

Just stuff you look at and you go, How did that happen?

That half second, right?

Where you like your your fingers feel as you're like reaching to grab it, but you don't grab it and you knock it.

Oh, yeah.

There's that half second of like, do you ever kick your foot out and you made it worse?

Like you kick your foot out because it's trying to grab it and you're like kick your foot out.

Then it hits a door and then it explodes on the on the door.

You go, What the?

Did you just make it worse?

Yeah.

There's there's a half second where a lot of things can take place.

And you can tell the people that have, right?

Like you can see it was fun, right?

Isabel was like, I'm not claiming this negative energy.

I hear you.

You don't want that.

Like it ain't happening to me because she's right.

She's known it or she's saying, right?

You can you can see Rachel.

Love Rachel's was thankful that it wasn't she mentioned like a higher pride, right?

Like Sparta or Trey.

Be thankful.

It was just the glass coating, right?

Like I have dropped.

We all most of us have spilled, right?

There's there's those moments.

We we don't like it.

None of us like it.

Mildren was great, right?

Everybody kept saying, yeah, have a laugh.

Have a laugh.

And then, well, and then there's Tanner.

Tanner, I really appreciate your energy.

I really appreciate you being involved.

Tanner's in a lot of groups.

Oh, yeah, you can see him post in a lot of different groups.

Tanner also likes to share what he feels that is important to him into other

groups and tell other people, great Tanner, all good man.

This is all you.

Not a knock.

We're not coming at you.

We just we can understand, right?

He's a guy that's very opinionated and wants to then tell people his opinion.

So cool.

When you do that and you do that in a moment like this, well, then you get

people that actually do know what they're talking about that get to help have a

conversation.

So, you know, he did say, which I guess some other people have thought to, hey,

you know, why don't we put why don't companies why don't ceramic coatings

get put in metal or plastic?

We've done the plastic talk.

We've done that plenty.

You don't need to go over it here.

But I mean, we put stack in metal.

So there is a good question.

Then why don't we put the 50 mil, 100 mil?

Why don't we put those in a metal container?

Yeah.

So we've actually talked to people that specialize in packaging.

And I think this is one of the things I would say to anybody out there.

I think it's pretty safe to say that I hope most of you think we give a lot of

thought to the things we do all the way down to the boxes we use and had

designed for us.

By the way, the boxes you guys get product in, those are our boxes.

Those don't exist for anyone else.

Those are our boxes designed by a box manufacturer for our products and how

they should fit.

We actually have to order so many of them because they are built specifically

for us.

I think it's safe to say most of you see that we do care about all the

little details.

When you talk to packaging people, one of the most inconsistent ways to

bottle 50 and 100 mil are metal bottles because they are done at a much

more forgiving tolerance manufacturing wise.

So a glass bottle is unforgiving.

It's either it's built to exactly what it's supposed to be or it's not.

A metal one with very thin, you know, top to it.

It can bend.

It can be shaped differently.

So actually, and there's people out there that I know know this, even if you

stick a plunger in there, you know, to keep everything in internal and not

spill, that you'll get stuff and it will be spilling out.

You can't always get the lid to seat right.

You can't always get a lid that fits.

If you run a 5000 batch, you could have 1000 that are just a regular.

Now you can't see it.

Those things are small, right?

The 50 mil, 100 mil bottles that we have that are glass have a really

small hole.

I've never seen a metal one.

No, it's not.

The metal ones I've seen didn't have that big.

Yes.

They'll have a big, big opening.

Again, these are all good questions, but I think the thing we all have to realize is

that sometimes in life, people just have more experience than you.

And we have a packaging company that we can call and get advice.

The funny thing is their advice is pretty spot on when it comes to what works

and what doesn't.

They would actually make more money selling us other options a lot of times,

gallons, this, that.

I mean, we have it all the time, you know, caps, they could make more money.

They just go, this won't work for what you're doing.

So I think one of the things I would like to take at this moment is everyone

to slow down and go sometimes in life, people have a lot more experience

than you and that doesn't mean that they think they're better than you.

It's just they've been exposed to more and talk to more experts and talk to

more people and have more installations.

Again, I'm going on my 16th year of installing ceramic coatings.

Do you think I've dropped a few?

I used to order my coatings by 100 boxes, 100 count boxes of five year coating.

And I would say, don't put a label on them and just put them in a box

so I could get them out fast enough from one company.

You guys would all know and nobody else in the globe did that.

They weren't doing enough volume.

I was.

I know what works.

I know what doesn't.

I think a lot of companies globally would love to have more fancy packaging

when it comes to coatings.

I think we're one of them.

I wish we could have something totally unique, you know, bottle for us.

But guess what?

There's really only certain things that work to the best of the ability of

manufacturing.

Okay.

When you're talking about a tin bottle and that's what they call them tin.

There is a lot of tolerance given to tin manufacturing

that is not given to glass manufacturing just by the nature of the raw material.

And so these are the best options we have today, in my opinion, in stack.

We have tried something, but it hasn't been without its flaws.

Just like glass is not without its flaws.

I think sometimes it's okay to go.

Maybe these guys do know something I don't know.

I did the old, oh, that's a strange shield to die on.

I just kept reading, right?

That's what came to my mind.

I was like, why, why, why the need did he feel to just keep going on?

And, you know, the question about, well, we don't have glass spray bottle.

You know, you just felt a little bit of like animosity and like, you know, I want,

you know, yours was a great idea about the tins and those.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of the tins that we have to order in, they get damaged in transport.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sure you guys wouldn't be too excited if your tin showed up and it was all crinkled in.

You also wouldn't be too excited.

Right.

Part of the reason we got to think about why we don't go glass and some stuff really big is cost.

Sure.

Right.

We don't do some things out of cost.

We do some things down in glass.

Well, because the cost of glass at that price is worth it.

It is the most dependable.

Yes.

For the product that's being sent.

Right.

As you said, which we've all talked about, if ceramics take a evolution.

Hey, we're happy to go join in that evolution where we stand today.

This is the most practical.

This is the best choice given to send out.

So well, it does suck then.

It does suck if you drop it.

You know, we used to get milk in a glass bottle.

Hey, that's coming back.

What did they say?

That's coming back.

Crying over milk.

Spill it, right?

Like, you know, you just have to figure out things that you're going to die on your hill.

Spend all your time running your mouth or realize, hey, you know, I get plastic milk.

Now there's probably a reason we don't have a milkman delivering it to my front door in

a glass bottle.

Well, and also sometimes it's good to take a step back and say, is everybody globally

a dummy?

No, I mean, all of the top companies.

And by the way, we're not even talking about detailing.

There's a lot of products that come in 50 or 100 mil glass bottles that you would say,

well, why don't they do this?

Because this still is the best solution.

If you don't want small things leaking out, especially out of the top, the most dependable

thing globally is glass.

Period.

It is the tightest tolerance that gets manufactured.

Plus they have so many options of what to stick down into that tight tolerance to keep

things from leaking.

Right?

It's just the most dependable for everybody involved.

Does it have a risk?

Yeah, I can also tell you guys this.

I've dropped a lot of glass that didn't break.

But I look down and I go, how'd that not break?

So every bottle I've ever dropped hasn't, I don't have 100% break rate.

So it's a good platform, not perfect.

By the way, Brian shared how he had one of his Milwaukee polishers get run over at a boat

dealership.

Why doesn't Milwaukee make stainless steel everything that can't ever be broken?

Most of you probably wouldn't pay for it.

It'd never break.

Nobody could ever run over it and break it.

I mean, you could make it that way.

You don't want to run around looking like the Cybertruck, do you?

Yeah, I mean, but there's a lot of decisions to get made.

And I'm sure Milwaukee knows a lot more about the tool business than me.

And there's reasons that they choose, the composites and the things.

And so I take Milwaukee at their word.

I don't take every tool company at their word, by the way.

I don't take every tool company.

But I look at Milwaukee and I go, I bet they've thought this through.

They've been in business a little bit.

If I don't like it, doesn't mean I don't use their tool.

But I also think we've gotten into this comfort and look, we're all guilty of it.

But I think the more you're aware of it, the better your life is.

Is that there is not a single thing on earth you can't have a complaint about, it seems.

You know?

Is it, is it, you call it the hill to die on?

Is complaining about these types of things really ineffective?

Is it fun?

Does it make your life better?

Does it make other people's lives better?

Like, look, man, Corey, I feel you dude.

The amount of thousands of dollars I have messed up in my shop and my mobile and think you have a laugh.

I think that's what Brian was getting at.

It's like, dude, some of this stuff you laugh off.

And this is the point of the specialist group.

You come in there to go, let's have a laugh at my expense.

Can't believe this happened.

And I think we all need to keep that in mind that it's a time where we all share one of our mess ups and we all go been there.

Been there.

Have a laugh on a Sunday night and move on with our lives.

Now, if you had that beautiful red convertible 911, would you have left it out so you could get those tree leaf marking stains that we saw coming out of Detail R over in the UK?

Yeah.

Richard posted.

That was a beautiful car.

Did some beautiful work.

Wow, leaf stains on that was at the back.

The back hatch or was that on the hood?

I don't know.

But he used Velo got it all out.

Looks awesome.

Like it just, it just was awesome.

So I want to go over that 964.

Let's talk about it.

Let's talk when we think of a convertible.

We know you love convertibles.

Yeah.

You know, it's your favorite.

So this or the Nissan convertible, which one?

Yeah, it'd be hard to pass up at 964 for new people here.

Let's explain.

I am a huge fan of seeing pointless convertibles around town.

That's sort of the joke.

But yeah, man, that 964 looks special and it's definitely special.

Let's let's talk through.

I know we don't have Richard on, but you know, what would you do?

Right.

So I don't know exactly what he did, but we get some leaf stains.

We've washed the car.

We go the clear coats, got something on.

I love that he went Velo.

So this was one step.

Right.

He didn't go.

Hey, I'm going to go compound a polish.

He only had to use Velo.

I love about this.

Right.

So we got to talk about compounding, polishing, not needing to do it twice, but being able

to take one pad, one tool, one product and do the removal.

The first thing you have to say is one of the things that doesn't get talked about in

this whole paint correction conversation is looking at the car in front of you.

You got a portion 964.

The last thing you want to do, and I know some people would just grab it and go is what

I call a hatchet job.

I'm just going to go cutter to the bone, going to get her perfect.

Dude, this is a 964 with original paint.

I mean, look, I'm dealing with this on my 2003 LX.

I can already tell you I've done enough toilet is paint in my life.

I got, you know, oxidation showing up on some lower panels.

I have water spotting that's been on there.

I mean, you know, it's the bad water spotting where it almost looks like it's raised underneath

the clear coat.

So when I go and tackle this, I'm going, I'm working on a 23 year old car and I could

sand that car.

No problem.

But it's going to the paint shop.

I don't know when maybe six months, maybe three months, maybe nine months, but you got

to understand the canvas you're working on the brilliant thing of Richard did was I'm

just going to grab this one step and live with it.

I guarantee because I see his work.

That's what he was thinking.

It's like, I'm not going to give this thing a hatch of job new cars.

Look, man, I see far too much compounding far too much.

I had this conversation.

We I didn't even know you were going to talk about this because I kind of forgot to bring

this up.

The C8 Corvette is probably the best new car paint out of the factory.

We see hardly any defects.

It's been that way from the beginning.

They've got to have somebody run in this paint program that they're in the 1% of the 1% of

automotive manufacturing when it comes to paint.

It just doesn't have tons of defects.

I talked to somebody that says they two step every car at their shop and I know how many

C8s they've done.

And I go, why are you two step in C8s?

I've had a million of them.

I mean, there's there's ones that's hard to even find, you know, what you would consider

a real defect, quote unquote.

There was no answer.

That's what we do at my shop.

So what do you think about this?

They took a car and they two stepped it unnecessarily while also telling themselves they do the

highest quality work in the area.

So the thing I like about Richard's post is here's a 964 Porsche.

It's a special car.

I'm not going to take a hatchet to it because this thing needs to last another 50 years on

original paint, which by the way is possible.

But if you keep cutting it and cutting it and cutting it and cutting it, it's not possible.

So that was the coolest part of seeing that.

No, agreed.

And that Velo, right, could do the work.

Yep.

I think that's what some people don't always understand about Velo, right?

Well, does it cut?

Does it polish?

Which is it?

Well, it turns out it's both.

It's a point of having a one step.

Yeah.

You try to find a balance.

You try to give some cut while also keeping the finish high and you do your best to try

to thread that needle.

How often do you think, and this is the cool part about Velo, because sometimes with compounds

that are so aggressive, you'd go, hey, listen, I can't compound it every year.

Oh, no.

There's some compound you can only do it once.

Like, seriously.

That's a great point, yeah.

I mean, there's some compound I've worked with.

I go, this is the last time.

The next time, this is the paint shot.

Yeah, it's not going to cut like a heavy compound.

Yeah.

It'll still cut, but yet it's soft and easy enough to finish and it's safe enough.

Pad dependent.

I mean, I can make it as aggressive.

You know, I could get a microfiber cutting pad and really cut, you know, a little deeper.

I could use, you know, an intermediate pad and not take much material at all and still

get a good finish.

And there's other, you know, real soft like Honda paints where you probably just go right

with the finishing pad and get enough out that you go, I really like how this came out.

I didn't get everything, but I didn't want to.

This is kind of a funky paint job and customer wasn't paying or it's my car.

I don't want to cut it to the bone.

So remember one of the things I don't see enough talked about is with a product like

Velo, I can make it do anything pad dependent.

You know, I can do a lot of different things by choosing different pads, choosing different

amounts on the pads.

Do I load up the abrasives?

Do I keep the abrasives low?

All that stuff is fun to play around with for sure.

And you know, you're looking at the car and you go, Hey, Velo could definitely be put

straight over onto those headlights.

Yes, there's enough abrasive in it that it will begin to work down now.

Is it if it's those nasty cakes like heavy, heavy?

You're going to sand them.

And I'll tell people something about sanding headlights on really bad headlights.

And we never talk about sanding headlights because in most cases, the headlights that

you sand, you should probably just get new ones because about the same cost man hour

wise.

But when you're sanding headlights, guys, what I find is people don't go low enough on sandpaper

for their first step.

Like if you got really bad headlights and you're not down around like 5600 grit, you're not

actually getting it all off.

You can make it look, but you need to get all the dead material off and then work yourself

into the 2500 plus grit.

But if you're not, if you're not fit, that's the wrong word.

If you're not skilled, set enough to know the level and not crinkling your paper and

doing all the things you're with 500 grit, you can make those marks on that headlight

heavy and you'll even be compounding going.

Yeah, you better not dig that that in too deep and that better be a snow globe finished

when you're done.

You better you better watch a lot of people.

They're starting to like I see a beat up headlight there at like 1500.

I'm like, that's coming back.

And by the way, it looks clear at the end.

I'll give you that.

But I know what's coming.

You didn't get all that.

You didn't get all that dead material for sure.

All right, so what are we doing with that convertible?

When you go to clean it?

A, what are you going to use to clean it?

The actual convertible top?

Yeah.

To second, are you the are you the guy that pulls the convertible top down in order to

clean the interior?

That was my move.

I did.

If I had a customer with a convertible, I would always let the convertible top go all

the way down.

Then I can make sure to clean everywhere.

If you do the if you do the inside first, the answer is yes.

But if you've gotten the convertible top wet, I wouldn't do that.

Just kind of rule of thumb.

Why?

You have a lot of components.

You have a lot of things in the back you can't see.

And the other thing is, let's say you're there for like two, three hours, messing around

on the interior.

I'm just using a number, right?

You can get some marks.

You can get, you know, you can pick up dirt and things back there.

Like it's just a good rule of thumb.

I am very, very particular about convertible tops and unless the convertible has literally

been, I would say as far neglected as you want to say, I oftentimes keep pressure washers

away from them.

Now, there's some, we know what neglect means.

And you go, there's just nothing else to do.

But it's not the convertibles can't get wet.

It's none of that.

It's the rate of water that you get in a rainstorm versus off a pressure washer are two totally

different things.

And people always make this, well, they can get wet, but when you're driving in the rain,

it's pressured water.

Like this is coming out at two and three gallons a minute into a direct spot.

This is different than, I mean, it's different than a fucking hurricane.

You know, it's just not the same.

Now I've had to have, you know, I did a F430 spider Ferrari one time.

There was no choice.

It was neglected.

And you had to do what you had to do.

But the one thing that I would say that you could think about is, is, you know, it's a

fabric, you know, so if you have like a heavily stained neglected, you could go to our fabric

stuff, you could go to enzyme and you can go to complete and you can, but you got to

get it out of there.

Can't leave that stuff in there.

That's where the pressure washer would come in.

But let me tell you something, you're gonna be pressure washing for a while.

Okay.

I mean, top stuff is, you know how it is, but you could use that stuff.

If you're not comfortable with that, you know, just going with something like cleanse and

just taking sort of a medium bristle brush, not a really stiff, not something like, you

know, one of the things for interior and just scrubbing that top and pressure washing it.

Totally fine.

After that, I'm sort of like, if that's not necessary, I'm an eco one guy.

Renseless, waterless, you know, towels, making sure that I'm not going to the extremes because

I just don't like introducing tons of moisture to a top.

Okay.

So let's talk about that black glass.

Let's finish there.

Is it glass?

Some are glass.

Some are really, really poor plastic.

You can find some plastic polishes out there.

Do we, do we ever know?

How do we know?

What do we, you know, there are some that are, but most aren't.

Yeah, you can feel it.

I mean, look, you, everybody should know what glass versus plastic feels like.

You can, you know, just knock your finger against it.

You'll be able to tell glass and plastic.

I mean, you say that most know.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I know.

You're right.

That's not.

How do we know this?

Yeah, I will say that I will say that I knock my finger against it and I know.

So I don't have some scientific test.

But if you have some of that yellowing and stuff, there's some, there's some plastic

specific stuff that, and I couldn't even tell people the brand name to be honest with you.

I'd have to Google it.

That works pretty well.

You also could just go in with, with, with Luxe and start to polish that out with a machine.

Oh, with the machine?

Well, lower speed, three inch work, you know, make sure you tape some things off.

Finishing pad.

Yeah, like start off with a finishing pad, but you'll probably find yourself, you know,

in a medium grade pad.

And, you know, I don't want to say everybody, but there are some black plastic specific

polishes I've used in my career that have worked okay.

But there also is a reality to that plastic that sometimes it's beyond repair.

I don't want to say every time you can save some of that stuff, but there's some of them

you look at them and go, it's time.

Also, you got to be the kind of person that go looks at somebody and goes time for a new

top.

There are some of those discussions I did on a Bentley GT once somebody left it out.

Son got to it.

It was like on the verge of ripping every time you looked at the thing and I go, but that

we're going to send this to the upholstery shop.

Like this is we're not even going to because he was like talking to me.

He's like, well, if you do this, I said, let me stop you.

If I look at this thing wrong, you're scared to put the thing down and it's automatic.

What am I going to do?

It was brittle.

You could feel it was brittle.

So it's one of those things.

Like if you come across a really bad one, sometimes the upholstery shops your friend.

Yep.

That's why we should always know those people and have some of those shops.

Yeah.

Well, Timmy's number you can call him.

Absolutely.

All right.

Great episode.

Thanks everybody for listening.

Go over to hypercleanstore.com.

That's where you will find AWX, which we've talked about over the past couple of weeks.

It's been awesome to see how much flying out the door and well, what else has started

flying out the door because it is March.

Hey, the bugs are starting.

It's the place to get the bugs.

Oh, golly.

Bugs have already started here.

Fortunately, we woke up this morning to like 20 degrees and that's what I said.

I go, well, at least we're going to start killing the bugs that have already started.

That is great.

So all right, we'll see everybody next time.

See you guys.

Raise or Lower Your Prices while Building Packages. Plus, Handling Customers. Episode #946

About this episode

rake

ceramic coating

control arms

PPF

headlight

stain removal

scratch removal

hand wax

steam carpet shampoo

tire shine

pricing as a can of worms

extreme efficiency and volume

oxidation

auction

wet sanding

buffer

dealer

compound

Rotary

Porsche 911 (964)

original paint

microfiber cutting pad

finishing pad

abrasives

grit (sandpaper)

pressure washer

medium bristle brush

rinseless wash

waterless wash

black glass

plastic polish

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