Zero to $6k a Month With a Mobile Detailing Business (Greatest Hits)

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1:16How a couple college students built a$6 ,000 a month business out of a Honda Accord. What's up, what's up, Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because yes, you can cut your own paycheck. I got a note from a listener the other day, and he explained he was a full-time college student working full-time in web design and in his spare time had started a$6 ,000 a month side hustle with his younger brother cleaning and detailing cars. Josh Belk from BelkMobileDetailing.com said the inspiration came from two things. Thing number one was his brother's obsession. He drove his car about 12 ,000 miles in the first three months of owning it.

1:59It was a Honda Accord and was driving it just all the time. It's just what he liked to do for fun was drive it around. And while he was driving it all the time, he had to make sure to keep it clean. So I'd always see him out in the driveway detailing it, vacuuming out his car. And thing number two was an email from Ty Lopez. I was just kind of browsing through this email that he had sent out. And one of the ideas was to start a mobile car washing business. and I just kind of put the two and two together and told my brother one day, hey, why don't we try to monetize this thing and make some money on it?

2:36And make some money is what they did. Stick around in this one to hear how Josh and his brother landed their first customers, how they price their service and how they stand out from the competition. Notes and links for this episode plus the full text summary of our call are at sidehustlenation.com slash detailing. And one important thing to note here is to use this as a lens for any number of local service-based businesses, which broadly speaking is one of the side hustle models I'm most excited about right now. It's about mobile detailing, but it's not just about mobile detailing, if that makes sense.

3:10I'll be back with my top takeaways from this chat with Josh after the interview. We start this one off with where those crucial first customers came from. Ready? Let's do it.

3:24friends and family is key i think that that was the most important starting point for us just being our mom was very helpful with everything that we've ever done she's always supportive so one of the first things that she did was send out a text message and post on facebook just to like a few of her friends and other family members around town just letting them know like hey my sons have started up a mobile detail business and 99 of the people that she sent that to didn't reply and didn't call us, but that's expected. And the 1 % that did, we had a few people. Those are your starting customers.

3:59And you really use those people for getting great marketing material through before and after pictures, helping to establish some good first reviews and reviews are everything in this business. Because if you can have a great five-star review on Google and Facebook, then you will stand out amongst your competitors. Okay. Did you already have all of the equipment necessary? Like maybe we should back up and ask what equipment is necessary for this stuff? Yeah, that's a great question because we didn't have everything necessary. But really to start, there's a few things that are really important to have.

4:39For one, you obviously need some kind of bucket. We actually started out with using a bucket and a wash mitt, which the bucket is like about$30. I think the one that we bought in the wash mitt was like$5 or$10. You can go buy one at your local O 'Reilly or one on Amazon pretty easy. That's a very fancy bucket. What does it do? So essentially, it has a grit on the bottom that you can use to scrape your wash mitt. And it'll kind of help to separate the dirt from the rest of the water in the shampoo. So that way it just helps to kind of cleanse out all the dirt that you're using whenever you're washing the car.

5:17We actually started without a pressure washer. We were just using these little tanks, pumping them up, spraying them on the vehicles. It worked out okay, but it doesn't allow you to get the underbodies of the car and really the stuff that kind of soaks in a lot. So we were going through a lot of towels with using just those little pump buckets. So we eventually decided to go ahead and buy a pressure washer. It's actually called the Worx, and it is a completely mobile pressure washer. It's about$170 is how much it cost us. And the great thing about that one was it was battery-powered, so we could charge up the batteries before we would go to the site.

5:55And the batteries would usually hold for about an hour. We do ask, including now, most of our customers to use their water and electricity, and they are completely fine with it. We've only had a few that have apartments, and sometimes we can usually work around by having them travel to friends or families. And a lot of the times they're very flexible and they're completely okay with that. But besides the pressure washer and the bucket, obviously some great towels help, some brushes. Chemicals-wise, we like to use a degreaser for most of the stuff we do. We have a spray wax and a tire shine. Those three chemicals are really great.

6:29I think the extract we bought was about$120. I would say that's a pretty critical part of the interior part of your business because we made most of the money to start out with interior detailing. And that extractor is something that it adds a huge value to the service whenever you can get out stains and stuff like that. So that extractor, which could just be bought on Amazon for around$120, was huge, as well as a steamer. A steamer helps with doing the leather seats or the side panels on doors or center console areas that have coffee or some kind of drinks that have been spilled and sticky stuff in there.

7:06That steamer was also very helpful. And then obviously a vacuum is definitely needed. A shop vac, about$40, I think is how much we paid for ours. By the end of it, I think we had spent about$500 to$600 total on equipment. But a lot of that stuff had been added on after we started making money up first. But all in all, pretty low startup cost business. And I'm glad you clarified what you were extracting. I was like, well, what does an extractor do here? It is very clear my car has never been cleaned to this level of detail. So maybe I am due for a detailing. But maybe that goes to the next section is like, well, you probably don't have many late model Ford Escapes as customers.

7:47Like what kind of cars are you working on here? Most of the time, our customers, it is their first time having the detail done. We always luck out every now and then by having the customer that they do clean their car a lot. And a lot of the times they call us up for a full detail, expecting to pay the full price. And their car is not bad at all. And those are usually the customers that say to us like, oh, my car is so bad. I'm so sorry. Those are the best case scenarios for us. You're like, believe me, believe me, we've seen worse. Exactly. That's what we like to tell people. So right now, a lot of the time we are doing customers that it's the first time they're ever having their vehicle detailed.

8:24They probably saw one of our advertisements on Facebook or they heard about us through a friend and they realized like, wow, my car needs to be detailed. I would love to have it just spotless. Some people even can search on Google if they search for like mobile car washing or mobile detailing in my area or even detailing in my area. We do show up in some of the Google results too. So definitely those first time customers are, I would say, our prime target market. We also have a dealership. It's a small dealership that calls us about three or four times a week for different cars. And that's the best case scenario because they are reoccurring and they're always bringing new cars in from auction.

9:06That is someone that we can rely on without having to spend any new marketing dollars towards every single week. Yeah, that's awesome. How did you start that relationship? They called us and I'm not sure how they found us out. It's a question that I should probably figure out because the dealership owner called us And he either found us through one of two ways. He either found us through a Facebook ad or through Google at the time. And he reached out and just asked about coming to their dealership and doing detailings for them on a weekly basis. We said absolutely, came out, agreed on a price that we would start at, and which went from there.

9:48Okay. For these first customers, either the dealership or the friends and family, mom's text and Facebook post, How do you figure out how much to charge these folks? So that one was kind of random. We started low. I think that we initially started with$30 for a full detail, both inside and out. I believe that took us around two hours. We didn't have all the add-on services at the time. So we were just doing like vacuuming, wiping things down. We were putting a shine on like all the upholstery, kind of like an armor roll. And it was around$30. I think we actually had listed it at$50, and we were running a special for$30.

10:28So I remember my brother telling me actually the first day that we did a stranger's car. It was someone that had seen a Facebook ad that we had done. I remember him telling me whenever we went to go grab lunch, I don't think this is worth it. Doing car detailing for this cheap, it's just not worth my time. It's hard work. And I told him that our prices are only this cheap temporarily, and we would raise them soon. and really this was to get initial startup customers to build reviews and to build some kind of marketing materials as well as experience under our belt. So it sounds like he's the one doing the labor, you're the one behind the scenes doing the marketing, the Facebook stuff, providing the seed money and all this.

11:12He's the one who's putting the elbow grease into these vehicles. Absolutely. It wouldn't be able to work without him, but at the beginning, I definitely was helping him out. And then now he does primarily all of the detailing. More with Josh in just a moment, including collecting positive customer reviews, quoting jobs, and some more creative marketing ideas. Coming up right after this. Are you still overpaying for wireless? It's time to say yes to saying no. At our partner Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. And here's why I said yes to making the switch over five years ago and yes to getting premium wireless for 15 bucks a month.

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13:38That's q u o.com slash side hustle. Look at them getting that three letter domain q u o.com slash side hustle. And if you've got existing numbers with another service quo will port them over and no extra charge. Whoa, no missed calls, no missed customers. Okay, so starting very, very inexpensively to the point where the labor is questioning whether or not it's even worth it. But hey, we're building up before and after pictures. We're building up hopefully happy customer testimonials. Did you do anything specific to request those reviews on Google or Yelp or Facebook? Yeah, so I had done some Amazon FBA selling before I got into the mobile detailing business, and it had failed massively.

14:23I lost around$3 ,000 in the span of about six months. And I think I put in about six months to a year of total prep work, learning how to do this whole business model. And while I lost out on a lot of money, I learned a ton of stuff. And one of the things that I learned from this coach actually that I had bought a course from was the importance of reaching out and asking for a review. And making that as easy as possible by sending them a link where they can click on the link and it'll immediately take them to either a Facebook or a Google review. So before we even went in with our first customer, we had that review link set up.

15:00And as soon as we were finished with the service, we would just ask them, hey, we'd greatly appreciate it if you could leave us a positive review. And at first we were just doing Facebook. We eventually switched over to doing Google. We try not to overwhelm them by doing both of them at the same time. Although if there's someone that really wants to leave a review, we often will send them both review links. But we kind of switched off by doing one or the other just to try to build up positive feedback on both those sites. Facebook seems like an interesting option to try and solicit reviews for where Google makes sense to me.

15:32I can show up in Google search results. If somebody searches for mobile detailing service near me, you're likely to show up there. Has that started to happen? Yes. And that's a great point because you want to build your business to where over time, it will start to rank organically and you've established your presence and you've built up your reviews on Google because there will be a ton of people that will be searching for mobile detailing near me, car washes near me. And if you can build up those positive reviews and you can have a good rank on Google, that'll help with reaching people organically without having to spend advertising dollars.

16:11Have you seen any of that start to take effect? I would say we get probably five to seven calls a week from organic Google traffic. Two months ago, that was zero. So it can pick up pretty quickly there. I was going to say 30 bucks is a steal. You can come over to my house anytime, but it sounds like pricing has evolved a little bit since then. What's it look like today? And maybe how much time does that take you? So it was a couple hours, you know, maybe to do this full detail. Have you or has your brother improved his speed and process or really depends on the car? Yeah, definitely we've improved the speed and process for sure.

16:48And that just comes with experience and learning what method to use, what to do first. We started out with, like I said, about$50 for a full detail. Soon after, once we started to get a little bit more traffic in, we raised it about$20 up to$70, eventually raised it up to$100 within a few months after that, eventually up to$120. and now as of a few months ago, we've established$90 for starting cost or starting price for doing an interior detail. We start at$50 for exterior detail and then$140 starting price for a full detail. And notice I said starting cost because I tell every single person that calls me and wants a quote that we must inspect the vehicle beforehand.

17:32And that's because some vehicles take way longer and are way dirtier than others. And the customer, a lot of the times, will like tell you, oh, my vehicle really isn't that bad. And then once you take a look at it, you realize that it's going to take you five hours of work and the initial$100 you quoted them is not worth it anymore. So it's very important that you tell the customer that we will need to inspect it to give you an exact quote. A lot of the times, I will offer to give a quote to them for free and we can set up a time to come out directly to their work or to their home at their convenience and give them a quick five to ten minute quote.

18:10Either myself or my brother will go out and we'll take a look at it, kind of talk to them about what things they were liking to have done, if they were liking to have their carpet shampooed or if they were liking to have their leather seats conditioned or if they were wanting to have a special kind of coating put on the exterior. All those things will communicate with them and then come out of quotes. So the starting price for the interior, the$90, It does not include things like carpet shampooing or sea shampooing or leather conditioning or if there is excess dog hair. Those are things that we do add on extra for.

18:41And then if they have like a truck or an SUV, we'll charge a little bit extra for that. Or if they were wanting something like a cream wax or ceramic coating, we'll charge them extra for that as well. Is there an hourly rate you're shooting for on those quotes? Yeah. So we go for$40 to$50 an hour. That is a fantastic college gig. I mean, that's a fantastic gig for anybody. That's pretty cool. When you guys were starting out, I'm curious if there was any competitive analysis, competitive research, like, oh, there's already half a dozen detailers in town. I don't think there's a market for this.

19:18Did any of that go through your head, or was that part of the process? We definitely did think of that because there are a ton of other detailers. And a lot of the detailers that were online, they were charging quite a bit for their services. And well, they were also, they weren't mobile. So you had to go directly to them. And a huge part of our business is the fact that we can come directly to your home and do it. So you could be sitting on the couch watching TV on Saturday morning and we can be cleaning your car. So that is a huge selling point. And there was no one that was really doing that business model in our town.

19:53But even if there is, there's still so many holes in the market that people leave and there's so much opportunity that it definitely isn't an end-all be-all. I will also say that a lot of the dealerships, especially on Google when you go to look at their reviews, their reviews aren't the best. And they treat their customers – I think that they pump in customers a lot and they don't treat their customers as well. So we really go for 100 % satisfaction guaranteed. we've had several customers who will call me after my brother has taken care of the car and say, hey, this wasn't up to my standards.

20:31I thought that it would be different. Would you come out and take care of this again? And sometimes they won't even offer that, but I will always tell them that we will absolutely find a time to come out and to make this right with no extra charge. and we have never had a bad review because of that. We always make it right and I always make sure to tell my brother that communication is key. So he's learned over time to have the customer take a look at the vehicle and walk around through it once they're finished up to make sure that everything is up to their standards and we didn't miss any spots as sometimes the customer may know the vehicle a little bit better than we do.

21:11There might be some nicks and crannies that we weren't aware of. So communication is key. Well, I think that's a big advantage you guys have as a smaller company is the customer feels comfortable calling you up and telling you rather than blasting an anonymous review online like they might with a larger company. It's like, no, I have a little bit more of a personal relationship with these guys and I don't want to hurt their business, but I want to give them a chance to make it right. I think that's an advantage for smaller operators in this space. one thing I'm curious about now you mentioned like hey you're sitting here inside you're watching football while you guys are out working on the car in the driveway I imagine that can lend itself to neighbors walking by I don't know if you're allowed to like put up a little sign as you're vacuuming out the car something that says like hey bulk mobile detailing is here or working on this but like can you give me a sense of the just natural marketing that happens during the work?

22:10It's great whenever that happens. Whenever a customer can just come by that it's either a neighbor or they're maybe driving by and they see our car outside and they see the pressure washer all hooked up, they stop and ask us, hey, how much do you guys charge or what are you guys doing? And you can start a lot of business just by that. And the best part about that is it's all free. You don't have to do anything to market to those kinds of people. I mean, a lot of the times, just by them seeing their neighbor or someone that they know getting their car detailed, it immediately builds up that trust.

22:44They are much more likely to sign up for a detailing. You ever go to like an office park or an office building where if you could somehow get in with the office manager, I don't know, like the property management company and just set these up on a lunch break or you guys could do it all day long. Like, you know, have people bring down their keys or something. I don't know. Just spitballing here. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And that's something that's untapped. So that goes back to what I was saying. I don't think that no matter how many mobile detailers are in anybody's area, there's so much room to grow and there's so many untapped markets still.

23:20And that is something that we haven't explored much yet, but I think has got great potential. And I think that it could be a great reoccurring customer to come down like every Friday to this office building and you might be able to knock out five cars in a day at$100 each. I think that that is a great business model. And what's best about it is it can be reoccurring and it could happen every single week or every month if you set it up that way. And I can even see some employers like offering it as a perk of working here, of coming to this office. Like, hey, you know, they're the ones, maybe they've put the bill and like, hey, we've got capacity to do five of these every week, put your name on the wait list.

24:00I think that could be an interesting way to go. But you mentioned Facebook ads a couple times. And so curious how this works, because it's something that, you know, scrolling through my Facebook feed, maybe I wasn't necessarily in the market for it, but then I see an ad and all of a sudden I'm ready to click buy. How's Facebook working for you in that way? So it's interesting. We spent$100 on an initial giveaway. And that's how I thought that we were going to gain the bulk of our starting customers. That was in New Year's of last year. It was like a New Year's special. Starting with the new year, we actually decided to give away one month or each month of the whole year, you would get a free car wash.

24:43And all you had to do was sign up, was enter your email. Then at the end of this week, we would contact them and we'd let them know the winner. We spent about$100 and I think I got about 50 leads from it. Out of those people, we picked one person and that person actually told us, I don't want your giveaway. so look why why did they sign up for it if they didn't want it so i think that maybe she thought that it was a scam or she just decided she didn't want it might have been an impulse click okay so nonetheless we targeted those people that we'd captured their emails and we decided to give every single person 50 off if they would sign up in the next two weeks out of those we got one person.