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When Should You Hire Team Members? Plus, What is Necessary On A Road Trip? Episode #920
When Should You Hire Team Members? Plus, What is Necessary On A Road Trip? Episode #920
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About this episode
The discussion revolves around the challenges of hiring team members in the auto detailing industry, emphasizing the importance of revenue generation before making a hire. The hosts share personal experiences and insights on when to hire, highlighting that many individuals rush into hiring without sufficient revenue to support it. They also touch on the necessity of having a financial cushion for new hires, the realities of managing a team, and the evolving costs associated with running a detailing business. Additionally, they explore the significance of quality products and customer education in the detailing industry.
Topics:
hiring advice
revenue generation
team management
financial planning
product quality
customer education
road trip essentials
detailing products
matte paint care
detailing community
Cars:
Ford Expedition
Ford Explorer
GMC Sierra EV
Jeep Cherokee
Jeep Wrangler
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Mercedes-Benz SLK
Oldsmobile Intrigue
In this conversation, Marshall and Nick discuss various aspects of car care, detailing, and the challenges of hiring in the automotive industry.
They share personal experiences related to road trips and car maintenance, emphasizing the importance of quality products and professional help.
The discussion also delves into the financial implications of hiring, the reality of managing a team, and the evolving landscape of the detailing business.
Chapters
00:00 Road Trip Essentials: What to Pack
03:01 The Joy of Car Detailing and Perception
05:59 Exploring Scenic Drives and Road Trip Destinations
08:56 The Importance of Quality Products in Car Care
11:53 Navigating Product Support and Customer Service
15:03 Understanding Matte Paint and Coating Techniques
29:58 Real-Life Coating Challenges and Solutions
33:14 The Importance of Car Coatings
34:47 Understanding Ceramic Coatings
36:45 The Misconceptions of Ceramic Products
39:09 Consumer Awareness in the Detailing Industry
42:00 The Cost of Mistakes in Detailing
43:57 The Rising Costs of Vehicle Maintenance
50:17 Hiring Challenges in the Detailing Business
Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
"...about to take a big journey. Our Porsche guy from Miata Guy, that's his journey. Interesting question tha..."
Car
Jeep Wrangler
"... I'll give a shout out to it was like a 1997 Jeep Wrangler weather's kind of broke here."
Car
Jeep Cherokee
"...Jeep. Just anybody had a Jeep, a real Jeep, not a Cherokee with, you know, some bigger tires on it."
Car
Oldsmobile Intrigue
"... guys which we talked about, have those most very intrigue, very organized. And then you have the guys that ..."
Car
Mercedes-Benz SLK
"... we had what there was a Mercedes. What was that? SLK was it? I don't know. We had a ton of stuff. Yeah..."
Car
Ford Explorer
"...t happens. Like this is a white whether that's an explorer something. Maybe that's a expedition. I don't kno..."
Car
Ford Expedition
"...ther that's an explorer something. Maybe that's a expedition. I don't know. But it's white. It's white on most..."
Road Trip Essentials: What to Pack
The Joy of Car Detailing and Perception
Exploring Scenic Drives and Road Trip Destinations
The Importance of Quality Products in Car Care
Navigating Product Support and Customer Service
Understanding Matte Paint and Coating Techniques
Real-Life Coating Challenges and Solutions
The Importance of Car Coatings
Understanding Ceramic Coatings
The Misconceptions of Ceramic Products
Consumer Awareness in the Detailing Industry
The Cost of Mistakes in Detailing
The Rising Costs of Vehicle Maintenance
Hiring Challenges in the Detailing Business
Select text to request an explanation
Welcome to the Pints and Polishing Podcast, the most influential and listened to podcast in auto detailing.
Welcome to the community.
Good to be back. I had a week off Labor Day weekend. Good trip for me. We're getting right into the specialist group because my trip kind of tied into a post that happened inside the specialist group.
Billy's about to take a big journey. Our Porsche guy from Miata Guy, that's his journey.
Interesting question that he asked, right? I like the question. He goes in and says, hey, what would you guys carry if you're out on a road trip? What was your answer? I'm curious.
Yeah, eco one and revive. I mean, to me, it's, it's simple. You know, none of us want to carry a thousand things and nothing's perfect, right? And we would carry everything if we could.
But to me, it's just about getting through, keeping if something were to happen, bird droppings, whatever, you know, stuff on the interior, just a quick wipe up. So that's sort of my plan, you know, it has been for a very long time.
Just something simple, a couple bottles, few towels, that kind of thing.
Yeah, same. I mean, I remember and Labor Day for me has always been it's a family tradition going over to Lake Washtaw. It's in Arkansas. It's my dad's side of the family, right? That's always what we do.
This year, though, well, headed to the Premier League, you know, so got to go do a soccer tournament. Yeah.
And who what's his name, Ronaldo?
Back at well, what's that dude that some dude out of Brazil just got gifted like a billion dollars out of some I know it's crazy, right? Like people and soccer players, it's wild. What people rest the world love about soccer players.
We won't get into that.
But out at a soccer tournament. And that was my move. Eco won. And I use slick. I like to take slick and I love to put on some tire shine.
I still always put on tire shine, even when I'm driving. You're like, well, it's gonna whatever. I know, I know it is, but I don't care.
When I pull up to the game, I want my tire shine, you know, I want everything clean and looking popping.
The thing that's always been interesting, right? Even back in the day when we'd travel over to Lake Washington, I would get looks then, right?
It's interesting when people want to kind of look or like, what are you doing? Not only looks from inside my family.
Yep. Interesting. Like, interesting. What did you all think I wasn't going to clean cars? Like, what? Yeah.
Like, did you ever get looks like you're snicked in other people think you're crazy for just cleaning your car?
Yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, but we have to say this to our crowd. I mean, it's to be fair.
We know most people what 90 plus percent of people don't really care for their car on a high level, right?
So, you know, they they're going to stop at a gas station, go through a cheap car wash or whatever.
They think that's what you should do. So I think guys like us people that are listening, we're always the different, you know, style of car owner, right?
So it never really didn't really shock me. Sometimes you have people come up and ask, you know, they are interested and they would like to do something.
Do they ever do it? I mean, I don't know. I don't really follow up with them.
But I mean, I think that's just one of the things that happens that it's just so rare that people take care of their stuff that they don't, you know, they're always going to look and stare and wonder what's going on.
So at the hotel, it was Saturday morning, had to get her cleaned up. That's what some lady goes, are you detailing your car?
Yeah, I bet. I bet. Hillbilly Alley.
I was waiting, right?
You're not having grits and country fried steak. I mean, you could be at the breakfast spot now.
What do you think comes next, right? This is always the fun part. What do we think each listener is going to put in their own thing?
If somebody asked you if you're doing this, what do you think the next question is going to be?
Can you do my next?
There you go. Or, hey, how much? Right? It's one of those two. Do you have time? How much is it going to be?
Fortunately, didn't get either one of those. We were on the way to the game.
She was a member of the crew, all with their dreams of their kid going to...
They're not even going to make it to the MLS, don't worry.
Don't worry. They're not going to make it to division three. So we don't have to worry about any of it.
But fall is here. There are people that love road trips in the fall. I mean, besides Lake Wachta,
there's a lot of people that love to go drive through the woods, drive through the mountains.
I think that's one of the things Billy was doing is people that love cruises.
I know you're Mr. Business. You're not going to just go drive and take cruises.
But where would you go, right? He listed some pretty interesting places.
I know there's certain, you know, maybe little check marks that you would want to go visit.
I don't know if I really want to go to Yellowstone to see big trees. I'm just not sure.
Yeah, I mean, Tale of the Dragon. You know, you got some historic, like, you know, spirited drives.
Look, I lived in Southern California. So I've been, you know, to all the places in Southern California
that you see guys taking a lot of video on. I enjoyed that stuff.
For me, mostly now we have some things that go through some mountains near my house,
not places that people would actually know. It's fun enough for me.
There's also drives you can do up into Utah, go through Zion and things like that.
Like there's plenty of stuff very close to me.
What's so amazing? Like for us, like we see in that area is like not Billy.
We see more like Jeep crawling and a bunch of people doing that.
Yeah, I mean, that would be, but you have like mountain driving.
You have, you know, two lane roads, curvy, you know, going through the mountains.
I mean, anytime you go through the mountains, they got to cut where the road fits.
The pass, right? So you're going to get, you know, a little bit more spirited drive.
You know, the thing is, is that you have to go enjoy.
Yeah, if this goes, this goes bad, it's going to go bad, you know, but I enjoy that stuff.
You know, with, you know, just like, you know, this and a lot of guys listening, you know,
when you, when you get like you're, you know, you're going through now,
when you get kids that stuff goes on the back burner, right?
It's now it's just like, what's near me? How quickly could I just go out and, you know,
turn this thing up and go.
We're getting a look into the future of old retired Nick.
Oh yeah. Got his cane out. Where are you going?
Oh no. See, I'm, I'm, I think guys go crazy on an RV. Let's do it.
No, I'm not, you won't, you won't catch me in an RV.
I'm not trying to smell everyone's farts and driving around and that's not,
that's not my thing. Like I'll, I'll fly there.
I'll catch you guys there.
You know, but yeah, I mean, I think anybody out there,
I think one of the things when I traveled up to the Northeast and we got some guys that listen,
there's some great places to drive.
Like in the Northeast, you get a lot of different,
you can hit a lot of different states and stuff really quickly, that kind of stuff.
So I think everybody's just got something probably closer to them than I think,
just to go do some fun driving.
Well, that's part of where we see, you know, why not enjoy your car?
Like car life, right?
Yeah, just go, just go as quickly as you can, find something to do, do it as near you as you can.
I think a lot of guys are like, I got to go take this big trip.
I'm sort of like, Hey, what can I make happen here pretty quickly?
You know, so I can go enjoy it and have a good time,
but I don't have to take much time out of my day to go have that good time.
Now you got to have a car that you like to go enjoy it.
That might be a lot of some people, right?
Sure.
He's really got the money in on that engine.
You know, he's like, I got, I'm going to go enjoy.
You mean you do like, you know, with my catty, it's not something I cruise around in.
But this weekend, doors off, it's 75 degrees.
I posted a picture I took.
We had to run through Sam's, of course.
Jeez, oh my word.
Sam's on a Friday night.
I asked the lady.
Oh, brutal.
I was like, what's going on here?
She goes, Oh, they all got their EBT money.
I go, makes sense.
Well, I got a weird one.
So we had to, we had to stop by Sam's not go in, but I guess you can like order
online and they bring it out to you or whatever.
You know what I didn't know.
And by the way, everybody that knows this is going to be like, who cares?
I didn't know you could get ice cream at Sam's.
Oh, I mean, you can get a lot of shit at this place.
You missed out back in the day.
My move was the hot dog and Coke for like $2.
That's crazy.
You'd get a slice of Coke for $1.50.
Is it still two bucks?
I don't know.
I can't eat that stuff and drink that stuff anymore.
That's how you know Marty's all these.
I can't have that anymore.
The doctor said I can't have it anymore.
But so, you know, it says we're there and I post a picture just inside the
specialist group, you know, thinking car life.
Well, this guy's confused.
Salt life.
And he's got the Ron John sticker.
I mean, that's, hey, that's old school.
But but doors on top on and you just care, come on, man.
I saw a guy today that I'll give a shout out to it was like a 1997 Jeep Wrangler
weather's kind of broke here.
Weather breaking here is under 100.
You know, it's nice to dry heat.
So I mean, it's not hot ever.
But one of the things we had here is like once it gets under 100 people
come out of the woodwork.
He had like 90, probably 96, 97, 98 Jeep doors off, sandals on, just
going to work, not a flashy Jeep.
Just anybody had a Jeep, a real Jeep, not a Cherokee with, you know,
some bigger tires on it.
You know what I'm saying?
So I got to give some respect to that guy.
Again, I shouldn't give him a little courtesy honking.
Been like, Hey, there you go.
One of your crew was unzipping her window and then sticking her
hand out so she could wave at me.
And I was like, Okay, zip your windows in the back up.
You're on the town.
All right.
So it was fun inside the specialist group where I posted that there
was a lot of cars and stuff posted.
So we're going to get into that.
I love I mean, some of the cars are beautiful that 2025 GMC
Sierra.
Beautiful.
GMC Sierra's are they're pretty trucks.
They're there with those.
I'm interested to see who all runs into cooking with Nick,
put that new diamond black, the Tesla's new diamond black.
Yeah.
That was pretty sweet.
What's what is diamond black?
Do you know?
Well, I mean, I guess I'm guessing it has some kind of little
flake in it.
But the craziest part is if you guys weren't around for when
Tesla black originally came out, it was one of the most miserable
cars to detail in the history of the world by by far one of
the worst blacks to ever be invented.
So hopefully they got that figured out.
Yeah.
Probably one of the coolest coatings put on was the tow pig.
The tow pig was pretty cool.
The tow pig was cool.
All right.
So so I want to talk about something we won't go too far
into it and I can appreciate the guys who when they make a
post, they'll say, Hey, you know, I use something else.
All right.
The flip of the coin is the guys that never say really
what they use and they come in the group and and want
help.
Now you and I have talked about this publicly.
It's a move that we do oftentimes will go into our
accounts and see if that's somebody that that is a
regular word.
Right.
Like, hey, I don't recognize this name and see if they
order.
Well, this guy, I saw a guy post and he was asking for
some help here.
And I want to look back.
He hadn't used our coding.
So he had a coding that started to get some spots.
Right.
And instead of had some blue coloring, like water
spots.
You remember that?
Like just that side picture Dale chimed in and and
different people chimed in offering help.
They, you know, they think that it was the iron
remover that started to get it off and smile.
But you just go, huh, like it is weird how things
start happening.
You know, inside the specialist group we love like
we talk about people go in and ask questions.
But it is tricky, which you and I have said
before, it's tricky when people don't use our
coding.
But then they go into our group and ask for help.
You know, yeah.
What do you know?
I don't know what to do.
I didn't answer because it's tough.
Yeah.
And I appreciate the guys that answer, but I don't
ever know what to do.
Yeah.
No, I think everybody, you know, just to kind of
give my point of view on it doesn't make it
right.
Just kind of how I see it.
You know, we use our stuff.
So, and the other thing is Marty and I making some
type of comment on someone else's product is also
not the most professional thing in the world to do.
Right.
You get into this thing where you're talking about,
you know, for lack of a better term, you're
rocking a hard place.
Like I'd love to offer some help, but the reality
is I really can't offer help.
And I wish I could and I can't.
And there's just no way to do that.
Right.
And I think that's just kind of the thing that
we have.
And I don't mind telling people that, you know, I
get some text from time to time and that's how I
handle it.
And I wanted to bring it up because I think maybe
some people might wonder why we don't comment on
certain things when people in the group list it,
right?
Like this is a legit question.
It was a great question.
What is the time where you go, man, I kind
of wish you'd go into the group of who you
bought, but he might have just bought some
generic and not as a group.
And look, that that's the best piece of
advice anybody could give.
When you use somebody's stuff and you're having
problems or something pops up with their stuff,
you really need to reach out to them.
Right.
Because you and I would say this just as a
manufacturer ourselves, like, hey, man, if
something's going on, good companies want to
help out.
Now, to your point, if you bought something
that has no representation, nobody that you
can outwardly see their face.
You don't think you can send an email to this
company.
It's also another reason not to buy from
companies like that.
Because at the end of the day, you're going
to run into something, right?
You're going to have something happen,
whether that's to your car, you know, DIY
type of person, or it's going to happen to
you as a professional.
One of the reasons to buy from certain
companies is for when things go wrong.
Right.
I was having a conversation with somebody
and it just goes to what we found out at
HyperClean or what I have found out in my
life or your life.
Guys, when you go buy cheap stuff, the
problem is there's usually no support
system for when that stuff falls apart.
Because having a support system costs money.
The corner that they cut is they go, hey,
buy this thing and get out of our, you
know, don't call us because we're not
going to help you because you have to
have a support system and money allocated
to do those things.
Right.
When something happened here recently,
somebody got a bad rap done here locally.
They paid hardly anything for it and they're
like, well, that person won't pick up the
phone.
I go, no offense.
You didn't pay them to pick up the phone.
You paid them to slap a rap on for cheap.
Right.
The reason the guy, and I don't even
provide this rap by the way, I know
the company that they didn't buy from
who carries this rap, they should
have bought from that company.
I bring up that name.
You didn't want to pay the price.
Well, that guy would pick up the phone.
That guy would rectify the situation.
You didn't pay.
You did.
Anytime you buy something cheap guys,
the cheap company has to cut a corner
to make money.
Right.
So a lot of corners are going to get
cut for them to make money.
And so I think that's what people don't
realize about things like just as simple
as the ceramic coating.
You guys all know us.
You know, you all know if you email
in or teams going to handle it, you
guys all know where we're at and that
we're out forward facing of our
company.
I just don't think a lot of times people
put that into perspective.
No, because forward facing, it doesn't
really quite make, I don't think everybody
fully understands that.
For you and I, it's very simple
because we've always talked to our
customer.
We've taken the keys.
We've given the keys back.
We've taken payment.
Right.
Very simple.
Right.
But not everybody's done that.
They haven't always went to your
point forward facing like looking
somebody in the eye, charging
them for a service, finishing the
service and collecting payment.
Right.
Like, I mean, not everybody's done
that.
Yeah, no, it's a good point.
And, you know, so, you know, just
to kind of, you know, rehash this
guys, it's not really fair for us
to comment on other people's product.
But your whole reason
for buying should be for when
you need help with something.
That's the way you should go into
buying.
Right.
Is this company going to stand behind
what they sell?
Are these guys, do these guys have a
support system like the specialist
group?
Is it helpful?
Does it have people that know what
it's talking about?
Like in 2025, I don't think we say
that kind of stuff out loud quite
enough.
So here's one way to think about
it.
I guess as you were talking, this is
the first time that I have a
phone called that.
And I'm pretty sure one of you
recently redid my car insurance.
Okay.
There's a question they ask you.
Do you what?
That's always fun.
Oh, yeah.
Well, it was fun for me because
previously, I was driving around
this state.
So I had millions of dollars of
coverage.
I realized, oh, yeah.
I'm just driving to HQ every day.
for me, most people go, well, why didn't you do that sooner? And
you go, Well, welcome to Nick's world. I am Tommy Tech. I
don't always think of stuff like that. Yeah, I finally got it
done. And they asked me a question. Do you want $500
deductible or you want the $1,000 deductible? Well, how
much is the $500 deductible every month? How much is the
$1,000 deductible every month? And then you can know,
well, how many wrecks do I get in that will allow me to do the
$1,000 versus the $500? Should I do the $500 because I'm going to
get in more wrecks, right? That's the that's the thing I do,
which I don't think people really understand in this
situation, right? Can I pay just throwing out a number 10 bucks,
20 bucks, right? 20 more bucks for this on an ongoing
time, when there's another company that's selling one for
10 bucks, because I know that on a point, I'm going to need help.
And if I pay that $10, I'm not going to get help. But if I pay
that $20, it's almost like I'm buying in to get help.
Yeah, no, and it's usually the $20, you know, we're just
using an example here. The $20 product is usually higher
quality. It's usually backed by higher quality company, a
higher quality set of individuals. All of those
things go into it. We just don't talk about it. Look,
the the consumer largely doesn't get talked to on any level
about this kind of stuff. If you guys are doing this
professionally, and you're charging a lot higher than
somebody down the street, just remember, you're trying to
tell them the same story we just said about a product, we
do a higher quality service, I'm better trained, I got
more years in my phone's always on. But the funny
thing is, you never look at the products you buy the
same way as you want the customer to look at you the
professional. And again, if you're just a consumer, doing
this because you love your car, it's the same exact
conversation. Like, there is always a value in buying the
higher quality product always. You may not need it
though, but but you might. And that might should be the
reason you buy a higher quality product.
I want to say this too, because I saw a guy on the
side of the road last week that was detailing. And I
love to pull over and just snap pictures. Just to see what,
you know, see what guys do and see what people in my town
and see, you know, you mentioned something there. How
important is it? I know this is chasing a rabbit a little
bit, but this guy didn't have any, any bottles that even if
you just got a hyper clean bottles that have a logo,
right? Yeah, the how important is to have the same bottles, the
same stuff lined up. I love the guys which we talked about, have
those most very intrigue, very organized. And then you have the
guys that just have this van. And he had a shop back over
here, that this strained out over here, had an extractor,
had an extractor, right? So boy, did a full detail. But then
unlabeled like half right, like you could just tell right,
you can kind of put into imagine of what this guy's
bottles were like, and what his organization was like, you
go, there's a little bit of that that has to be done in this
moment too. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, obviously, I don't want guys, you know, in this
situation, to be at the start of their career and think
everything has to be perfect, right? Because that's not true
either. That's not a real analysis of how we all
started and how we all did things. But if you wanted to
be taken seriously long term, even if it was just, you know,
clear bottles, you know, or, you know, like the basic 32
bottles, but they're all the same, and you kind of label
them yourself. I mean, even to that level, there's, there's
some of it. But like you said, I mean, there's also where a
lot of guys have tons of equipment laying around to
detail one car. And it's like, we're real big on use this
piece of equipment and get it back to either behind the
truck or wherever. Don't just have it laying out all over
someone's property or street or whatever. There's a lot of it.
You know, like I said, man, to your point, there's a lot of
it that's just, you know, simplistic, it's organization, it
makes you look a certain way. Yeah, that stuff becomes
important.
Well, it is because we were talking about, you know, in a
sense, what do you use and quality of products? And I I
always felt judged. If somebody walked up to my trailer, and I
had an open trailer, not a closed trailer, my stuff was not, you
know, these guys with their trailers, these fans, they're
wonderful. They are. I dream that I could do it. I never in my
mind, and my I could never do that. So I always felt judged for
my lack of organization. Right. And I just wanted to say it
right like because I think most people should feel judged on
what they do and what they look like and the quality that we
want to presume and what quality of product you use, it kind of
all plays out, right? So all right, let's move over to this
because else inside the specialist group, it was almost
like the specialist group had a sponsor. It's almost like we
were sponsored by matte paint all of a sudden. This was very
interesting how many matte cars started popping up. So I
just want to is Matt becoming just more popular in general? Or
did we just get hit? There's there's there's just more factory
matte now than ever. Obviously, matte conversions with PPF or
matte conversions with vinyl wraps been popular a long time.
We're just seeing more companies now release matte versions of
their paint, you know, having it as an add on as an
extra. But yeah, I mean, Matt, look, I've been kind of
surprised. I mean, Matt, Matt has been pretty popular for
the last decade. I mean, usually these things come and go,
you know, there's been a lot of things that were more popular
once upon a time. But there's a ton of of matte paint now. And
look, we always get this question. Guys, you can coat matte
paint, you can coat vinyl wrap, you can coat matte PPF, all of
it can be coated. You just need to take your time. If
you're not comfortable, do an inconspicuous spot behind the
wheels, get comfortable, you'll see how it reacts. But
yeah, that stuff can all be coated. And we get that
question a lot. I mean, whether it's by email, in the
Facebook group, if somebody texts me, whatever, I understand
the confusion. But guys, yeah, all that stuff can be coated
just like normal paint.
Well, I can understand the anxiety. And I know junior he
had anxiety. What, let's see, he had a BMW with matte
metallic. He had another one that he talked about in there
we had what there was a Mercedes. What was that? SLK was it?
I don't know. We had a ton of stuff. Yeah, I mean, here's
the thing. It's, yeah, it's way more it's way more popular now.
I mean, well, so you go, I get the anxiety because these are
expensive vehicles already. And a mess up that I think this is
the time that you would this is the time that if if if you
have matte, you do go to a professional, right? Like, do
you even risk it or do you automatically is this a
qualification for a professional but then even
professionals, right? Like, junior in here goes, I was so
anxious. He was so anxious. Listen, the next week, he went on
vacation. I sent him a text because he was walking around
with these like coconuts and drinking them. He was down
in Cancun. You go cool, man, you had a great time. You
coded some vehicles and joined your vacation, but he had
some stress for a moment, right? Yeah, for some stress.
I understand that stress because you you mess up, you're
in trouble. Yeah, no, it's you got to feel comfortable. Like I
say, always go coat something go coat inside of a door jam,
especially if it's factory paint, you know, just get
comfortable. See how the coating reacts slow down. You
know, there's a lot of people that that don't know how to
evenly apply coding. It's probably a little bit more
important to be a little bit more even in what you do.
Make sure you take your time. You don't have to be scared.
I understand why people are. But you just got to get
comfortable. There's a lot of places go inside the trunk, go
inside the rear door, all that kind of stuff. You know, again,
there's a lot of this where the internet scares you. Okay, they
scare you saying you can't do this or that.
You go into this side, right? You're talking about the
trunk or a door. What are we what are we looking for? What
are some things that we should do that are a little different?
Because this guy, you know, plenty of people have put on plenty
of coatings, but he's done them for years, but now he's anxious.
So what should we look for that maybe is different? Do I put
more coating on? Do I put less coating on?
Yeah, first of all, you should you should put a little bit
more coating to me is what we have found, especially if
you're talking about a rapper PPF over a mat situation. But a
little bit more coating, I think a lot of guys still
underutilized coating. So I'm going to always say on these
podcasts to use more coating, because people tend to not use
enough. This would be an instance to use a little bit
more. You're going to get a couple different options. Sometimes
what you're going to see is there's not as much sweating
and sometimes you will see the sweating like normal. It's
really factory dependent in my experience. But again, go do
inside of a door jam to see the reaction, go and do in the
inside of the trunk area to see the reaction. Everyone is
different. But then once you start to see it sweat, go level
it like normal, and make sure you don't miss spots because what's
going to happen is you're going to have this very rich
look. Okay, and it's a great look, it actually looks better
than factory after you coat matte paint, okay, or matte PPF
or a vinyl wrap, you just got to make sure that you don't
miss spots, even a tiny little line is going to show itself. So
just make sure you get nice, thorough, even coverage, and
you'll be just fine.
Have you seen like where some people do the like we talk
about the box technique, but then they do that overlap of the
box and then you can see that shadow of the overlap? Sure.
Is that a is that something that happens a lot in? It could
happen. But like I said, I don't have a problem with
like cross hatching or overlapping or whatever,
whatever you're doing, you need to do it consistently
throughout the car. Okay, so you just need to make sure your
process is the same. By the way, you should be doing this on
regular painted cars anyway. But you should just make sure
you're doing everything identical. Because what can happen
with Matt sometimes if you're a little bit inconsistent, you
can get a weird shadowy look, you can get a this looks
different than that doesn't happen all the time. It's
just something to be cognizant of.
Alright, so I'm working on Matt pain. I definitely put on
more, right? If I'm a 10 drops, I'm going to put on 15. Okay,
whatever, right? Um, what else do I need to make sure? I mean,
is there anything else? No, I don't know. There's nothing
different. Do I mean, fully let it sweat? Do I do I let it
sweat? I treat it there's some that's going to sweat less just
because of the paint system. Okay, there's going to be some
that sweat normal, just because that's a different paint
system, it acts a little bit more normal than the last
Matt. So again, even to this day, I'll go inside of a door and
just see how this is going to react. Now, I've done enough
Mercedes and frozen paint from BMW and those kinds of
companies, I know exactly how it should react. But I still
don't mind going and checking inside of a door jam. I mean,
just just doesn't bother me to take that, you know, two or
three advice, great advice. Anything I need to think about
different between factory Matt and Matt PPF? Matt PPF is
probably a little bit more normal, right? Like you if you've
ever coated over PPF, Matt PPF acts very similar to lead to
gloss PPF. But again, not really anything different,
except make sure even coverage, especially when you're
doing PPF guys, you should put more drops. If I normally
did 10, I do 20 vinyl wrap, same thing, probably, you
know, double a lot of it, because you're just talking about
way more porous surface. You're talking about it's going to soak
up a lot of coating. It just kind of is what it is.
Alright, for those people that did not travel for Labor Day,
they might have set home, watch movies. If you were back in
the day, you would have definitely watched one of the
most popular movies, Forrest Gump. And there was a scene
where he stepped in a pile and a guy wanted him to write
something on a t shirts. Shit happens. Sometimes with
coatings, even though we've put coating on. Listen, there was
Christopher and this was this was wild. I'm so glad he posted
this inside the groups. Looks like dose holding up strong on
a client's car. And then we can just go dot dot dot. Shit
happens. Like this is a white whether that's an explorer
something. Maybe that's a expedition. I don't know. But
it's white. It's white on most of it. And then you've got this
suit just coming down all over it, right? Yeah, and a local
factory had exploded. He said, and rained oil and soot all
over these cars. Yeah. Hey, look, it's first of all, this is
exactly why you coat cars. Yep. This isn't a factory mad. This
isn't a Mercedes. This isn't a this looks like a normal
person's car. And they did a great job of using Christopher
to coat it with dose. And now Christopher's going to go in
to to work on all these cars and nobody right. The other
people that didn't get it. But for him, he's like,
hey, it works perfect. We're great. Yep. Yeah, no, I mean,
this is this goes all the way back to why you waxed your car
back in the day, then you put a paint ceiling on and now we're
on to coatings and PPF and all these other great products.
Like, it's great when guys like Christopher share that because
I know we have a lot of consumers that listen to us
and are in our group. We got a lot of professionals getting
their start and with lots of experience and everybody in
between. This is the reason to coach your car, right? You're
coding, you know, in case something happens, right? You're
coding it because you want to care for your car. You're
coding it because you want to protect things. You're coding
it because you want it to look good all as much as you can.
There's a million reasons to coach your car. But the very
bare bones reason should be for when things happen, right?
Birds, you know, industrial fallout. In this instance,
you know, you had a real serious issue happen and it, you
know, went all over everyone's cars. Look, man, things in life
happen. And a lot of times we don't talk about it enough.
That's the base reason to actually get a coating. All of
them. I want my car to look great. I want my car to be
more glossy. I want this. We all agree with that. The
base level is, if something were to happen to your clear
code in this situation, you could be in a repaint. If
the coating, even in this instance, doesn't even look
like it got damaged. But if it got damaged, you polish it up,
you re coat the car, you save a repaint situation. I'm
certain that there's going to be people that don't save a
repaint who don't have something like a coating on it.
Yeah. And when we say repaint, it's not like, Oh, well, you
know, the insurance is going to pay and I'm gonna get this
new paint. No, you know how much it's insane. The
amount of headache those people are going to have to go
through. Whereas this guy, he just gets to walk away. Thanks,
Christopher. Appreciate it, man. Christopher's like no problem. I
just threw some stack on top. We got you right because that's
what he said he did. You go, yes, like this is the way like, I
love seeing we don't we don't try to do I mean, even the
professionals out there, we don't talk about it enough.
We're all into the looks of cars. I mean, that's part of
the reason we do this. But the base level is going to
be for these reasons when something happens that we can
prevent. You know, that person being in a body shop or maybe
having a huge bill to try to clean up the car because now a car
has no protection. I can't imagine what that would bill
bill would be to get, you know, a car that just hasn't been
well cared for and have protection on it. That's
going to be a headache. Even if the stuff comes off, it's
going to be really hard to get off and going to be a huge
headache. So this is always the base reason that we
probably skip over more times than we should.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Like, the next question
I want to ask out of this is, well, at what level or what
coding was that guy able to be okay on? Because we go into
other groups. This is a group where a guy posted a photo.
He's holding a bottle. And this is a ceramic wax.
Okay, so what level of ceramic do we need so that
we're not like the other people that were at this oil
factory getting, you know, crap all over themselves and not
being able to wash it off. Whereas this post, you know,
this guy was just asking a question about, Hey, you know,
I'm putting this on this is what I did. And nobody starts
reaming him. This I bring it up because I highlighted this.
This guy goes, And this is why detailers have problems
selling a true ceramic coating. He was posting a photo of a
ceramic infused wax. Yeah. And then you understand then other
people going, Well, that's why you guys can't sell true coat.
Yeah, no. And look, we've said this, I think you and I've said
as long as we've been on here, as ceramic coatings got
bigger, people were going to take liberty with the word
ceramic. Right. And it was going to confuse you and I
talked about car washes now using. Well, yeah, I remember
yeah, you know, I remember the first post I put out when
I was at the car wash show. And I saw this ceramic lava and I
just posted you guys think this whatever back in like 1718 they
were whatever they were arguing about. I think it was all the
polishing and like true ceramic, right? Like, I go, I made a
post I was like, you guys think that's what's going to
defy? No, what's going to hurt you is going to be all the
people going through the car washes. Yeah, or, or the
Wal-Mart Isles. I'm thinking that they're getting ceramic
coating. Yeah, I mean, look, you and I get sent a lot of, you
know, internet based stuff. And you and I get probably a lot of
this kind of stuff or somebody's like, look, what the I
don't I don't get all kind of offended by this, right?
Because maybe I just accept that this has always been
what's happened. You know, you remember this when you
start to wipe on Carnuba and then the car wash world and
the spray wax world, everything started to just say wax, wax,
wax, wax, wax. For those of you that have been in it five, six,
seven years, maybe you have a different, you know, relationship
with how this stuff works. This is how it works. The fact of the
matter is there's nothing wrong with quote unquote, a ceramic
type of wax, you know, there isn't anything wrong with
it. What level of protection? That's going to be brand
specific. I mean, there could be anything from that could be
99.9% water that could be somebody that has a legitimate
product. I mean, I don't even know what post you're talking
about. So I want everybody to know. I don't even know the
brand. I don't care the brand. But again, is that going to
save somebody the way a true ceramic coating is? We all
know the answers. No. But the funny thing is, the guy or
gal, you know, a lot of it being like, you know, those
old timers at car shows that would sit there and argue
with you on what a ceramic is. You know, the funny
thing is, I don't know that those people are kind of aging
out. Yeah, I don't get as much argument anymore. I just say,
hey, look, that's, I don't know what that is, but a ceramic
coating usually comes in a bottle that kind of looks like
this doesn't come like that. I'm not sure. I mean, maybe
that product if you use it every week would be very
beneficial for you. I don't know, you know, but again,
part of it is professionals get so angry. They go into
these groups, they vomit at the mouth and get angry. And then
they didn't really help anything. Right? So I don't really
want the people that listen to us to think that's the
solution. This is just is what it is type of territory for
me. This was gonna come. This was already here. You were
saying it seven, eight years ago, we've been saying it on
this podcast for as long as I've been here, which I
think we're going into six years now that I've been on
this podcast. It's just not worthy of a topic of
conversation because by the way, number one, those aren't
our customers. Those aren't the people we're really going to
talk to. And if you do want to go in and educate them, be in
mad and angry, I don't think is helpful either. So if you
want to educate somebody in that post and go and write a
thoughtful post about what he has versus what a real
ceramic is now you're going to help anybody I don't
know, but getting just pissed off about it doesn't
really seem all that helpful to me.
No, I agree. It's not helpful. So there's there's part of
this moment where, you know, we think of snake oil, right? We
think of gray area. There's so much in our industry that I
personally go, Well, is is a wax, you know, do we tell
people waxes X amount of I don't know, right? Like waxes
used to be this waxes used to be then we had sealants
and you just you always have this number. There seems to
always be this number that we want to put down. It doesn't
matter if it's a manufacturer, or it's a it's an in buyer
that's buying from a detailer, the detailer has to also
throw out some number that is going to last and we go, well,
waxes don't let well, but it's a ceramic wax. Well, does
the ceramic side of the wax make it last like a ceramic? I
don't know. I, you know, does, does putting things on
plastics that are, you know, shiny. Does does that help the
plastics? Does it make it look better? But then does it do
something later? I saw a post where a guy was was asking
what else needs to do. And these are, you know, was big
fan, the the weather tech mats. Okay. Anything wrong with
Roger's putting on and he lists this leather conditioner and
cleaner because he likes the way it looks. And I know it's a
little slippery is what he tells the customers. Hey, that's he
tells them. I know it's a little slippery. Like, where does all
this fall in? You've got you go how in the world did you make
these A plus B equals C but but ceramic wax? I know it's a little
slippery. But I like the way it looks. Well, it's not going to
last but I like the way it looks. So I'm going to charge you
this, even though this isn't good, like, there's so much in
our industry, so much of what we do. A lot of people can make
these big and you're right. I think most people in our
world, they've gotten all that out, right? Like, look, I
actually think there's one reason why. I think something
that turned a lot of people off was the graphene stuff. I think
people are a lot very highly critical now and should be of
companies a that are sticking with that be ever had it at
all, you know, and couldn't prove to anybody because there
was no proof that this was somehow, you know, the next
level, I'll be happy to debate that with anybody. But at the
end of the day, I really think from a consumer perspective, and
by the way, you and I are consumers, everyone listening to
this as a consumer. This is not my judgment on everyone else.
I'm saying for myself, for you, for everybody listening, who
you listen to matters more in 2025 than it did in 2020 than
it did in 2015 that it did in 2020 in 2010. It matters now
because so many people are talking. It doesn't matter
what subject you're talking about, anything in the world,
lawn care, plumbing, anything, right? Everyone's talking
because everyone thinks they're going to make a living off doing
some kind of content. Okay, right? I mean, let's just call
a spade a spade. And I think today, and I think this was my
advice six years ago when you and I first met, I did my
first podcast as I was on this big then, but I don't
think I've said it enough since I'll say it here. You're
a consumer or professional, the world's going to come down to
the to the people that you listen to and associate with.
That's what's going to happen. And I actually think the next
five to 10 years is going to be even more unmerciful to the
consumer listening to the wrong people. Why? It's pretty
simple. Everything is going to be more expensive than it's
ever been. And it might be exponential, right? I just
I mean, you and I can can can, you know, tell people all
kinds of stories of all kinds of things we know. But that
doesn't really matter. Okay, let me tell one. Let's not. Yeah,
what matters is who you listen to. It's not so
detailing. But I want to tie in to what you were just
saying, because you were saying mistakes. And I want to
say mistakes are also going to start costing us a lot more
a lot in these moments. In 2025 of September, mistakes. I made
a mistake recently. It cost us, right? Like, and then we
depended on some people to get some stuff to us. And there
was somebody in an organization that decided not to do
their job. And that mistake not only cost us, it costs
something you're not having to talk about with some of the
more the education I found out is this plane that was
supposed to show up with two huge cargo plane only had one. So
this guy's mistake ended up costing not just the company
all but then imagine how many things were on this other
cargo and imagine how many thousands of people's lives
got changed because somebody didn't do their job. Then you
go Okay, in moments where economies not so great, where
people are starting to get more stressed, they don't, they
don't let these things flow over as easy anymore. Yeah. So now
they start going, All right, other competition, you've been
calling me, let's get you on the phone because these guys just
made a mistake. Next thing you know, somebody's mistake turns
out to be millions of dollars. You go, Well, I'm not a detail
I get it. But that's just one explanation of these moments
of when you make those mistakes. And you don't
take the thing seriously.
Yeah. And the other thing is, I mean, think of this from
the consumer perspective, I just had somebody send me a post
on a Lamborghini that a shop on the West Coast chopped up, you
know, trying to put film on it, knifed it all the hell, a
Lamborghini. Let's say last year, you know, five years ago,
that would have been a $250,000 car. That's now a $380,000
car, $420,000 car. Think of you if you're a consumer
listening to this, you used to be able to buy something
and your car cost you 40 and now it costs you 80. So not
protecting it properly and having something happen. It's
now a bigger deal than it's ever been, right? I don't think
people, well, and again, we're all consumers, right? So one of
the things I truly believe is, we aren't talking out loud, guys
like you and I, everybody out there that's a professional
and whatever you do, most of you guys are detailing. But I
always say this, like, we're not educating the customer on
when something bad happens, it's now going to cost exponentially
more. So in this Lamborghini perspective, the cars cut up,
it's cut up to the point, it's going to be a whole repaint on
the whole body. Okay, they cut up windshield. What is it
called? What surrounds the windshield, the molding
around the windshield, that's all cut up. The windshield is
going to have to come out of the car, which by the way,
structurally, anytime you have your windshield replaced, it's
never like it was, it's it can never be put back for those of
you don't know, because it's kind of all sealed around that
that that windshield. And so now they're going to have to
replace it. So you have a 350 to $380,000 mistake, a car that
used to be 250. So you're already 100 $130,000 different. Now
when you go to repaint it, go back to when that thing
cost 250 and maybe just maybe you could do it for 15 to 20. Now
it's going to be 40 to 60 to get it repainted. Okay, also, if the
shop doesn't step up, which they're not going to because it
was cheap, this is going to go on your insurance. Your
insurance is a lot less thoughtful on giving you a
break because it wasn't your fault. Now they're going to
ding you to a level. In some cases, they just drop people
now. You go back a decade, they didn't drop people like they
do now. Now they'll just drop you on a Wednesday. Like, hey, you
kind of looked at us wrong when you paid your bill dropped. You
know what I mean? Like, these things have ramifications. And
we don't talk about them nearly enough. And that and that's
okay, right? But in these moments, when you go back to
where we started with this, it's like, Hey, man, the ceramic
rack waxes in a problem. It's not the problem that the
professional thinks it is. Okay, because those people aren't
gonna be your customers anyway. But to that person that thinks
they're putting something ceramic on, they are getting
cheated. Right? Now, if on the bottle, the company on the back
is truthful and goes, Hey, you should use this every time you
wash your car. Hey, this, you know, use it like this. And
they're pretty explicit, like, don't try to use this once a
year. Then did they really do anything wrong? I don't really
care about that. You know, at the end of the day, you got
to know what you're buying. But also you got to value knowing
who you're buying from. And if you walk into a Walmart, you
don't have any idea who you're buying from. And if you contact
that company and something goes wrong, they didn't price all
that in, right? They didn't price that into the $2 bottle of
thing. You're that's not priced in to help you out.
They're customers Walmart, not you. And that that's just the
nature of the beast. And I say this like pretty willingly. It's
one of these things, man, there's a real cost now that has
never existed in our world of listening to the wrong person.
There's always been bad work. There's always been people
that did the wrong things. The cost now is exponentially
more than it was five years ago. And that that has never
happened in my career. It's always been a gradual price
increase, you know, over the last 25 years, that gradual is
gone. It went from a $40,000 vehicle to an $80,000 vehicle
and it happened in a five year span. It's it's pretty wild to
see. And we just got to start speaking that way, especially
for people buying new stuff. You go, Hey, man, it's got to be
the most expensive vehicle you've ever bought. And some
of it's by a landslide. How much more expensive it is.
Yeah, absolutely. Alright, let's close out with a pro only type
of talk. And this is something that you've been seeing a lot
more. And you're right as I started going back through after
you mentioned it went back through and look through. You're
right. There's more people it seems to be right now fall of
2025, starting to go now hiring. Like, hey, that's
great. Because there's plenty of people needing jobs. Hey,
this is awesome. Wonderful. I think there's a lot of people in
the economy and the people out in the rest of the world that
would go wonderful. Let's get people back to work. It's a
great.
Yeah, I mean, look, we probably our biggest question you and I
get is about hiring. Would you agree over the last five
plus years? There's a lot. There is a lot. I mean, it's
it's it's the number one, right? How do I how do I sell
more make more and how do I hire? I mean, those are those
are the
when I think is it? Yeah, it's always what I'm saying is it's
always around hiring. Yeah, anything around hiring. So I get
sent a post somebody sent it to me and they go this guy
basically writes his post and he's talking about I'm having
trouble with a team member. I do around $10,000 a month in
revenue. Okay, that's basically what I do. And number one, I'm
not even sure how this person has a team member, you know, only
bringing in $10,000 in revenue. So the number one question I
always get asked is when's the right time to hire? And how
should I know how to hire those kinds of questions? I see a lot
of people. So I went down a rabbit hole a little bit after
that. And I started I went into some groups and put
hiring into the search bar. And man, there was a lot of
people with not very much revenue every month talking
about hiring. And I kind of come at it from this angle. And
because I know a lot of you have this question, guys, if you
can't do, you know, roughly 15 to 20,000 in revenue on your
own. How are you going to teach somebody to do, you
know, 15 to $20,000, which is what you're going to need
them to do. You can't just hire somebody and be like, Hey,
we're doing $10,000 in revenue. I'm good. Well, there's not
enough money for everybody to eat. Right. And again,
yeah, go on because I think people go, Hey, I made 10,000. I
need like, I need to hire somebody like, I need to get
some of this pressure off of my plate. Like, I've got
enough coming in. And you know, I, it's probably
right time because you know, I, I'm missing some things or, you
know, I get home, I'm a little sore and like, it's probably the
right time. It's probably right time to go hire somebody out.
Why is that number 10 grand what that's not enough?
Well, it's not enough when you take into account actually
paying somebody what is probably starting market now. I
mean, I think it's pretty unrealistic in most cities. Again,
some of you guys are in different areas. It's I
mean, it's unrealistic for you and I to hire under $20 an hour
for basic work in Tulsa, Oklahoma, not the most expensive
city by any means, right? But the cost in Tulsa, like
everywhere else have gone up to get a place to live, whether
that's an apartment or a home. So you got to pay that guy?
Yeah, I mean, I'd basically say, I mean, if you start
somebody at 20 bucks an hour, it's what 800 plus dollars a
week, right there just to work full time. I mean, look, you're
at 3200 bucks, no tax, no, anything at this point. I mean,
you're talking about probably 36 to 3,800 bucks a month. If
you're making a 10 grand, that's not a lot of money, right?
There's not a lot of money left over. You got to run your
truck, you got to put gas in it, you got to buy supplies,
you got to do all that. At the end of the day, that
guy's making more than you as the owner at $10,000 a month
in revenue. So number one, probably the reason this person
was struggling to hire is I'm guessing he wasn't paying his
help very much money in today's world. Okay, because when I
started 10 bucks an hour was realistic. Look, let me say
that. It was it was realistic for you guys is 2025. That's
not realistic now. And you got to get it out of your head,
you know, even if you want to start somebody at 15 bucks
an hour, there's not too many cities that 15 bucks an
hour here in Vegas, you can push carts at target for like 22,
23, 24 bucks an hour. I mean, so if I go, if I want to take
somebody, you know, from pushing carts at target, and I go,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay you 15 bucks an hour. Why in the
hell would they do that to detail a car? Right? Just
think about these things logically. Most fast food
out here is above 20 bucks an hour to get started. And
I'm not saying every one of you got to realize I'll find
somebody. I'm gonna go do it. No, no, here's the
thing. You'll find somebody. They just won't be reliable. They
won't be good. They won't, you know, you'll complain about
them, which is why you're in the group. But again, guys, and
I just go on my hiring journey, which I'm sure many people
listening has had the same one, especially guys that have
had success. The number one reason to hire is to double
your workload. Right? If I have another body that I
can get trained up, I can do two times the work. Right?
It's not to hire somebody to do none of the work. Meaning
like, most people, yeah, most people are gonna go, I'm
hiring because I want to do less. Yeah. Yeah. And by the
way, that can come later. But most people that that are
commenting, this is their first hire. It's them in a
person or it's them and two people. Okay. And at the
end of the day, if you can't double and triple your
revenue by hiring somebody, then in all actuality, what
you're doing is you're now taking all that money out of
your own pocket. Okay? If you can double what you're
doing, you're not taking it out of your own pocket,
you're taking it out of the bonus of the other work.
Right? So taking it out of my pocket. What's that?
How's it taking it out of my pocket? Well, because if I
do $10,000 worth of work on my own and I hire
somebody and we're still doing $10,000 worth of
work, I just took four grand out of my pocket, 3800,
3600 bucks out of my pocket. Right? So it all you don't
really get into just hiring to take things off your
plate. I'd probably say it was like my fourth or fifth
hire. That's when I was able to hire strictly to
take something off my plate. Okay? Probably my first
two to three hires that stuck around. I think
the same goes for us at HQ. Right? I mean, this is
this is kind of an across the board thing when you're a
founder and the people driving the business to
start out, which is most of us, right? Most of us
don't just hire 10 people at our company. You start a
company, you grow it, then you hire. That's that's
who I'm talking to here. I mean, you and I
couldn't I mean what? It was almost what 18 months
before we could hire somebody to take over some of
your duties at HQ. Right? And at that point in
time, we had to hire because the workload had gotten
so big that you actually couldn't do it and do
other responsibilities. So we we were able to hire
because the revenue had got to a point where
hiring a person was now it was not a want and a
need it was a necessity. Well, if you're doing
$10,000 in revenue guys, every single one of you
that's starting your business should be able
to do $10,000 in business by yourself. Very easily
in today's economic situation of what most of you
should be charging doesn't matter what you think
that's a fact. Realistically, you need to find a
way to do 15 to $20,000 on your own by today's
math and then go and hire from that point of
strength. So what if I'm like six, seven, eight
grand, something like that? Now I'm sweating at
the end of the month. I'm like, Nick,
shouldn't be thinking about it. I need somebody.
Yeah, you can hire, but again, all that's coming out
of your money, right? You don't have enough money. Now
if what you're telling me is, let's just use the
round number of 10 grand, I'm going to hire in the
next month with all the the stuff I have to
pass up now, I'm going to go to 20 or $30,000
because I have a helper. That is a reason to
hire. Okay, if you want to stay in business,
you can't hire with such a low revenue and expect
that to work out. Because by the way, there's just
not enough money to make it work out long term.
Well, I was trying to think through why do people
go ahead and jump off that ledge, right? Why do
they do it, right? Which we already said,
A, I want to take some take some pressure off.
I want to I want to stop which is what I
did. I want somebody else to clean those
wheels. Somebody else to vacuum the car. I
want somebody else to and you would give
those guys the things that that you didn't
want to do which we would say inside of a
company, you need people to be able to grow
and you start here and you get to that point.
Okay, okay. Well, you're saying that in
order to hire those people, I've got a
double or triple my income. Yep. Yep.
How does that happen? Just hire somebody?
I'm going to double my income. You should only
so what I found, what I would assume, and by
the way, I talked to a lot of people that
have had success in this business. Usually
when most of us who end up having a
success long term look back at why we
first hired somebody, it's because we were
bypassing a lot of work, right? We just
couldn't physically get to the work
anymore. So when I hired and I remember
pretty distinctly, I was like, I think
12 weeks out, you know, I was I just
couldn't get to any more work and I was
working six, seven days a week and
whatever. So once I hired, I went from
12 weeks out to six weeks out and I
doubled the work, right? Not immediately,
but within about 60 days, I was double
what I what I had made in revenue,
not actually made but revenue so
everybody knows. But also I knew I
could double it because I had all
of this backlog and then every time
somebody called instead of 12 weeks, I
was now six weeks, right? And then I got
built back up. I think we got to like
10 weeks backed up, something like that
wasn't the smartest thing by the way. I
would have hired a little bit sooner.
This was this was not perfect scenario.
I'm just sharing with everybody what
happened. I went hired my second guy
and all of a sudden we went from 10
weeks. Within about 60 days, I was
down to like three or four weeks. But
dude, we were cranking out so much work
that now anytime somebody called, I was
like, yeah, we can take on more work, we
can take on more work. So all of a
sudden I went from let's just call it
my first hire, I was doing 20 grand a
month, you know, when I hired, we went
from 20 to 30 overnight for the next
month and then we were at 40 overnight.
Then I went to my second hire and we
got to 50 to 60. I mean, you see
what I'm saying? Like we just
exponentially had the work there and
I was turning so much work away that I
was able to follow up with people and
say, hey, we've had we've had changes
I've hired and all of a sudden that work
just kept coming in. But I hired, I
guess you would say out of necessity,
but guys, I also knew I was immediately
trying to double my output. I didn't
take any time off. I didn't put the
work on. It made me pick up steam
to get to the next level and I think
I've said this on the podcast before.
I never really even got to take much of
a step back from the work until
maybe like four people on my team,
something like that. You know, I was
still cranking, I was still doing what
I had to do, but by that time we had
such big months, I had saved so much
money in the company. Anytime I hired
somebody, I could pay top dollar and
also at the time I was buying trucks
cash. Like, hey, let's set up a truck,
cash, cash, and I was just dumping all
of this money in it, but the money has
to be there. Like this is one of the
things that when I get this question
it's hard to explain to people. I was
living on nothing this entire time.
Like I did not expand my lifestyle. I
didn't go buy stuff. I didn't have
time to do anything. Like I had no
time to do anything at all and it
was just like, okay, another truck,
another truck, another truck. And in this
time, guys, I was losing people and
having to rehire, so don't think all
of this went smoothly. It never does.
Okay, for anybody and anybody tells you
it did, they're lying to you.
I had nothing figured out. I was just
doing what I had to do, but the thing
is I didn't have a problem working
seven days a week. I didn't ask them
to work seven days a week, so I'd
make up anything we didn't get to on
Saturdays and Sundays, but I never
hired with the thought process of
we weren't going to find a way to
double our work because at some point
when you run one of these service-based
companies, each employee, each team member
is going to have to generate so much
income off what they do for you to be
able to pay them a good wage and make
sure that they're able to drive a
truck around or have be in the shop
or whatever the case may be. And if
you can't, if you never did that
yourself, it's going to be hard to
get them to the level that you need
them to get to. And that's my
opinion on it. All right, so I want to go
over philosophy because you mentioned
something. You said that you hired
people and you weren't really making.
When, you know, there's this idea that
entrepreneurship, right, like I should
grind, right, keep grinding, grind it
out, right, and then you hire somebody
and there's this other idea that you
just keep grinding. And you mentioned
that you weren't making as much as the
people you hired. Did you bring home?
Did you pay yourself? What did that look
like when you were there? And because
there's this philosophy that some people
say, hey, if I'm building, right, or,
you know, they start saying I want to
get out of grinding, I've got to pay
people more than I'm making. But the
business is supposed to be generating
income and I've got to live and money
keeps, you know, like we said inflation,
like where do I go into that, right?
Because I told you I said there's a
philosophy beforehand. I was like,
hey, man, there's a philosophy. There's
a philosophy that you should grind
it out, pay people more than you ever
make in entrepreneurship and hoping
that there's a light at the end of the
tunnel. Yeah, there there might be times
that that happened. But you know, again,
I don't think a lot of people
understand money, which you know, we're
not going to dive into it here. I
think we've talked money on here
before. Certainly there were months
where I didn't make much money. You
know, maybe we bought a truck or
something broke down or whatever. But
when you're in a service-based
business, you should be making a
pretty good living. You should be
making a pretty good living because
especially in something like detailing,
your costs are relatively low, even when
you pay at the top of the market for
for a beginning team member. That
should be a low effect. So when
everybody asks me about hiring, I go,
hey, do you have three to six months
to just pay somebody in an account
somewhere? Like, do you have three to
six months of their salary or their
hourly, like just somewhere ready to
hire? A lot of people say no. And I
go, okay, we'll get three months of
an employee, what a team member would
need to get paid, put that into an
account. That kind of simple stuff.
I'll tell you this, man, you're never
going to make as much money as
easily as when you're working by
yourself.
Okay, that is the easiest way. Like,
there's many of you guys that should
be having $20,000 a month on your
own.
We've even talked to guys like, you
know, Mildren and other people, and
they're like, hey, man, if I really
wanted to do this thing, I could find
a way to do $25,000 a month just all
by myself. You're going to be working,
you're going to be sweating, you're
going to be, you're going to be
humping, you know, you're going to be
doing some work. But those of us
that know the business, there's
nothing as profitable as you working
on your own. So anybody telling you
differently has never been there.
But you can't grow past a certain
point, right? So, yeah, when you first
hire people, it does take a hit to your
personal money coming in, that kind of
thing. But you should be, like I said,
30 to 60 days. If you hired, especially
you guys that are solo by right now
and you're hiring your second person,
within 60 days, if I get that person
up to speed, I should be able to
double the revenue of when I hired
that person. If you can't do that,
you've hired for all the wrong reasons,
in my opinion, okay? Then when you
become really good as a two-man team,
you should be talking about, like,
3x probably where you're at, because
now your body is not doing as much,
they're getting more comfortable, your
system's getting more organized and
efficient. So there's a lot of guys,
two-man teams, that could be easily
do 35 to 45,000 dollars a month in
revenue. I mean, people don't believe
it, but you know, I have receipts from
a lot of people that have done that,
myself included, you probably have
receipts yourself and other people.
And again, I'm not saying you have to
do that, I'm saying, I think people
are getting too comfortable hiring too
quickly and they're not understanding
that 10 grand isn't what it used to
be. 10 grand is now the new 20 to
25,000, okay? That's the real
number. 10 grand when I started,
which, you know, was 2010 as a business.
Hey man, that was a lot of money.
You had 10 grand months, you felt good
about yourself, right? 10 grand months
now is not the money it was then.
And I have to realize that even today
for me, like, we've had to make our
guys more efficient, my team is more
efficient than it's ever been.
They're in charge of more than they've
ever been. I've had to pay them
more money than I've ever had to
pay. I've had to take a hit to do
things like hyper clean, you and I
talk about this a lot, I don't think
people realize the amount of money
I've had to invest into my business
here at VR to make sure everybody's
happy and all this kind of stuff.
So I want everybody to not run away
from hiring, but if you can't find a
way to generate 15, 20, 25,000 on
your own, it's going to be hard to
train somebody to work at that
level and that's the level you're
going to need them to work.
Because if they want to make a good
living, let's say you want to pay
somebody five grand a month, you're
going to have to find a way to be
20, 25,000 of revenue just off
things you can attach to them
personally, right? Whether that's
sales, whether that's the actual
work itself, whatever.
There's a real problem and I only
say this because I know a lot of
you are thinking about this.
When I got sent this post, it was
very clear to me, even when I
looked at some of the comments and
answers to this guy, I just go
guys, it's going to be real hard
to hire with 10 grand in revenue.
I mean, it's going to be really
hard to hire because like I said,
you can kiss four grand of it,
goodbye.
Like that's gone.
Now you got six to play with, you
got to run a truck or a shop or
whatever your base cost is.
That guy's definitely making more
money than you're making as an
owner, not the right time to hire.
So do I look at that number and go
that's not the right time to hire
or do I go let me hold my
breath and bust tail for,
like you said, 60 days.
60 days enough?
It really isn't, isn't it?
I think that's where most people
they get caught as they go,
all right, I can bring this guy in.
I've got some work and it'll
it'll kind of let me breathe a
little bit, right?
It'll kind of I deserve this.
I love that word when people say
that I deserve this now.
Yeah, you know, I think most
of us won't won't understand
what you're saying.
I think most of us won't.
We won't.
But I hope I hope we at least
take it in and go, All right.
Well, the time that I do hire,
I need to put out that was so good.
Three months worth of work,
three months of what the guy's
going to make.
Yeah, that's very fair to give
somebody a shot.
Like, yeah, so you go like very
fair.
If I'm going to just round up
and say a team member is going
to cost me four grand a month.
Do I got 12 grand to blow?
If it goes missing,
I don't care about it, right?
That's what blowing money means.
If my business has this money
and it just goes missing tomorrow,
if the answer is yes,
you got that money.
Good time to hire, right?
Because look, your first hire
is probably not going to go well.
You've never hired.
Don't expect your first hire
to go.
I always tell people try to hire
10 people.
You find one probably doing
pretty well.
Because remember, no matter
what anybody tells you about
hiring, when you're hiring
entry level blue collar,
and I love how people say 2025,
you know, it's never been harder
to hire entry level blue collar
in 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2025.
It's always been bad.
Anybody trying to blame right now
was not hiring entry level blue
collar 15, 20, 25 years ago.
It's always been a craft shoot.
Doesn't matter how much you pay.
That's why I kind of hate when
people are like, well, you know,
right now, never been harder to
hire.
It's like, I can tell you never
really hired 15 years ago or 20
years ago or 10 years ago.
Because all of us, Marty, you
hired back then, it's always
been hard.
It's always been hard.
And so you're not going to get
it right.
There's going to be a cost
associated with that.
Then you're going to have to go
back on the hiring trail.
Then all of this stuff is part
of the game.
I think part of it is people
aren't ready for the
responsibility of hiring, not
only just financially, but the
headache that it causes, because
it is going to be a little
bit of a headache, the growth
you're going to have to go
through as a person to be a
better boss and know how to
actually manage a team.
That's why 10 grand doesn't
work.
Because there's all of these
things besides just the
dollar figure that you're not
thinking about that's going to
happen when you start hiring.
And you've got to be okay
with it.
I mean, I really think, I
mean, there's no maybe even
today, I tell people, you
know, you might hire 10 to
15 people to find a good one,
but I would have told you that
in 2010.
You know, I would have told you
that in 2015 after I'd been
hiring for a while.
It's like, yeah, man, you're
going to run through some
people because this is blue
collar work.
That's what it is.
Doesn't make it bad, but you
got to understand the people
signing up for entry level
blue collar work are the
same exact people 20 years
ago.
And I worked for people.
I saw how hard it was for
them to hire, right?
Didn't matter.
They were paying good money.
The companies that I worked
for didn't matter.
They still struggled 25 years
ago.
I got my first job in this
business.
Boy, oh boy, they didn't get
the cream of the crop.
Okay, that's not what
happens.
So anybody telling you 2025 is
different.
No, it isn't entry level
blue collar hiring has
always been this thing
that's very difficult.
And you got to be able to
weather that storm of
getting people up to speed
and maybe somebody quits.
You got to hire again.
You got to hire again.
You got to hire again.
There's money associated
with all of that.
That's just how the game works.
It's tough.
Yeah.
Oh, it's tough.
Kind of just finish off
with just going.
It's tough.
It is what almost in a sense
hiring and managing team
members almost does become
a defining thing for any
company, right?
They don't even just say
detailers, but you look
across the detailing
landscape and you go,
yeah, if this guy's good
at hiring and managing team
members, they're going to
run a good business.
If they're not,
there's why you and I have
joked and we look at people
and go, yep, who the hell
would want to work for that guy?
Nobody.
Yep.
Nobody want to work for that
guy.
That's why he's going to stay
in the position that he is
and staying at a certain level.
All right.
Good talk.
Good talk.
I know we all have some
stuff to chew on here
because when we think of our
own way, we hire and the way
we look at stuff and we go,
huh, interesting.
I wonder how many of us go
and just really dive into that.
It's not a fun thing.
It really isn't.
It's not.
It's not fun to dive into
hiring and how we do it.
You've got to realize,
people don't want to hear
this.
I'll end with this.
Everything in your business
costs money,
right?
Everything.
Hiring costs a lot of money.
And there's many people
who are trying to get you
to believe that hiring
isn't a big money
commitment.
They'll brag about
you should buy this van.
I'm telling you,
go hire.
In one year,
you'll surpass that van.
That van's going to look like,
man, that van was kind of easy
to get.
Go start hiring.
Start shelling out money
to hire.
And again, it's a positive
thing, but we just dodged
the money conversation too
often.
It costs to hire, man.
It's not a negative,
but it is a negative if you
don't actually live in the
real world.
So I hope everybody can get
something.
I hope everybody can get
something from it.
Alright, we'll see you all
next time.
All right, guys.
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