I was in Las Vegas at the beginning of November to attend the SEMA and NACE shows. It was nice to be there and a bonus was that my brother, who is in the military, is stationed at Nellis Air Force base. He is one of the big wigs and “in charge” as he is a Colonel and that rank comes with a bunch of people always saluting you and calling you “sir”. I thought it was pretty cool that my younger brother (by a year and a half) is in charge of all kinds of stuff and responsible for hundreds of troops and he takes his duties very seriously. I got the grand tour of the base and it’s impressive to see such organization and the precision of which things are run. The place is clean and orderly and well taken care of, and huge! So after seeing countless people calling him “sir” and saluting him…..and sometimes even me…. as we were leaving, I got into his car. After I moved a pile of papers, a GPS, a cell phone charger, a few empty coffee cups and wrappers, I could sit down. This 2 year old car was a complete mess! His wife’s mini van that carts the kids around is even worse. Years ago before he had kids and a much higher rank in the air force, I had given him a “car care kit”. An orbital buffer, some pads, polish, and wax etc. so he could keep up on his cars. I used to give him pointers and he would watch me work on a car and sometimes I would do his car, so he wanted to be able to do this himself. I think he did the car maybe once. And now with kids and more responsibility and all the people calling the “Colonel” and needing something of military importance from him, he doesn’t even fool himself anymore.

His house is beautiful and clean…. but the cars….forget about it! He always plans to get it cleaned but then something comes up and the garbage just piles up even more. Just like a typical NON detailing customer.

So he came back here last week was in town for about 10 days. Since he had a bunch of things to take care of while he was here he rented a car. He came by to see me the day after he got into town and in the one day he had managed to have stuff piled on the seats and the floor and there was garbage in the car already. He gets a hair cut weekly but he can’t keep a car clean for 10 minutes. Go figure. But that’s a typical car owner. Even an organized military car owner. My high ranking brother who is extremely organized and is on top of every detail, but he is one messy dude and treats his cars like crap. His military uniform is spotless, all the creases are perfect, the badges and medals are placed perfectly and the shoes look like a mirror, but the cars are a mess.

Go after this type of customer

He is more than willing to get his car detailed. But when you look at the type of person he is, you see why you don’t get too many of them to actually do it. He is a busy professional. He works long hours. He doesn’t really search out where to get his car detailed and it’s not at the top of his list most of the time. He honestly doesn’t really know what a good detail is worth. He asks me what I would charge and when I tell him he is not at all surprised or put off by a high price. Customers (or right now a NON detail customer) like him need to be found by we, the detailers. He absolutely knows his car is in dire need of detailing. He knows what the service is and what it will do for the vehicle, so he doesn’t need to be sold on the benefits. But he is not actively searching as he doesn’t have the time. He, and non detail customers like him, need to be found. He is probably not going to find you

I am not an expert at marketing by any means. I have made tons of mistakes in advertising over the years. But in dealing with the types of people I deal with now, and working with a wealthier clientele, you have to go after them and recruit them so to speak. When you have a person like my brother who will get his car done if you find him, you won’t really have competition. As I said, he is not shopping for the cheapest price. He isn’t shopping for detailing at all! So if you find him and market to him and make it easy for him to use you (being mobile, pick up and delivery, loaner car, etc) chances are you will get the job. Then, once you have him as a customer he is easy to keep. Just do a good job, keep reminding him when its time to do it again. With my brother, he will probably have the car messy a week later so a couple of months is a good time frame.

I have seen this with the people I deal with in Alpine NJ 07620. These people are extremely wealthy but time is the key. They are always busy. They want to keep their very expensive and ultra luxury cars clean, but they need a detailer to kind of pamper them a little. I know we are now in December and the holidays are here and people are not really thinking about doing their cars. But it’s still a good time to try instead of complaining about how slow it is and how “nobody” wants to get their cars detailed and “nobody” wants to spend any money. I know there are people out there who will be grateful that you found them. Sure you may have to spend a bit of money to go after them, but when you “go after” a person who currently is a NON detail customer, you aren’t competing against the guy down the street or the cheapo guy, or the car wash express detail. YOU are the only one looking for the business buy “going after” a specific customer.

There are many more people like my brother who want to get their cars detailed but either don’t know anybody to do it, or don’t have the time. When you present yourself as the solution, chances are they will stay loyal to you and you will never have to compete with the cheapo guys. Every town, every city, every state has busy professionals that have dirty cars and would love to get it professionally detailed.

I will steal or borrow this last line from Dan Ekenberg who has said this many times to me in conversations. Since its holiday time and many of us may be going shopping a bit more and spending some time at a mall, be perceptive. Dan has done this many times. Check out all the cars in the parking lot. Look to see how many of those cars look perfectly clean and detailed. Probably less than 5% if that, will not be in need of some kind of detailing. So out of the 95% that need to be detailed, “Go after” the ones who may be good customers. I am sure you will see the BMW’s, Mercedes, Lexus, and other high end cars. Why aren’t these cars being detailed? Is it because the customer can’t afford it? Not likely. Now just figure out the best way to make them your customer.

So even though it’s slow for everybody in December and as the weather gets worse in some areas of the country, we can try to figure out how to get the 95% of the cars and NON detailing customers into our shops in some of the down time we will all have.

So thanks to Colonel Tim Farrell for being such a messy car owner in helping me develop this article. And thanks to all the military personnel in all branches of service who bravely serve and protect our country.

To visit our detailing website servicing Alpine NJ and surrounding areas, please visit www.njautodetail.com or our training, products and equipment site at www.kleencarauto.com