ADN SPRING 2022 WEB

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THE BUSINESS OF DETAILING Looking back and ahead Why its important to see how far you’ve come. By Rob Schruefer rob@onspotdetailing.com As a business owner is it is a necessity to sometimes stop and think about where your business has come from and where it may go in the future. Being able to look into the past to see how and why you started your company, and how it became successful can be a vital tool in deciding where your business will be in 5 or 10 years from now. 12 | AUTO DETAILING NEWS | VOL. 7, NO. 5 • SPRING 2022
How you started your business is the history and story of your company, and it should be shared occasionally with staff or with others you want to do business with. People love an origin story and will be far more engaged with you and your business if they know how it came to be. At least 99% of the people who work for me were not around during the early stages of my company. They did not see the struggles of working nights and weekends as a bartender and then detailing for hours upon hours during the day, 7 days a week. They only see what the company is now, and it does not give them the full scope of why the business exists in the form it is today. I also keep mementos from those early days. I have my original van sitting on the side of my shop and the handwritten scheduling books from the first few years of business on a shelf in my office. I go through them occasionally to remind myself of where I started and how far my Legend Ad Auto Detailing News.pdf 1 5/24/21 5:12 PM business has come. Just as important as where you came from is where are you heading. You should always be looking for the next big thing that will help you get to that next level. I can think of two things that my company was out in front of that helped me build my business. GOOGLE ADWORDS: When I started my business in the early 2000s the Internet was not even close to what it is today. There was very little in the way of tracking or advertising techniques that are commonplace today. I taught myself how to use Adwords effectively and to tailor it to my specific market. By doing this I was speaking to a large demographic of people that my competitors did not have access to. I was using a brand-new advertising medium to my advantage and was doing it successfully. I was on the cutting edge of advertising and it propelled my company forward at a remarkable rate. Ceramic Coatings: Coatings are everywhere today, but 10 years ago they were not. In fact, back then they were a newly introduced product to the detailing market. Coatings were offered at a high margin and were a huge addition to my service menu. It took some time to introduce and explain how they worked to my customer base, but once I did, I was able to sell a lot by being one of the only detailers in the area offering coatings. The next marketing or detailing trend is out there on the horizon. If you can be someone to identify one of the many possibilities early on, and be one of the first to use it, there is a lot of potential for profit and growth. No one can see the future, but if you do your research and continue to push the boundaries of the detailing industry, your business will grow faster than you could imagine. Just be sure to ask a lot of questions and practice how to explain any new techniques or offerings to your customers. You can use the reminders of the past to dictate how you will operate in the future. In 10 years will you look back at what you were doing in 2022 and think, wow I have come a long way from there? I hope so. Rob Schruefer is the owner of On The Spot Detailing out of Columbia, Maryland. He proudly serves on the board of the International Detailing Association and works tirelessly to ensure that detailing business owners receive business development support to help them achieve their goals. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K LEGEND A Premium Coating Experience psdetailproducts.com VOL. 7, NO.1 • SPRING 2022 | AUTO DETAILING NEWS | 13
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