Selling to Your Market
Always detail at your customer’s desired level of spending. As a younger detailing professional, I misunderstood profits. I was often giving my clients hours of no-profit services. I would over-deliver and undersell many jobs and our profits were not what they should have been.
Realizing that, I developed an easy-to-use, write-in hourly profits tracking form. I soon started to see my exact profits and thus, my eyes were opened to my hourly performance. I made adjustments and developed systems to help me be more profitable.
Do you know what your exact costs are? Do you understand your profit level? If you said yes, congratulation. You are within a small group of professionals. If you said no, you better change your ways. Tracking your profits is important. Of all the tracking I have done within my detailing business, the tracking of my profits per hour was on of the most important steps I have taken.
Think about this. You go to a nice family restaurant and ask for a juicy steak, with salad, a nice bowl of soup, a soft drink, and a nice dessert. You then add a hot dog for your child along with a milk. You then explain to the waiter that you are only willing to pay for the hot dog. Will they give you the steak and all the sides for the price of the hot dog? Of course not, they will laugh you out of the restaurant. Don’t provide a steak-level detail for the price of a hot dog. If they order a hot dog, give them a great-tasting hot dog. If they order a steak, give them the best steak in town. Detail at a profitable level!
