Talking about Wax, Clay and Ceramic Coatings. Also, Lets talk Business Opportunities. Episode #941
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Talking about Wax, Clay and Ceramic Coatings. Also, Lets talk Business Opportunities. Episode #941
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Car
Mercedes-Benz E55
The Mercedes-Benz E55 is a fast and luxurious car that offers a lot of power and comfort. It's part of the E-Class lineup, which is known for being well-made and stylish.
Term
fool
In this context, 'fool' seems to mean that the car needs a lot of repairs or work done to it. It's a way of saying that the car is in bad shape and needs serious attention.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a well-known car brand that makes luxury vehicles. People often buy them to show off their success or status.
Term
maintenance schedule
A maintenance schedule is a list of things you need to do to keep your car running well. It tells you when to get things like oil changes or tire rotations done.
Term
Euro cars
Euro cars are cars made by companies in Europe, like BMW or Mercedes-Benz. They often have special features and can be more expensive to take care of than other cars.
Term
deferred maintenance
Deferred maintenance means putting off important car repairs or services because of cost or forgetfulness. This can cause bigger problems later on.
Term
sealants
Sealants are special products that help protect your car's paint and make it shine. They last longer than regular wax, which is why some people prefer them.
Term
coatings
Coatings are special protective layers that you can put on your car to keep it safe from scratches and dirt. They last a lot longer than regular wax, making them a popular choice.
Term
wax
Wax is a product you can put on your car to make it shiny and protect the paint. However, it needs to be reapplied often to keep working well.
Term
PPF
PPF is a special clear film that you can put on your car to keep the paint safe from scratches and damage. It's like a protective layer that helps your car look good for longer.
Term
ceramic coating
Ceramic coating is a special liquid that you can put on a car's paint to help protect it from dirt and sunlight. It makes washing the car easier because water and dirt don't stick to it as much.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish car that many people love to drive. It's been around for a long time and is famous for being a fun sports car that you can enjoy on the road or at car shows.
Brand
Porsche
Porsche is a car company that makes fast and stylish sports cars, like the famous 911.
Brand
BMW
BMW is a car company from Germany that makes luxury cars. They are known for their sporty designs and good performance.
LIVE
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.
About this episode
Exploring the nuances of detailing tools, this episode dives deep into the pros and cons of rotary versus dual-action polishers, with lively discussions on the evolution of detailing techniques. The hosts share personal experiences with new products, including a recent trip to the Route 66 Car Museum, and debate the impact of marketing on tool preferences. They also touch on business strategies for detailers, emphasizing the importance of adapting to market demands and finding efficient methods to enhance productivity without compromising quality.
Original notes
In this conversation, Marshall and Nick discuss their experiences in the detailing industry, touching on various topics such as the evolution of detailing tools, the importance of simplification in business operations, and the need for consumer education regarding car maintenance and ceramic coatings.
They emphasize the significance of building trust with customers and engaging with car enthusiasts to foster community and knowledge sharing.
The discussion also highlights the challenges of misinformation in the industry and the importance of providing accurate information to consumers.
Chapters
00:00 Road Trip to Sepulpa, Oklahoma
03:05 Detailing Tools and Techniques
06:01 The Evolution of Polishing Tools
09:08 High Production vs. Finesse in Detailing
11:59 Simplification in Business Practices
14:57 Building a Sustainable Team
18:09 Connecting with the Community
20:54 Reflections on Past Customers
26:33 Timeless Conversations and Misconceptions
29:10 Understanding Mercedes Ownership and Maintenance
32:03 The Importance of Car Care and Maintenance
34:47 Debunking Myths About Car Coatings
38:53 Navigating the Confusion in the Detailing Industry
43:07 Building Community and Educating Car Enthusiasts
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Nick Walters and Marshall Hill
0:00
60:17