Talking about Wax, Clay and Ceramic Coatings. Also, Lets talk Business Opportunities. Episode #941

Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most influential and listen to podcast

in auto detailing. Welcome to the community.

Had the great opportunity. It was a lot of fun to drive to the town of Sepulchre, Oklahoma.

Big do-ins in Sepulchre, Oklahoma, Nick. How many times have you heard of the Route 66

Car Museum in Sepulchre, Oklahoma? Yeah, big do-ins, right? That comes up.

But I had a great time, drove my BMW and parked right next to a row of Mercedes Benz owners.

Yeah, and let's all say this out loud because it's great you posted in the group because we

know you don't do a lot of detailing these days. So you get to play with a tool, new one,

that you haven't played with before. The texts are flying. Then I go into the group,

think I'm going to escape it. Nope, got to let everybody know you did some detailing.

So for everybody wondering what days are like with Marty? Boy, when he details,

he loves telling you about it. He loves telling you. So yeah, it looked good, man. It looks like

you got it all shined up. So hopefully it was a good trip. If I get a little time, you bet. And

then if there's a time, I then that's the only thing I like you mentioned before because you

said last week, right? Like, I'm a little out of touch with some some stuff that goes on. So if I

get a moment to go in and go, I also want to put it out and post it because I need people to know

I still know. We don't know what he knows. It looks shiny. So that counts. But that counts in our

book. I'll get to since you mentioned that I'll go ahead and get to it. You know, there was an

interesting tool. I'm going to send it to you. It's cool what some brand, you know,

flex, they've done some changes. Sure. Except the vibration, the vibration, the walking,

there's so much stuff. And especially with that little pad is they put like a little transition

to it. And you can push you cannot push like they they made some changes that you're going to get

it. And then we can actually really do some talking to people that want to know, you know,

what your thoughts are on it, you know, is it something they should get? We're always going

to keep the liquid elements. But, you know, we'll have to take a look, you know, we will.

Yeah, we're we're, I mean, not Marty so much, because you guys would see a lot more posts

in the group. But you're exactly right, man, when you use some of this stuff, it's how I felt when

I use liquid elements. I mean, I called you and said no brainer, like this is a no brainer,

no brainer price point. I actually think it works better than a lot of higher price tools.

That's why we carry it. So this is viable. You know, we're sort of no brainer guys,

we're not smart enough to be any other way. It's like, if this works good, yeah, we really like it,

then there's a viability to it. So I'm looking forward to it. And like you said,

you messed around with it, you were texting me some things. And I'm always for companies that

improve stuff. I mean, obviously, they have one of the all time tools that in our industry with the

34 01. If they've made improvements, then yeah, you're dead right, we got to we got to take a look

at it. Yeah, because what most people complain about the 34 01 is the walk. And it'll beat you up.

And it'll beat you up. It's it was a tool. And by the way, I have one from a breast cancer event

is the 34 01 I have here. So if you guys ever see a video with a pink one, I got that because I

donated some time at a breast cancer. So it's I got a pink 34 01. That was like being a part of the

event. Look, there's people that just swear by them. Right? They're just like, that's all I'm

ever going to use. I swear because of the force rotation. I mean, that's what it always was.

The difference and I love the comment about, Hey, you know, DAs are for people that drink wine.

Like, kind of funny, right? Like, but you know, DAs, you know, when you compare DAs to the original

34 01, it was like somebody that just is kind of a little little light in their steps. You know,

like, why wouldn't you just go at the 34 01? I think the 34 01 lost its moment when it we got

into a finesse part of detailing that seemed like we transitioned out of my favorite part of 34 01.

Was that old Turner burn? Yeah, I mean, it was it was a high production tool. I mean, it was

I mean, you you were around dealerships and wholesalers and people like that,

they were looking for something that you could just teach anybody to use, right? Put the pressure

down, go. And that was always that tool. But I've always told people as much as as smooth as

everybody tries to tell you as the best DA out there that they love, there's still nothing as

smooth and easy to work as a rotary. I mean, all this stuff was night and day to me. But if you

knew how to use a rotary, it was always better than all these tools, as far as a comfort level and

not beating you up as much. I mean, the only problem with with some of the older ones is how

heavy they were, right? Like the Makita or the wall, they were just heavy machines. The new ones

are much longer. What's that? The new ones are definitely lighter. Oh, yeah, yeah, like if you

get in flex rotary, if you get to Rupes rotary, I mean, there's a lot of light rotaries out there

now. But the 34 01 was just sort of a complaint for a lot of people that they just didn't want

their body beat up. And it definitely was a was a tougher tool on your body than than some of the

modern DA. So finesse of the body, but also finesse of the pain. Sure. Right. It seemed like

there was a moment just I'm just, I guess, speaking of my own self was thinking as the the mass of

the DAs came in, it began to be of, well, we need to finesse this pain a bit. And, you know, we can't

do it with that. We need this, you know, and everybody was just about the light, you know,

just barely touch and you know, just bear, let the tool do everything. As a finish as a finishing

tool, a good DA is much easier to finish with than a 34 01 in my opinion.

Which is why everybody I think moved to it was, Hey, if I'm going to have one,

I'm going to switch to a DA because I can finish. Yeah. Well, I know a lot of people

and I talked to some people that the talk that are reps into like high production areas, there's

a lot of companies, you know, in high production settings that went away from rotary altogether.

And they cut with 34 01 and they finished with the DA. Love to do that. Yeah. And I think I think

that that became more of the high production where when you and I got in the business, it was rotary,

mid step, final step, if you really had to cut something. And I think they just were able to

teach 34 01 to cut DA to finish just a lot easier. So people need to hear this from me,

whatever tool works for you, like we need to keep saying that. Absolutely. But but but we

got to talk about what what in, you know, I guess a theory that got pushed into the market

was you're right, cut with the 34 01 finish with the DA. And then I just know people and I know

seeing photos and I know watching groups and I just people just went Well, let me just get one

tool. Yeah, I'll cut with the DA, which is then why you have so many people that just laugh, right?

And they go, How long did it take you to do that? Right? Which when we got into that 10 12 hour

corrections, remember that? Yeah, really more out of people going away from rotary. Like that

when you and I saw it, it was like people went into heavy microfiber cutting, you know, and they

would leave a lot behind and it would take them longer. They just didn't cut as fast. Right. They

still don't cut as fast. Obviously, we know the best tool in history to cut with is always going

to be the rotary with some wool. Like nothing's ever going to cut to that level. But yeah, you're

right. I mean, it just it's really amazing how much marketing got people to believe certain things.

And there's nothing wrong with that. People still get so offended by it. I've looked at it this way

the whole time, whatever you want to use, dude, it's not my time. It's not, you know, like,

but to teach people widespread rotary use. It's challenging if you're trying to grow a company.

It is, you know, if we just we've seen more and more people start to put out online, you know,

complaining of where the markets at and I can't get this anymore and I can't get that. Well,

if we're having to lower or change expectations, we're going to have to figure out how to shave our

time. Yeah, how to shave cost if if that's time is the most, you know, valuable asset we could

ever have or depleting asset actually. So, you know, if we're trying to make more in a tougher

moment, we actually do need to figure out how to shave time off. Well, we're big proponents of one

thing. With the modern state of clear coat, with the modern state of very rough paint systems that

I don't think really have advanced in a lot of ways, they've actually gotten worse in some instances,

some companies. That's why I'm real big on learn how to do a really thorough one step.

You know, it's going to fit more people. You even see this in high production now,

they're going to more one step and understanding. Man, when you start talking about, you know,

the talent it takes to say and the talent it takes to do two, three and four steps.

We know that most people can't charge for it, right? I'm not saying everybody, but you and I know

some really talented people in this business. When they are behind the scenes talking to you,

they'll say can't charge properly for sanding can't charge properly for all these steps.

I've just kind of gotten pigeonholed into this and this is what people expect out of my work.

And they're stuck. And one of the things I wish would happen is some of those guys would start

speaking out of just about how much of a hit they've taken because they do these extra steps

that they really can't find a way to adequately charge for all the time. Hard to say that out

publicly, huh? Oh, well, you want to sell training. You want to sell all these types of things. You

can't really be true, but you and I and I respect all that skill. You know, we say that on this

podcast all the time. There's people doing really high level work. Like and you and I know what it

takes to that high level work. What they say behind the scenes is just a whole different story than

what gets said publicly. And I don't blame them. This is not taking a shot. It's just

they know how tough that part of the business is. And a lot of them work with car builders.

They work with really high end shops that send them work. And they've really built a nice life

for themselves. But not a life everybody number one wants because that work is tough on you.

But number two, you know, putting aside that you're going to be doing some of these steps

for free. I mean, because you just can't charge. And it's just an interesting part of the business.

Well, let's just keep going backwards from the way I had it set up to go through because

what you just talked about was a question I was sent from somebody that goes, hey,

you know, if I want to, you know, go from being, you know, the opera, you know, the guy doing the

work to the guy not doing the work. How do I do that? And he goes, I would make a great episode.

You go, sure. I mean, that would be that would be an amazing episode to be able to

to go through every single thing that you would need to do. And then I just know that,

A, you won't do them. Because that's a lot of stuff. And B, we'd have to charge you

beyond the podcast, right? Like, every little step of the way. But overall, there's got to be,

I think, a one moment type of, you know, how do you progress out of here to get to there?

It has to be coming to these type discussions and go, well, maybe it means I need to change,

adapt, change, you know, switch up, think about differently, understand what customers see,

and do I need to push as much into it? Because that pushes so much onto my team.

If you want to hire, especially starting out, right, there's a lot of things you can do as

you mature as a company. But there's a lot of people that are in their first five years trying

trying to grow out of being the person doing all the work. So what I can do 15 years in and add

into my business is much different than what I could do five years in. Right? Like we talk about

this all the time with PPF. And you're 10 years in, you got a nice little bucket of money. PPF isn't

that hard to introduce into your company, because you got the money to do it. You're three years in,

you don't have a ton of money, you try to add PPF in, which we've seen in the last five years,

you just sink your company. So you need to be honest about where you're at. So if I'm in my

first five years, and I can only tell people what I've seen work and what I've made work,

is you got to learn how to make money off simplification. Right? This is why we're a big

proponent of you guys should be doing a ton of stack. Wash, decon, stack cars, come up with your

price. You know, in some markets, that's going to be $249. In some markets, we have guys getting

$499, $599 for that service. That's scalable. That's teachable. That's easy for somebody on your team

to be taught how to do that service. That's why you want a lot of one step options. Easy to teach.

Easy to put a tool in, 34.1, which we just talked about. Take a 34.1, put the pressure down, turn

a trigger on, go over the area this many times, let's call it a day. Right? Easy to scale, easy

to teach. What's harder to teach? Hand sanding. That's going to be a hard thing to scale. It

doesn't mean 15 years in, you can't have that as a part of your services because you've got team

members that have been trained and put time behind machines, whatever. But I think the only thing I

can tell people is simplification. If you don't simplify, you can't teach it. And this is what

we see a lot with interiors. You get a wrecked interior. It's actually going to take you a lot

to teach somebody how to do a destroyed interior. You were in the dealership world. I've been in

the wholesale world. To get a destroyed interior back to like new, I can teach somebody how to do

one step faster. Right? Because it's just less steps. It's one machine. It's one pad. It's one

liquid. Put this pressure down. You got to do this carpet system. You got to do this on the

seats. You got to do, you can't get stuff here. You got to look for the buttons. You can't use

compressed air here. It might, you know, knock all the buttons off the dash. Just more variables.

And so when we see people that go heavy into destroyed interiors, it's like, well, I hope

that works out for you. But I kind of know where this ends. Like, that's going to be tough to scale.

Takes too much time. You can't charge for it. People that would destroy their interiors on that

level, largely aren't going to pay you what you need. We've gone through all of this. But the word

that comes to mind to me is simplification. If you don't start having simple ways to make money,

you can't scale. It's a great word. It's a great word. Mine when when and because I didn't tell

you who sent it to me. But but I I know of some things in his past. So to me, yeah, you're absolutely

correct. Because you're much better at building teams, right? Like, you built teams of people.

And I've told you and I've said it publicly, I said it to a guy that came in today, bought a

liquid element polisher from us. And we haven't seen him in it's been a long time back from he

mentioned 2019. It's like, yeah, man, it's been a bit that's seven years. Yeah, it's a long time ago.

That's a that's a long time ago, right? That's that's a different building. That's a different

team. That's a different place of business. I mean, lot goes on in seven years. And

and so I thought of this this moment with then coming to you and talking about this with this

question with this guy and I go, you know, there's there's simplification, which you have to do.

Because you have to have the ability to run a marathon. Yeah, stop.

The only way you run a marathon, just look at the marathon runners. Like, they're stripped down.

But like, yeah, it's a fight. They're massively simplified. They're simplified, not just in the

way they look, the way they run. It's the way they train. It's the way they live their life.

Right. It's about how do I make something long term? If I'm going to get into this and I'm going

to get into bed and I burned my ships. Well, how do I do something that I can sustain? That's

tough. How do I sustain this legs moving up and down every day? Go into work on Monday.

Don't leave until time to leave beyond later than everybody else. Right. I'm not going to go to the

bar at two o'clock because I have team members. Yep. I'm going to work harder and sustain longer

than the people that are with me. So simplification is is magical for building a team.

Then as an individual operator, you must learn how can I refine down and begin to think long

term? How can I sustain this? Yeah, it's tough. It's a tough thing, man. And it's one of these things

I think people don't think about is, you know, you start to hire people and you think it's going

to free you up. And it never does that. That never actually happens. It actually just becomes

more and more weight to kind of down on you. And that's why people can't handle it because that

means, you know, I always ask people if I tell you five years, no days off, no vacation, how many

of you are signing up for it? The answer is less than 10%. Right. It's as simple. I've watched it.

You've watched it. We know people that take weeks and months away from their business every year.

Cool, man. It's your business. You can do what you want. Asking me for advice after I see that,

I probably wouldn't do that, right? Because you're not as committed as I know people need to be.

And it's your business. Do it your way. But there's going to be a trade off to not putting that time

in. And you and I talk about this all the time because it's not just detailers. I mean, you and

I have knowledge of a lot of people in our lives that own businesses. They're somehow at every kids

practice. They're somehow never missing anything. And then when you talk to them over a beer or at

dinner, they're like, oh, my business is really struggling. You go, well, bud, you haven't missed

a practice in six years. Like great for you. I hope your son and daughter love that. But like,

I actually know why your business is probably struggling. You're not putting in the time

necessary because nobody outraces that not me, not you, not anybody. And there's times that you

and I have had to say this to people. And you don't say it to be mean, you say it to like, hey,

man, you're either going to make this call or you aren't. And I think that's what a lot of people

don't realize is there just comes a point with business owners that have been there that are

there is they're just going to go, Hey, man, this is kind of how it works. If you want to do it,

you're going to do it. If you don't like, you're not. And I think that's, I don't think people

love that black and white discussion because when it comes to business, there's not a hundred

things to talk about. I know people tell you that and you've got these guys making a thousand clips

a month about business. But there's not a thousand things to talk about. It's a couple.

You might ask the question, what was I doing then wasting my time in Sopopa at this?

Well, yeah, I'm excited about this. I got to imagine the questions were wild

that this car museum, right? Like, and I wasn't the first choice. Let me go ahead and say that.

We know because they saw your post on specialist and they're like, Jesus, this guy actually details.

They, uh, they had to tell me, you know, like, well, I told you when I got the call, right?

I mean, I was like, Hey, you know, I've been asked to do this. Well, I wasn't the first one they asked,

but because of, I used to do these in the past when I was a distributor and I valued working with

the Mercedes store here. I valued going and educating the customers that were coming in

to the, you know, the dealership. And I saw the play. It is so interesting. And we'll get into

some of the questions because there was a president, past president that was there.

Now I sent you the photo. I will go put in the specialist group. So people can go look at the

photo and we'll talk about some of these people because some of these people ask some, some really

good questions. And I want to put the photo and I want you to see their faces and I'll point them

out to everybody so that you can actually put some faces to some questions. And, and, and then

when you guys get into some moments, you, you can connect the dots here, right? Like this,

I saw this as, wow, cool. You guys want me to come out and talk. I haven't done this a long time.

Personally, right? As I've shared with you of some stuff, right? Like, personally, I've hidden away

for now. Or we hid you away. I mean, I don't know. I don't know which one it was. Maybe we hid you,

you hid yourself. I mean, who's counting? You know, Tommy tech, right?

Don't worry, I had a Tommy tech moment last week. So yeah, it was it was tough. It was a tough moment.

It is tough. But, you know, I hid away. And so there was a personal part of me going, man,

I miss talking to some people that that there's a connection.

Well, you see, see part right? He's not I just miss talking to people.

You can go have a conversation with just go to just go to the gas station, just go to name

anywhere you can strike up if you're the person that loves to talk to people. Guess what? You can

have a random conversation with anybody. I've learned there's zero value.

Hey, nobody saw that one coming. You could strike up a conversation, but don't do that.

I was actually excited about these people. I mean, look, they're talking to people that

are sort of a captive audience. They you know, they want to learn something.

Whether they ask the best questions or not really doesn't matter. You just know it's a captive

audience that cares about their car. And there's something good to that. You know, they were out

on a cruise, Dale love this about what he does with his mini group, right? Let's all start to

connect some dots. How this happens in every city across the United States and every type of car.

Every type of car. I mean, Volkswagen groups and this group and Mercedes groups and exotic

groups and it's just everywhere, everywhere. And so I pull up in my 2000. And there's a

row and I'll send you this row of cars. Actually, I need to send it to you now.

My apologies. I didn't send it to you before. I specifically when I looked at this row of cars,

I go, okay, where am I going to park? And who am I going to park next to? And whose door am I going

to dang? Yeah, I parked next to this E 55 caught my caught my attention. As I was pulling around,

they were all parked one direction, which I pulled out in front and crossed over their bumpers. And

I saw these circular headlights. And I saw those big faced wheels and I go, that's my guy. I'm parking

next to him. I don't block wheels. Yeah, I'm in. He was the guy though, you can go in and zoom in

on his license plate. Timeless. Yeah, he's right about that. That's that's an all time classic.

Yeah. So I was pretty excited about parking next to him. I see everybody left a little bit more

space than Marty. So Marty's are Marty's are ready. Number one, park the wrong direction and

going to ding your door on the way out. Non cargo. Yeah. Hey, bud, can you park a little? We got

plenty of room out here. You didn't need to get right next to me.

Marty got a coup and doesn't know how to act.

I go in and you know, I start meeting some people. And first off, I love that I could recognize a

past president. Yeah, agreed. This is that if somebody was passed previously there, and they've

continued on just thinking about my discussion a second ago, they've sustained through this is now

probably I don't know the last time I talked to those guys I tried to I when I saw him I go,

hey, you he goes yeah, I used to be the president. I go, it was on Memorial and we were going back

to the people that were there. I talked about Ben Key who was this customer that had his 84

Mercedes that was gold. I've talked about this car for a while because his was in trouble.

Like from those discussions, then he had to come to me and it needed that fool.

Yeah, go to the bone. Yeah. Like he he goes, wow, I've realized I've I have neglected this.

Like, yeah. And so he was a customer for many years. You know,

you know, right? Like, yeah, some people pass on some people move on, right? Like I just it is

what it is. So we really enjoy I enjoyed him as a customer. He was great. Um, you know, so we

checked about that. And then I kind of like take this look over and I'm like, Hey, this guy goes,

hey, I mean, he's like, he's like right here. One of those moments. Yep.

Turns out timeless guy. Oh, good for him. Absolutely. I'm just right over your shoulder

like, Hey, what are you actually close, bro? Like, well, I just buff my first car in like 16 years.

But you know, I'm here to talk.

So, you know, I pulled and I definitely was because of our just past episode. And I took and

and some of our, you know, just previous to just recent ones, but I go listen, what am I going to

do to talk to these people and open up? And I go look at their age, right? And so I knew that they

were going to be a little bit older. And so I did a, Hey, chat GPT. What are the 10 most, you know,

like, you know, misconceptions about a Mercedes Benz? And I want it. And so I said, I want you to

talk like David Letterman. These are going to be older people. And I want to know some things that

and they were great, man. So you're a chat GPT detailer. We know a few of those.

That's funny. But I didn't I didn't admit it to them. But I'll admit a few people that get

that joke out there. Yes. So let's start off. I'll just go I'm not going to go over. I'm not.

But there's some of them I will go over because they were great. And the very first one got

everybody started. I go all right, number 10. They're all owned by doctors and lawyers. Well,

so David Letterman, he always said something. And then he'd give like some like joke explanation.

Okay. So he said it was reality is half are owned by retired engineers who just wanted a car built

by people who hate failure as much as they do. Nick did exactly what everybody else did. Yeah,

the crowd didn't laugh in like hysterical. But they have this little chuckle. I'm like, I'm in.

Right. Like, yeah, so I'm gonna go over your presentation or can I get to some questions these

guys might have had. So because it feels like one moment happened off of this one. And this was

the number four, I said, all right, you buy a Mercedes to impress people. Number four misconception.

You buy the car, you know, to impress people said no, you buy a Mercedes to impress yourself.

And occasionally you make the guy at the gas station. Ask what year it is.

That's true. Got got to go ask them. Hey, my guy that had this plp. Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, what year is yours? I parked next to you. And that's when he told me he had an old one

E 55. Well, I just recognized those, you know, there's big oval. Yeah. And I was like, I'm parking

next to that guy. But turns out he had an 01. Right. And, and here's what happened then about

this discussion. We got into could a Mercedes Benz D a daily driver? Oh, yeah. Hell yeah.

If if what though, Nick, because Mercedes and some of these cars, you get BMW against some of

these you go high level of maintenance. Bingo. Maintenance schedule. Yep. Can't and I can't

waiver. Right. We'll go into what I you and I know where to go on this. But I first asked a

question, I go, Hey, you know, a maintenance schedule is, you know, you got to do all these

things that you guys know. Why do you do them? Why do you take care of these? What is it about

this? Why? There's this lady over on the left. Gotta love the little old lady.

Turns out it's because you love something. Yeah, it's true. Hey, Euro cars are one thing a labor

of love. That's it. There's I mean, you can't drive expensive Euro cars and not not buy into

maintenance, which is why they depreciate so fast, because most people don't do the maintenance.

And then the shit gets real expensive. The best question is the flip.

Curious from all you people here. Why do you think that then they defer the maintenance of cleaning?

Yeah, it seems like most of them are in good shape, though.

Good shape. Most of them. But they they've gone through some stuff and they talked about it,

right? Even we got to a point of which I'll get to in a minute of where they start asking me

where to go. Because let's just go into why they needed to know you're right, they've done

something to it to be a part to to take care of it. And so it wasn't necessarily just a shot at them.

It was more of an open question. Right. And she gave the best answer because you're right,

they have to love something to put that much into it. The average person, which is what the

conversation moved to was, Well, what's the average car owner? And then the past president

popped up. Well, the average car owner is three to something years, maybe three. They don't think

about taking care, cleaning, maintaining mate. They don't love their car. His opinion, don't

write. I mean, but if you drive something that's from 2001, there's just certain realities around

it, right? You kind of accept certain things. 2010. Yeah, I mean, that's 15 years ago, 16 years ago.

I mean, people don't realize like we have stuff with modern tech that looks like a modern car

that's 16 years old now. I mean, you got to have some level of care. And so I'm interested to hear

some of the stories of what they're struggling with in our world. I mean, I think that's what

everyone's listening for. So past president, he'd be the guy in the back, right? And he got to love

right because he passed president, he was kind of into it. But now he's just kind of around. But

I love these around. Here's his question. Do you need to clay bar every time you wax?

Yes, we've talked about this on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You're right. Like,

it almost like in like in exhaust. But I also go, I literally said this out loud, I go, wow,

I haven't heard that question in a long time. You and I talked about it because we have some

people inside of some Facebook groups. And there's some massive misconceptions inside of there.

But to have a past president of the car club asked me this question. I looked at him and I go,

okay, because to your point, they're taking care of their cars. I go,

where did he get this information from? We can point to about three brands that have been popular

in his life and go, boy, they sold this dude a lot of clay. Right? I mean, it's, you know, so for

anybody, whether you're listening to us for some of your first times or you've listened to us for

a long time, there's a reason we come up with some of the topics that we do. It's not only because

maybe somebody asked us that question during the last week or whatever, and we, you know, pass it

back and forth through text message like, Hey, we need to bring this up on the podcast. But also,

I think we try to tell everybody who's into detailing either as a prosumer or as a professional

doing it. I don't think you guys ever realize how confused everyone else is.

And they're not confused because they don't care all the time. They're confused because

they just never talk to the right person or the right five people or watch the right YouTube or

watch the right social media. And I think I know everybody gets tired of me saying this, but

you guys don't realize how damaging information can be. And this guy got this information from

somewhere. He didn't just pull it out of thin air. Now that's why I made the jokes about some older

brands that sold clay as like part of a package like with wax than they'd have a clay bar in there

or some kind of clay media that they invented. That's still around today. I mean, there's whole

packages at O'Reilly's or at Sam's Club that you can see it's, you know, some type of modern wax

that says the word ceramic on it that isn't ceramic. Then it's got a clay media that it's

got an applicator and it's in this beautiful box and they got all these people. So what do

you think those people do? Well, when I use this product, I have to use this product with it

because what do they want to sell more clay and another one of these things? That's just the

nature of the beast. Absolutely. So I go, Hey, let's not let's not get hung up on wax.

Let's go and because you and I have talked about it, have anybody in our community

is going to know what we're going to go into. Hey, it's not just wax. Should you clay before

you protect the car? Yep. That was wonderful. We got to segue into this whole discussion

of the differences, which any of us, right? If we are quote unquote specialists and we've

been a part of this community for, well, since, since conception or since you've been on or just

in the past two to three years, we should all understand that, Hey, we need to talk about

protection. Protection isn't just wax. Protection isn't just a ceramic coating.

It's all different things. And there's not a one question. Can I do this for everything?

It was wonderful then to get to educate them on, Well, here's what a wax does. Listen,

this was not chemistry. Right. Don't kid yourself. Yeah, it was basics. It was the basics. Yeah,

this was Hey, we all know wax. And they they joke this is always the fun part.

Mr. Miyagi. Yeah, yeah, that's that's always the thing that's been attached to it. Boom.

And I we talked about that and well, wax sits on top and I go, Hey, there's another movie

that that people from backing around sort of that time. They portrayed a detailer.

And well, my name happened to be in the movie. So I just keep sticking to it because

that guy used to hit me over the head when I was named Marty McFly.

And he was Biff. Biff was portrayed a certain way. Yep. So we talked about that portrayal and

what it meant for wiping and putting on and that old school way. The wonderful. Well,

now we have the ba ba ba sealants go into coatings.

Man, what do you think like should be talked about if we're going to express whether that's at

a club, or somebody that comes in, comes into the shop, says, Hey, I need a wax. Well, yeah,

we've talked about this. So I've always gotten around it very simply. I think people can make

it very difficult, which just further confuses the consumer. As I can say, look, we have something

that's just a new age wax. It's just better than wax. We use these coatings. You'll get the same

effect except it'll last longer to be more durable. It's a little tougher. And I move on with my life.

I also know a lot of people that get in arguments over this stuff with with potential customers,

by the way, because they've told me I had this guy come in and we got in this argument.

We are in a weird time in life. And I think sometimes we all need to say this out loud.

If you're getting in arguments over this silly stuff, you got to take a step back.

Okay, and we see it every day online. And we see people making response videos to the way somebody

does something online. Guys, gals out there, there's so much bad information, you're never going to

keep up with it. It's never going to happen. Say your piece, make things simple. And I think you

probably saw this at the club that you talked at. They're not confused for lack of trying,

they're confused because they listen to the wrong people. They're not they're not for a lack of

trying. Then they get confused. Then things don't work the way that they were told they were going

to work and they get really, really pissed off because they should because they spent their

hard earned money. I don't care what level of money that is. And they just go, I'm not going to fuss

with it anymore. This is why dealerships burning customers is a big deal on things like PPF

coatings, taking a car in the back and spraying some soap on it and call it a coating. The downstream

effect of that is hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of people being misled

about coatings. That's the problem. The problem isn't that the dealership did X, Y, and Z. It's

the problem it creates downstream. And you and I would say to any dealership, it's so easy to do

it right. I just got no idea why you're doing this. This just doesn't make any logical sense,

except they don't care. And so then we see a customer that says, why had a coating on my car

from the dealership and coatings don't work? And you know what? From that dealership, they're right

because that dealership told them they had a coating on it. By the way, this is happening

in thousands of dealerships across the country. Hell, we can name the companies selling them

the products, okay? And some of you use their products and think that you're using good stuff

and they take it back and they spray foam out of a foam can and some stuff on the car and a week

later, the shit's not on the paint. They go to wash it the first time. They're like, well, it

doesn't do anything. Ceramic coating doesn't work. And that's why recently on some YouTube videos

I've done. It's like, guys, if you're confused why they're confused, you just don't know the marketplace.

What's being said at Sam's Club? What's being said at the local car wash? What was said at the

dealership? What was not delivered upon? And so the vast majority of people that have a negative

connotation with ceramic coatings never even had a ceramic coating applied. They just didn't.

They thought they did. They're convinced they did. They're convinced that, you know,

Bob's Chevrolet wouldn't have done this to them. But you look at it and you go, yeah, they sprayed

some stuff out of a foam cannon on your car. No, they wouldn't have done that. I paid, you know,

5200 bucks. It's like, no, you paid 5200 bucks for the paperwork. You didn't pay 5200 bucks for

the ceramic coating. And there's a lot of detailers that don't understand what's being paid for at

a dealership. You think they're paying for the coating. No, the dealership will be pretty honest.

You're paying for the warranty paperwork. That's what's being paid for. And as long as you keep

coming back and they keep warranting it and spraying something on it, they're in compliance.

So, when you talk to groups like this, which I encourage all detailers, as we've done before,

become a supplier of hyper clean, run these type of events at your shop. It'll become very clear

what you need to sell in the marketplace just because you hold the events. And that has to be

what you felt coming out of this event. Oh, yeah, because it was wonderful because once you ask

that question, then we all get if we if we know enough about something, you know, we get to just

blabber on, right? Like, it got to the point where I had to leave. I had to be like, oh, guys,

hey, it's apologize. It's been a long time. I've been here a while. It was. I just had to back it

down. But you know, the the point of coatings is still so it's such a great thing for our industry

because the confusion. It's it allows us opportunity. The wonderful time was when we got into coatings.

And then somebody goes, Well, so what did I get? And I'm like, I can't not going to go after this

label, you know, because I'm not going to do that. And I said, But, you know, I gave him the same

thing that we talk about on these podcasts. And he goes, Well, man, I don't know. I go, Okay,

well, what'd you do? Because I had to do it told me five to six layers. I bought this ceramic spray.

And I would get a year if I put five to seven layers on. Right?

You can't you can't help in our position. And this sounds like a weird thing to feel bad for that

person. I think a lot of you when you heard that he said that probably if you got your earbuds in

or you're rolling in your vehicle, you're like, Oh, man, just think of your dad. Oh, yeah, yeah, same.

Yeah. This is like, maybe your granddad for some of you. I get it. Like, these these are

elderly people imagine how much time energy and effort he just spent on five to six layers. Yep.

Of something that has no prayer to last a year has no prayer to bond on itself and create all

these layers. It's just not how it works. Right. And that's why we always say, which I'm sure you

said out loud to them, if it's not in a metal bottle or a glass bottle, it's not a ceramic coating.

Like it's it. Look, guys, is that uniformly true? Could you find bottles of plastic? Yeah,

but the cost of the plastic would would be so expensive that you don't see that on the consumer

level. It's just cheap plastic. It's just going to burn a hole through it. And the problem is when

you say those words out loud to somebody who just spoke to you, you go to the common plastic. Uh huh.

I hate to break it to you. That wasn't a coding. And let me explain why you see them almost get

depressed. Not really. But you know what I mean? Like the no, you can I'll post the photo and I

shared it with you. You can actually if you zoom in, you can find that guy. Yeah. And he's just

like, you just look for the depressed guy. His face is like, I mean, because this was literally

like two minutes. And then after he talked about that, and we were in this and it was like,

all right, guys, I gotta go. Hold on. Let me take a selfie real quick. I mean, his countenance,

right? His facial appearance. Just look for him. He's in the middle. He's in the back. Like,

he's like this. Yeah. Yeah. I believe it. Because I mean, that stuff's happened in my office.

I mean, about paint protection film about coding about everything. And you just see a person that

goes, you know, I really did try to do the right thing. I really did try to do it the right way.

And you know what they did to the best of their ability. And there's a lot of us that judge that

stuff. Instead of taking it as an opportunity of I could be the person that actually fixes that

guy's problem, which you kind of did probably, you're like, Hey, man, look, it's really simplistic.

I'm not here to say if that product is good or bad at what it does. It's just not a coding.

It's just not what it is. And that's okay. But I mean, does your car look good? Yeah,

but I'd like it to cool. Then you're talking about stepping up to a coding. And let me show you what

that looks like. And let me teach you what that looks like. But like, don't get depressed, man.

It's just a moment in time. And but guys, when everybody asks why we harp on information,

it's because we have these types of experiences. And there's many of you that stay locked in a shop

or locked in a in a in a mobile unit as a professional. And you don't have any connection

to a group of people like this that tell you, first of all, they're driving cars you have to

care about. Otherwise, they're just not those cars aren't going to drive anymore. You can't just

so they're trying to do the right thing. And what we've lost as, you know, quote unquote,

in industry is the fact that most people are misled by somebody quote unquote, in this industry.

Not like some idiot on the internet. It's like, no, I can point you to people who represent quote

unquote, this industry in their mind. And they're giving nothing but bad information 24 seven.

So it's like, for everybody that wants to live by that credo, it's like, you're never going to

erase that. There's these people just need more people like Marty, you guys out there that are

trying to do the right thing every day, they just need to talk to more qualified people. That's all

like that. That solves all the issues is more qualified people talking to more people like

this. It's the only way to solve it because you're not going to stop the quote unquote snake oil

stop. And so many people get caught up in that. Like, well, we need to stop the bud. As long as

I've been around cars. This is never stopped. And it's only gotten exponentially worse because

of social media. Stop arguing about stopping it and just talk to more groups like this.

Yep. That is interesting that those two words were brought up. Oh, I bet I bet that's and by

the way, that's a specific age group that that word means something different.

Because I've gone through it. Yes, exactly. They've seen it. Like, imagine what they've seen over

the you can only imagine what we've seen. Like, I mean, I know people are like, you guys talk about

the past a lot. It's like, but that's relevant. It's a lot more relevant than you think. Like,

many people think all this shit's brand new because of coatings. It's like, but I was there for

sealants. I was there for a million options of wax. This has always been a part of the ecosystem.

There were waxes you could put on your car that were fantastic. There were waxes you put on your

car. You were like, did I even put anything on my car? That was a wax. And it was a simple product

to get right. Now go to something that's as global as coatings. And we have more commerce than ever

places like Amazon and Sam's. I mean, we never had that 25 years ago. So think of exponentially

how this has gotten out of control. And instead of getting an arguing with other people in the

industry, talk to these types of individuals because they did, they do want to learn. That's

one of the things that I think you probably walked away from that I've always walked away from is

when somebody's interested, they do want to learn. Absolutely. And so you get through these problems

and you talk about all this stuff. The best question happens right at the end. I didn't

have to present anything. I didn't even take any product. Like, that's why Nick didn't see any

sales, you know, coming out of Sepulpo on Saturday. We talked about it with HR. That'll be a write

up. That'll be a write up. But they asked the best question. Oh, well, who do you use? Well,

what do you use then? Gosh, I mean, that's that's that you couldn't ask for a better tee up. Could

you? I mean, if you're in sales, that's that's that's the best question you could ever be asked.

Well, oh, by well, by the way, well, let me then tell you about and this is the perfect time to go

once again, not me. I don't have a shop to be able to tell them to come in to use my service.

I could have a love the best part, which I did kind of leave out a second ago is when they were

asking about car questions that I couldn't answer. I had my clutch culture hoodie on. I can listen,

we've got this, this podcast, it's inside of our organization, our community of everybody

inside of our group. And they talk about cars. Hey, if I can't answer your question,

maybe we got all this stuff here, people ask, we got this group that you can come join and you

can be a part. And, and you know what, if I can't do the work for you, because that was me, maybe

you the listener that's going to set this up, maybe you could do the work, you get to to do the car,

do the CRM exchange, whatever you need to set up to get that moment. But, but the other moment is

the person that wants to do it himself that bought that bottle that went to the parts store,

like we talked about, we didn't know he had an option, right? These, these people here didn't

know they had a local company that they could buy stuff from to learn the appropriate ways

of doing the work. The distributor is the answer here, not the manufacturer, which is what I had

to keep saying to them. Sorry, we manufacture going to have to go online to buy it. You know, you

you'd be so much better if there was a distributor was right there with their truck, which is what

they said. Where's your truck? Where's your where's that? You know, where's your products to sell us?

And it was like, wrong guy, you know, like, yeah, no, we, we, we talk about this a lot. They're,

you know, Mercedes, Porsche clubs, Corvette clubs, the list goes on, name, name the brand.

They all want to do these events. They'd be happy to come to your shop and have the event, set some

chairs up some tables, buy some donuts and coffee, or you go to them, or you go to what I did,

but in reality, they're looking for places, right? Like so, they'd be happy to come. And you and I

have talked to people that are good at this. And they have gone down this road. And then we've talked

to people that just try it once doesn't work out perfectly. They don't try it again. We have said,

I think, probably not often enough. You become a real different problem solver when you have

products. Because you can do the service, you can sell them a package to do it in their driveway,

you can also offer a maintenance service. If you say, Hey, I run a once a month thing that

tells you how to take care of your car, you come down here, we show you all the steps to maintain

your car, you can build an ecosystem that becomes unstoppable. Plain and simple. Is it going to get

off the ground the first week you do it? Let me go ahead and tell you the answer is no. But when

you align with car clubs, your events become about people that care about certain cars,

and they do care about them. Like I get invited to all kinds of BMW stuff here locally. There's all

kinds of people that that reach out about stuff like that. If you have a car, there's many of you

that have a car, you're in a club, you don't bring anybody to your shop. You want to know why you

don't feel like you have anything to provide. I'm telling you that's wrong. You do.

People more than ever want to learn how to do stuff correctly. They do think they're putting

the effort in as much as you can make a joke and go, Well, that's not the real real effort you need

that you need to go to this place. They just didn't know. I say this all the time, I got two of my

really good friends are executive chefs here in town. Now, when you're an executive chef at a big

place in Las Vegas, you're an executive chef. If you were to tell them what channels you watch on

YouTube, they would crack jokes on you. You want to know why you go to one of their barbecues, you

go, Oh, yeah, this is different. Yep, they know a lot more than I know. But they will point you in

the right direction. Hey, go get your knives here. Hey, go get your pots and pans here. They will

help you. Right. And they actually just want people to ask a question like, How do I do it correctly?

They're not mad. You do that. They actually want people to learn it correctly and help people.

And I know many of you are like this. But the problem is, you're stuck in your shop,

you're goofing off on the internet, you're arguing with other professionals on the internet.

The end of the day, guys, if you don't ever get anything for me, the level of bad information

to the consumer is at an all time high, and it'll be at an all time high in 2027,

and then higher in 2028. You want to know why? Social media is going to get bigger and bigger

and more a part of people's lives. These people learn from somewhere and they were mislead from

somewhere. It's all good. Fix it for them. And I think the other thing is you'll have a lot more

fun with this stuff than you think. Because when you have a whole group of people trying to learn,

you're like, Hey, this is pretty cool. And like you said, an hour went by and you're like, Oh,

an hour went by, I got a lead. Right? I was amazed. I think, you know, you asked like what

what did I really get away like as I, you know, I was driving off and

frumpy face came walking out as I was driving off. So I waved at him, you know,

he could see my, you know, very high gloss shiny tires on my BMW. He loved it. He waved.

That's he has no class. We'll have to talk to him too. Just like we've had to have

discussions with Marty and private group texts, like this is not acceptable.

But it was like, what did these, you know, was it worth it for me? Absolutely. Right? Because I

said I wanted to go spend time and there was some people. So that was worth it for me. But he was

also worth it to I go, Damn, Nick, we were not I hate sometimes to say it, but sometimes I enjoy

it because there are people that recently just put out a ton of information over things that

happened over the past weeks. But, you know, I talked to that guy that sent me that text of

how could I progress? I talked to other people that are go, you know, around from back some time

before and that word sustainability. Man, I love that I could go back and talk to people and do

things that I've done over the past 10 years and enjoy a moment, an hour on a Saturday. Seems

strange. Seems very strange. And at the same time was was just rewarding. I guess sort of just

for me. I was cool. I really I think a lot of people will get out of it like to sustain

a thing and to keep going and keep going and keep going and then to look back 10 years later.

Well, so I think there's also another thing you did here and I'll leave it with this.

Operating those 10 years above board comes back.

And people find that very hard to do. I know a lot of people cutting corners right now.

It's tougher time. Economy is a little falter. I can see they're cutting corners. Maybe they're

admitting to me or you that they've cut some corners. Doesn't really work that way. Good times,

bad times, cutting corners, not giving out good information, going to a cheaper product

and providing cheaper results. That all has a penalty in your life and business. And most of

the time that shows up years later, right, where people aren't calling you back and people don't

want to hear you talk and people feel burned by you. And the great thing is you don't have that.

You just go, Hey, I just haven't seen you in a while. That's it. And that is what the feeling

you want. So before you think about buying that Amazon product or buying that cheap

part store gallon or burning somebody's front end because you use the wrong product because it was

cheaper, you don't get opportunities 10 years later. Period. Like it's one thing to make a mistake.

It's another to make it continuously. We've tried to impart that. We've tried to say, Hey, we saw

this post. Let's talk about it. Let's give good information. That that stuff all comes home to

some time. At least you got to talk to some people you knew from back in the day and some new faces.

And again, if you guys aren't distributing product, you're missing out on all these people

that want educated wallets are out. How do I get this stuff? How do I get this stuff? So

I think it's a huge money maker as well as bringing money into your business as well as

hell, there's some of you prosumers out there that got nice little side businesses,

just from friends, family, acquaintances, bringing stuff to your home garage. Like you can make life

real simple by offering some products and saying, Hey, let me show you how to clean a wheel. Let me

show you how to wash a car. Should they be able to do it off a YouTube video? Yeah, man, but there's

a lot of bad ones out there. And that that's your thing you get to solve. Absolutely. All right,

like I said, I'll go put the photo in the group that's hyper clean specialist love for everybody's

interactions when they go to car clubs and things that they do go go put it in the group,

right? Like that's part of community. If you've had success somewhere,

hey, go put it out there. Love to see it. This is what we do. All right, we'll see everybody there.

See you guys.

Talking about Wax, Clay and Ceramic Coatings. Also, Lets talk Business Opportunities. Episode #941

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