Are you a detailer, or a detailing artist?
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at 10:40AM At one time, I was an aspiring professional detailer, setting out to be around the cars and planes I loved. Then, one day about 30 years ago at the ripe age of 17, I decided that being a detailer was not fulfilling. No, you may be saying Renny, you of all people were not fulfilled by detailing?
Renny Doyle Dry Sanding and Wet Sanding Expert
Yes, I was burned out and not making the income I desired. I even left detailing for a number of years. 20 years ago, I decided it is time not to simply detail, but to detail with passion. To detail as a lifestyle. To detail at a higher level and thus earn at a higher level.
Now, earning at a higher level does not always mean working on and detailing million dollar super cars. I know guys that are making six figures in detailing and working on average daily driver cars. I also know that some of the most famous names in the industry who are or where detailing super cars are dead broke.
The above photo is of a young detailer, Renny Doyle in 1984 at the age of 18
I set out 20 years ago to establish more then a business. I wanted to live a car guy lifestyle. I had a growing family that I wanted to see grow up. Now, a growing family takes money right, so I knew I had to make a good income. This is where in my early days I was failing. I was making wages and making wages in a business is just stupid business. I had to get a passion going and become contagious.
Passion and being contagiousness - These two items changed everything for me. When I shared my passion for making cars, aircraft, boats, motorcycles and RV's amazingly beautiful with my detailing skills and started to tell a story and put on a production, much like a Broadway show within my detailing efforts, something started to happen, my detailing changed. My business changed. My income changed. More important, my reputation in my local markets was on fire.
I started to quickly learn who I was, what I enjoyed doing within the detailing industry and what I did not enjoy doing. Furthermore, I quickly open my eyes to what was profitable within detailing and what was not. I learned what was building up my reputation and what was hurting my reputation.
Again, so many are pumping out BS (bad statistics) on detailing. There is so much hype and smoke and mirrors going on right now and I hate to see it happening. Just a few years ago, the talk was that the entry level guys are hurting us. Now, I see some of those so called "high end detailers" not being all to honest with the facts. The facts are, have they every made a real living from detailing, a sustainable living? Have they made the big bucks from detailing those high end cars or have they given the work away to earn a reputation?
I spoke to a young man just days ago that dreams of being a exotic car detailing specialist. He wants to learn and earn on exotics only. He wants to average between $50-125.00 per hour within his first year and he does not want to detail any vehicle under the value of $250,000.00. Owe, and he has his parents as investors, borrowing from their 401K to help him build his dream. Needless to say, the above is the ONLY plan he has. He has pages and pages of products to use, but not a single written word on how is plans to go about building the dream.
While I am not a dream crusher, I did have to mention that his plan has one flaw...him. He is 20 years old, never ran a business, has never detailed, has not marketing knowledge and also has no plan? I asked if I could talk to his parents as I would love to give them advise on their future investment plans...my advise was RUN!!
By comparison, my friend Dave Hunter and his son Damon, both of which have Master's degree's are slowing working to live a detailing dream, they are going from detailer to artist and doing so slowly and surely. Both have full time careers, both have in depth exit plans for their careers and both have invested a sizable amount of time into a very well designed business plan. Visit Pride Detail of Phoenix here at this link
Another buddy, Jim Goguen, who is one of the smartest business people I have met started out like me, young, dumb and full of...ambition! But Jim, like myself was missing something, he was missing detailing smarts, so he got real detailing smart and did a great job of diversifying his detailing business. Jim is a rare combo of detailing artist and entrepreneur. Visit Jim's site here.
Now, at 47 years of age, I can tell you, I love being a detailer, I love being a detail artist, I love living the car guy life but most of all...I love my life as an automotive entrepreneur!
Buy Renny's Doyle's How To Start An Auto Detailing Business Book Here At This Link
