How to be more efficient at detailing!

[Music] hey what's up guys welcome to another episode of pan the organizer so i have a special guest once again on the channel you guys might know him ivan lacroix ivan how are you great so pleasure to be here absolutely pleasure to have you on the show um ivan by the way has been in the detailing business guys for over four decades he's a proud member of the international detailers association the ida and he was passing by today to show me his new line of products which was the diy detail uh line of products which

was made for diy-ers out there that just want to enjoy the process bring fun back into the game simple ready to use formulas and i had an entire overview of the lineup with ivan so go check that video out and if you're curious by the way you guys can have a 10 discount on this entire lineup so check the links in the description under the video if you guys want to check those out uh but today one thing that came to mind when we were discussing these products is this lineup was designed with his partner

nick mcgurk from the hawk pro detail channel as well with in mind to have something not only fun to use but to make you more efficient when you're detailing your vehicle so we hear this often right in the detailing world efficiency so there's a controversial statement that usually says things like well the faster you are at pumping out vehicles the better the quality of the work you do or some others are like well what is efficiency how does that work if you're a professional detailer out there and or you're thinking of starting a detailing business

in the end it is a detailing business what does that mean well you can be the best detailer in the world but if you're not profitable at the end of the day you're not going to be able to put food on the table for your family and provide for your loved ones so you have to be efficient and efficiency well what does that mean but more importantly ivan if we can use his experience to guide us through because he's had a successful detailing business as well with his wife sylvie and so what is efficiency and

more importantly how do you achieve it what are the steps that you need to do to get to that point so ivan has his own uh the detailers academy the detailers business academy exactly youtube channel which i'll link below so he likes to share tips and tricks for all detailers or people thinking of starting their businesses on how they can improve their stuff so we're going to have ivan today guide us through so ivan again what is efficiency to you and how do we achieve efficiency what are the steps that you can do so first

of all efficiency is a mindset and unfortunately the detailing realm you go online you go on the facebook groups etc and one person types that they washed they clayed they polished and they protected the car in four hours they get a lot of thumbs down they get a lot of people saying ah you're a hack meanwhile the other person that says i took 28 hours to wash polish and protect the car and i only charge the customer 200 he's a superhero he's a superhero yeah whereas you know the one that did it in four hours

and charged 200 actually should have charged 400 but not anyways that person gets land-based and all sorts of bad things said about them when in reality they're the better entrepreneur they're the ones providing the service that the customer actually wants and at the same time they're providing much better customer service because one thing that a lot of people don't realize is if you're not profitable you won't be there to serve your customers again so profits are an integral part of customer service so we hear all this okay you're spending less time because you're more efficient

yeah but what does being more efficient mean like what is an example you could give of somebody that is not efficient at washing a vehicle versus somebody that is efficient at washing a vehicle well the root of all efficiency and quality is the standard operating procedure sops yeah sops okay and with your sops we'll take washing the cars you said i've seen some people that on one car they'll start on the hood the next car they'll start on the trunk the car after that they'll start on the rear fender the car after that they'll start

on the front bumper they always miss spots they always are lost in what they're doing have i done this have i not done this whereas if you have a standard operating procedure it gets done the same way every time and this is a very crude example so excuse me here but i'm going to be a little crude absolutely if you have an employee the employee has started to wash the vehicle they pass away well if you have a good sop in place you can move the body out of the way and finish the car wash

of course you're gonna call the ambulance things like that but that being said it just gives a visual image as to what is the importance of an sop so a standardized standardized procedure that everybody in the shop knows regardless if you're solo or if you have employees but always the same way of doing things yes like in my videos when my viewers see me do the full detailings you're always going to see me start with the roof work from top to bottom go around the vehicle in the same way i always start by washing the

wheels and tires first then move on to the body yeah but so i always do things in a consistent identical way so even days when your brain isn't functioning at its fullest because it's memory muscle memory exactly or basically standard operating procedures you kind of get into this automatic cruise control mode that you know what you're doing and you're basically doing the same thing over and over again so you're getting more efficient at it yeah it's like commuting to work the first time you commuted to work if you're unfortunately one of these people that has

to has a long commute it seemed super long and there are some mornings you wake up it's like i'm already at work oh i i didn't even see that because muscle memory you get used to it and it's the same thing with efficiency with cleaning cars with detailing the better you are at following your standard operating procedure and a lot of detailers they have a standard operating procedure that's yeah one or two pages long i do a lot of business coaching for detailers and one of my star coaching students his sop for washing a car

is 26 pages long it includes photos flow charts you name it anybody can literally with that sop walk into his shop and perform a wash exactly like he does including finding the products where the products are everything like that and the thing about him he has no employees okay but the day that he gets an employee or two or three or four he's ready to go they'll be super ready to go because all he has to do literally anybody that can read can wash a car exactly like he does and you were jokingly saying before

because we always like to have fun before we film the video he's like well you see your shells in the background because they're filled with detailing products right because on my channel the my main thing is i do um demonstrations so tutorials and product reviews so i'm testing products all the time so it makes sense to have obviously a shelf filled with different selections i have probably 15 different shampoos 20 different spray waxes and sealants and so on and so forth right right 10 different polishes but in a in a business when you're doing it

to well be successful and profitable this is not the kind of shelving you want right no no you don't want the shelf so pan has actually he's got a room downstairs not just the shelf he's got a room full of this stuff but for him it's a necessary evil if you're working in a business especially if you have employees the more choices they have the more mistakes they can made yeah and the more mistakes they make the less customer service you're providing et cetera et cetera and the less efficient you are but if you tell

your employee please wax that car and they go to the shelf and there's only one wax it's very easy for them to know which one to use but i've been to shops where they have you know basically a replica of pan shelf here and the boss will tell the employee go wax that car halfway through the boss comes out that's not the wax i wanted you to use well he never told him what wax to use he just said wax the car so the less amount of products you have the more efficient you'll be and

again the higher the quality you'll produce and often too when we hear efficiency i know ivan is a big proponent of trying to combine steps to save on the long run for example i know you're strong on combining steps like either a clay and seal or using an iron mover sometimes when it's possible as a lubricant when you're using a clay towel an appropriate towel to combine but basically bring us a little bit through some steps of things that you have on top of your head where you can save time by reducing the amount of

steps when you're detailing yeah and reducing the amount of steps first of all get a video camera you have one you have a you have a smartphone hopefully you evolve past the flip phone so you've got a smartphone you have a video camera you have surveillance cameras in your shop take a video of yourself doing a detail and then watch it and you'll see all those unnecessary steps that you're making but yes you can combine different steps so there are products that clean and protect the interior at the same time and i've seen too many

detailers they'll do a great job cleaning the interior then they start over again by putting a protectant down if you're wanting a protectant find a product that does both so cleaning and protecting right yeah again we're prepping the vehicle for coating so if we're prepping the vehicle for a coating we're going to be washing it we're going to be decontaminating it we're going to be claying it and we're going to be drying it well you can do the wash the clay and the decontamination basically in one step again saving time saving the number of revolutions

around that car that you're doing if you can do one revolution instead of six you're saving a lot of time yep and i think you can be your bio i think the recording thing was very good so if you look at yourself you can be your own critique and visually see oh my god this like i would not have done that be your own keyboard warrior yeah exactly criticize yourself and say listen well why did i have to do all that and sometimes you don't realize that you're doing the steps but looking at it from

a step further back and in retrospect looking at yourself and going i could have not have done that and saved a bit of time here and there and those seconds and minutes they accumulate over a given day in a given week in a given month so can you imagine all the more free time you'd have to detail more cars or at least be less exhausted in doing all that back and forth right and one of the things i'm a big proponent of is work-life balance and a lot of detailers we're passionate about cleaning cars we

love cleaning cars we could do it 24 hours a day seven days a week we have these things called families and life yeah they're important as well so get that work life balance back and a lot of detailers one of the things that annoys me is when i read i'm booked out three weeks and they seem proud of that or i'm booked out two months they seem even more full of pride on that that's an indication that you're a really really poor business person because if you're booked out that long you're not serving your customers

customers it would be like a restaurant saying you'd go up i want to order steak perfect we'll have it to you in six weeks no obviously you're here pick another restaurant yeah i'm here i want to eat now when people want their cars detailed it's not because they wanted detailed in two months it's because they want it detailed now so trying to get that timeline down as quickly as possible the better it is but without overworking yourself so if you're spending 50 60 hours a week working you don't have a life you know we're we're

both in quebec quebec we're very lucky more of a european type mentality mentality here yeah people don't live to work they work to live so 35 40 hour weeks that's about the limit for a lot of people here yeah they're not into working 60 and 80 hour weeks and there's no pride in that here i used to live in ontario in ontario very much you know a u.s type mentality where you're proud to work 60 hours a week oh you're lazy you only work 40. i work 60. people are proud of that but their family

life suffers their whole life suffers because in life we need to have relaxation we need to have enjoyment and if you've worked eight hours in a day you're no longer efficient you're no longer producing quality your mind isn't there your body isn't there anymore so if you're more efficient obviously you're going to have more time and it's going to take you're going to reduce maybe that 60-hour week to a more normal 40-hour weekly exactly and even if you're a business owner you don't have to work 24 7. uh my business the doors opened at 8

a.m they closed at 5 00 p.m i didn't want an employee showing up before quarter to eight and i didn't want an employee left in my driveway at five after five okay and i was the same way you know the door locks at five that's it and now if we had an arrangement with a customer that might have been a few minutes late not a big deal but in general five o'clock doors were locked we're out of there and if we can give viewers some tips because i remember a conversation we had years ago and

i and i adjusted that myself because you always learn in life right regardless how many years i've been detailing for 25 years ivan 40. he still learns and i still learn every day things evolve new procedures come out new techniques new products so on and so forth so one thing i had noticed is that if especially if you have a bigger garage like mine or even bigger if you have multiple employees and multiple wash bays well often you can be doing a back and forth to your workbench with products or tools back to the car

back to the bench to grab another thing back to the car whereas you can have a detailing cart with you all your necessary goods that you need to wash the interior exterior and you do the around of the vehicle with that detailing cart so that's what i do now when i do full details i try to have my things as ready as possible i prep them ahead of time before the customer comes in so that way when they're there you can start working right away right so all those trips of back and forth that you're

saving at the end of the day makes you more efficient yeah and if you're into cooking you've probably heard this term before misapplause yes so put it that means in french put everything in place right yeah everything in its place yeah and misa place is a way of prepping in a commercial kitchen where everything is already set up ready to go so when the chef is actually combining all the ingredients they're already there they're already measured they're ready to go and that's what we're doing in detailing yes using a cart is by far a great

efficiency booster yeah uh you know again referring to that video you'll take of yourself you'll see how many times you're walking back and forth and another thing now pan you know obviously has ocd everything in this shop is beautifully laid out it's exciting you know it's excellent thank you yeah but that being said i've been to a lot of shops that they'll have a workbench and in a detailing shop we're not taking apart small engines we're not fixing alternators we generally do not need a workbench in a shop now pan uses this workbench not to

work on it's so that's where i present delay products on yeah so with that and this is his home garage so occasionally yes he might be you know fixing his lawnmower or something like that so he needs a workspace in detailing we don't need a workbench and every shop that i've been into that has a workbench if they've been in that shop for let's say six years you'll find something on that bench that's been there for maybe five and a half it hasn't moved hasn't changed place it's got five and a half years worth of

dust on it because that workbench is just a crap accumulator yeah and get rid of the workbench you'll get more floor space in detailing we like floor space we want to open the doors yes we want to be able to walk around the vehicle without squeezing by so one a lot of those things the efficiency of the shop and lighting look at the lighting in here pant has great lighting he can see every aspect of the vehicle i've been to shops that they rival a dungeon for lighting they have to use skin grip lights they

have to use additional lighting and moving that lighting around again losing efficiency yeah and in the detailing world we see things that customers don't see so pan myself we'll go to a stoplight we'll see a red car with scratches we'll see a black car with polishing holograms we'll see a white car that needs iron remover anybody else stops at that intersection they see a red volkswagen a white gmc and a black ford yep don't give your customers your disease no if they don't see it don't show it to them and when we're polishing cars especially

for a hobby and a lot of people have evolved from hobby to business and that's sort of a bad thing but nonetheless in the hobby aspect we want to make our paint spectacularly perfect as good as it could possibly be because it's your own vehicle it's our own vehicle we'll spend 20 30 hours polishing it in the real world your customers between two hours of polishing and 20 hours of polishing they can't see the difference no and their car got scratched up how did it get scratched up by the way they use their vehicle so

you can make the paint spectacularly perfect it can't get any better than this you'll put a coating on it they'll take it through the car wash the next two days because they have that nice little sticker that says they can go through the car wash 20 times a day if they want to and they're going to continue doing that so why give yourself all that problem of making something perfect yeah that the customer won't appreciate and often they're not paying for that no they're not paying you for the 20-hour polish and they only paid for

a light one-step paint enhancement and you're doing a three-step compound polishing and jeweling and all that because you think you're over the car needs it yeah yeah exactly you can over deliver on the quality of your stuff sometimes yes give that added touch like a i don't know maybe a fragrance on the inside or a specialized card thank you for your business that kind of stuff he has to over deliver on your service but do what the customer is paying for i see this done all the time guys are exhausted because they did a full

interior exterior prep wash ceramic coating and the person only wanted like a paint sealant they didn't ask for the interior to be done but they wanted well if the customer is not paying for your time why would you give that for free that's how you're not profitable right yeah so people mistakenly think i think sometimes that they absolutely have to over deliver and work a lot longer than the customer is actually paying for where in reality maybe if you had the open communication with your customer and set their expectations well if they're not paying for

a service you shouldn't be delivering that no that's right you know one of the worst four letter words that starts with f in our industry is free oh boy yeah so the f word don't use the f word around a customer you can include something but the second it becomes f basically it has no value to that customer ever again so if you say i'm going to give you a free windshield coating well guess what they'll never want to pay for a windshield coating again exactly you're setting expectations for the next times right yeah exactly

so don't give yourself away basically go to a a restaurant order a hamburger they don't come out with a steak because you look like you deserved a steak no they come out with a hamburger and if you go to mcdonald's and order the little uh you know the basic 99 cent hamburger and they come out with a big mac you might not actually be happy because you wanted that nice little just a snack of a hamburger you don't want the big mac with all the stuff gooey out coming out of it so give the customer

what they want what they're paying for not what you want and get yourself sometimes too in the in the person's shoes as a customer for example let's say you're building you're having your house built by a contractor if you're only paying in the bathroom for the standard toilet an american standard whatever brand it is do you honestly think just to make you happy they're going to come in and give you a high-end total toilet why would they do that you're not paying for it right now is there a reason why the detailing world seems to

be more affected by that like over delivering or making things more perfect than they should be where every other business in the world or fields i should say yes they're not quite affected by that same a couple couple things i've identified over the years first of all a lot of us start off as a hobby and as the hobby we want to make it as good as possible secondly we don't think we're worth and that's a big downside of our industry the low cost of entry means people are getting into this that don't necessarily have

the budget themselves to afford their own service and that is when you look at it that way it becomes a very different way of looking at your business i did a training number of years ago in poland we had 50 students there great training great people not one of them drove a car that was worth more than about ten thousand dollars and you asked them in the training where the last five cars you detailed and things like bmw mercedes porsche rolls royce ferrari those words come out meanwhile they're driving fiat and skoda and volkswagen and

all of that then you ask them well what's the common thread amongst your customers and most of them will readily say they're business owners they own a restaurant they own a hair salon they own a factory they they're business owners that's how come they're successful okay they're business owners they can afford to drive a hundred thousand dollar car you're a business owner you have problems paying a ten thousand dollar car why is that well you're not running your business as a business you're running it as a hobby and once you realize that you know recently

we've had a pandemic inflation all sorts of fun things because this video right now it's 20 22 but you might be watching this in 2030 uh so you know his videos stay a long time on the internet and people keep interacting with them years down the road my daughter just saw your one yesterday about cleaning your hair your uh clothes dryer or your clothes your washing machine your washing machine yeah exactly yeah exactly but nonetheless right now we're just coming out of a pandemic inflation everywhere and every business that i know of are raising their

prices i haven't seen many detailers raising their prices you know fuel is up everything is up our chemical costs are shipping importing yeah you name it why not raise your prices oh because my customers can't afford it well actually yes your customers can afford it and the detailer also that starts off saying i'm not going to charge as much as the other guys so i can get business guess what that business those customers that you've got because you weren't charging what you should be charging when you actually try to charge what you're supposed to be

charging won't be your customers anymore they'll look for the next cheap guy that's right so they don't they don't value your business yeah so create value in your detailing create value in your service we're basically a customer service business clean shiny cars are a side effect of what we're doing you're a customer service rep first you're a detailer second and once you get that through your mind your business will go up and i think a lot of the the the people watching this hopefully you're getting a lot of value through through the video um but

often it's not because they're ill-intended right the dollars they want to do a good job and i fully understand that because everybody because we love this so much we would like everybody to have a perfect car however not everybody will pay for that kind of a service so if they're not paying for a concourse delegates or a pebble beach level restoration you can't deliver that and it doesn't mean you're a bad person it's being like having that open communication with your customer and sizing up their expectations so what are you expecting out of it and

explaining also sometimes it's not a bad thing to explain the limitations yeah so you're wanting let's say you have a bunch of stone chips well machine polishing will not remove the stone chips if i'm applying a ceramic coating they're not bulletproof so contrary to what a few marketing agencies try to make you believe they're not magical force fields that will prevent major scratches from a key job on your car or stone chips or fireproof you're painting for some reason so it's setting the expectations of what the ceramic coating will actually do for them and i

think the more you communicate with your customer the more open you are about them you're creating a relationship well they're going to want to pay for you later on they want to come back for the individual that's taking care of one of their most prized possessions because often if a person comes to bring you their cards because they like their vehicle they want to keep it and maintain it in a proper way if they feel you're honest you deliver a quality service you deliver exactly what they're paying for and they're getting the results they were

expecting because of that open communication well guess what you're likely to have them as repeat customers through the years they will not go see someone else because they got used to your process if you got used to seeing the results and even if you do increase your prices as long as you're not price gouging but as and but it's normal that everything goes up with inflation with time with everything evolves that gets more expensive so if you're increasing your price but they are aware of this you openly communicate it as well and they understand because

we live in a world where this is what's happening they'll understand and they'll still going to stay there so that was one good point about the pricing i think some people think they have to be the cheapest guy on the block as far as price but that sets people up for like well are you going to give me the best uh the best results at the cheapest price that that doesn't make sense no you know when hyundai puts the tiburon or not the tiburon it's called the uh veloster yeah uh you can see how old

i am there's anyway it's a sub-compact yes right so when hyundai puts the veloster on sale the porsche dealer doesn't go into a meeting and say okay we have to reduce the price of the 911 because the velocity is on sale no no they're two totally different vehicles you should not be competing with a car wash you should be competing with other luxury services we're a luxury service we're like a maid yep we're you know that's basically what we're doing we're car cleaners we're a maid but we're fancy made a good looking maid too but

nonetheless that being said don't try to compete with a car wash if you drive by any car wash on a sunny day they have a lineup most car washes do more cars in a day than most detailers do in a year so don't try to compete with that business model it's not going to work ruth chris steakhouse does not try to compete with mcdonald's no they're too s yes they're both providing food that's where the similarities end let me let me talk about maybe the physical aspect too i have a question for you is if

i look at my own garage here what i did is optimize it as well for example if i'm having some help even if i'm working solo it doesn't matter when it's time for example to dry the vehicle so i have a car dryer on one wall here and i have another car dryer on one wall there so i can always easily access or have two people drying the vehicle if need be i have my all my polishers gathered up on a rack on that other side there you can watch my garage tour if you want

to see the entire setup but all my polishers are in one common area that's where i have my batteries for the cordless ones i have a recharge station i have all my polishers racked up ready to take and use i have an air compressor where is needed so basically i tried to optimize the flow of my garage all my pressure washer stuff is there so the pressure washer next to the wash buckets next to the di and the the garden hose that's there as well so i tried to organize my space basically to optimize everything

according to what i do and my standard operating procedures what are some tips that you could give to someone that's saying okay i'm starting with a clean slate and i'm outfitting my garage is there any things they should think of when they're building a detailing studio for example exactly well pans buckets are on wheels they're on wheels for a reason because they can follow him around the vehicle now it takes normally two to three weeks to train a bucket to follow you around the vehicle but once you've trained that bucket it's gonna follow you around

the vehicle for the rest of your life and that bucket you're not walking back and forth to the bucket and i've seen that way too many times people actually walking back and forth to the bucket to dock their dunk their wash media right again pan shop layout good lighting it's clean everything is in sight it's easy to get to and it's logically placed for what he's going to be doing with it one of the first videos we did together was actually in my wash bay and the wash bay was set up as a mirror image

so both sides of the wash bay had exactly the same material in the same place in that wash bay and the reason for that one employee could do a vehicle or two could do the vehicle basically a mirror image of each other in my shop if we were booked out four hours not four days not four weeks four hours i would hire someone and it would be a call attempt service they'd have someone there within half an hour and basically they would just follow the lead of my employee washing the car absolutely because everything like

i said was a mirror image it was easy to do we had a standard operating procedure in place and once the that was communicated to them after one or two cars they were up to speed and doing the quality were required of them i remember that was the tesla model s that yeah that we were detailing and i remember it struck me because i saw how little ivan actually moved while he was detailing the vehicle it was so optimized everything was ready to go he had airlines and air hoses and the top part an air

foamer ready to go everything he needed the buckets were right next to him so things were following him around as he was going around the vehicle very little wasted time very little wasted movement and in my head i was like it's probably going to take like six or seven hours well in an hour and a half the entire thing was washed decontaminated clayed sealed the whole the whole thing so that's where you can see that the professional-minded operator that's efficient and his business will optimize everything around himself now it might take you a day or

two to get everything ready to go but that time you will invest and the money will invest in either carts or stuff that are on wheels or racks on your walls or things like that is an investment for the future because you will be getting that back tenfold yeah definitely uh i offer business coaching to detailers and part of my or the biggest part of my business coaching is just getting them set up uh there's just inefficient and you know one of the things i asked for them to do in the beginning is that send

me pictures of their shop and inevitably i'll have you know the shelf a picture of the shelf or two or three and you ask them you know when's the last time you use the third bottle from the left oh i bought that tried it someone was ranting online how great it was i never used it again and that repeats the whole thing the other thing with business coaching and a lot of people make the mistake with a business coach is that they think it's a lifelong relationship it can be a lifelong relationship in terms of

human communication but your coach is an expendable thing get all the information you can out of a business coach move on to the next one and keep moving on i still have a business coach today and i'm basically semi-retired but while i was actively running our detailing shops we go through a business coach every six months and it's an investment that pays for itself every time and even though i've gone through maybe 40 business coaches by now they're still an active part of what i do because i learn something every time yeah and i remember

having a discussion with a guy you know well tim from roar coding yeah that's the coding we had well you had applied on my on my porsche and he was very big on investing in even life coaches business coaches yes definitely so he understands that to operate a successful business there's a lot of key areas around you that also need to be optimized to be able to allow you to reach that next goal that next level that next platform and sometimes sitting down with people in your industry as well they'll be very very generous with

their time because i've learned so much with ivan and a bunch of other people or ceos or business owners out there and they'll gladly tell you or give you some tips and tricks on how to get there so take the time sit down with people who have more years or more experience than you and ask some questions when you meet them up well don't be shy and say listen like i'm doing this or i'm doing that i don't know how to get out of this rut i'm in i don't know how to get to that

next level is there any and sometimes they'll not necessarily obviously take you by the hand and do everything for you there's a lot of hard work that you need to do on your end but at least give you some tips and tricks to drive you in the right direction and to change your mindset on some things for you to be able to say well you know what i have been doing things pretty much but however i feel i have no standard operating procedures i did notice i did film myself and i saw that i was

inefficient well how can i bring myself to be more efficient what do i need to do to correct all these things that i was doing before right so there's many things that people can do to help improve themselves if they're willing to do it yes and you know in detailing there's no right or wrong way of doing things yeah there's a lot of different methods that they all work absolutely but find the one that works the best for you in terms of quality and efficiency and then stick with it and perfect it you know a

lot of people they'll have 20 different polishes and they spend more time doing test sections than they do polishing the car yes that's another thing in our shop we had two polishes three pads two machines that's it that was it wow okay and so if somebody's out there watching this video says okay i understood i need things like standard operating procedures i need to increase my efficiency i need to cut down on wasteful stuffs that just lying there for no reason i need to remove all the clutter off of my workspace and make it more

efficient for the actual detailing purposes what other things should they be thinking of or is there any advice that you could give them that that should start their their brain going and saying oh yeah i think i need to look into that so when you're scrolling through facebook or tick tock instead of looking at detailing videos look at business videos join business groups because the detailing groups they're all about who can polish the longest uh you know working in the trenches and all that which can provide some added value oh they do yeah but that

doesn't give you the business no but get together with other business owners as pan said one of the best things we have in our industry is mobile tech expo now mobile tech expo i've been speaking there for over 20 years and the first time i spoke there i did a class on business beside me was a class on the nine steps of paint drooling i had four people in the classroom the other one was standing room only wow now fast forward 20 years the education sessions have blossomed there's a lot more of them there's a

lot more speakers and the ones about business are the ones that are full and the ones about the nine steps of juuling they're the ones with only four people in the class so the industry is getting more and more business-like and one of the big reasons the industry is doing that is these things ceramic coatings so ceramic coatings have really changed who we are as detailers we used to do a you know one step wash and wax for 200 yeah now we're doing a one step with a coating for fifteen hundred dollars and more sometimes

yeah and more so that makes it so that the detailer now can afford his own services and when they can afford their own services they start to think more and more like a business owner absolutely so it's getting that business owning mindset another thing you can do is join some groups like toastmasters if you don't know what toastmasters is it is a great organization it's uh not for a non-profit organization that teaches people not business but how to communicate better in business and like i said it's free there's toastmasters everywhere so that's something you can

join and it will help you dramatically in interacting with customers so once you've seen basically all the tutorials like on my channel how to do stuff so you learn the actual techniques now you know also i do product reviews so you've seen which products you can use the next step if you're starting your business is then to get into the business side of things yes so go for business uh channels like ivan lacroix um the detailers academy the business academy's business academy sorry dba doing business ads do as big as exactly on youtube or any

other channel that talks about business a lot and see okay well here i am now i understand the process i understand the steps and i have all the products and the chemicals and the tools where do i go from there don't just start detailing right away you have to get your mindset that this is going to be a business and there is no shame in wanting it to be profitable no people have to release that shame that they have that you're a successful owner people are going to look down on you go out there do

your stuff be proud of what you're doing and if and i hope that all of my professional detailers that are watching my videos i wish you all the success in the world and if you all can become multi-millionaires i would be super happy for you there's nothing wrong with that and be proud of what you're putting out there as long as you're doing quality work you're proud of what you put out there and you were honest with your customer and you're doing and you're running an honest business there is no shame in being successful whatsoever

not at all and you know one of the things that irks me in this industry is people going after we'll say pan for an example saying oh well he's doing this and that and the other thing he's getting paid yes he does get paid for some items as well he should but the other thing is when he started in this journey of youtube and that video we did together with the the model s was what six seven years ago uh five years six years i started my channel in 2016. yeah so in that early part

yeah yeah one of the things pan explained to me when he came to my shop to do the video was how he got started in youtube and it wasn't by accident he planned everything he took classes on how to properly do youtube how to what equipment to buy he went down the rabbit hole deeply video editing which lighting you needed yeah what cameras how to edit what software exactly year of training right but if you see his early videos and you see this video you'll notice he's changed cameras he's changed microphones he's changed lighting he's

changed shops for that matter but he's continually improving and in business if you're not improving you're going backwards there's no such thing as standing still so like pan before even making one video he already had everything set up perfectly and before detailing one customer's car you too should have everything set up perfectly i fully agree and i like the the the point where you talked about the ceramic coating so for a lot of professionals out there who only offer for example just a standard uh wax or a clay and seal and who have not dove

into ceramic coatings yet can you talk a little about what like other level they would be opening up not as only as profitability but you're actually giving a customer a product that will last a lot longer compared to a traditional carnauba wax yeah so ceramic coatings are here to stay for one thing yeah you know it's not a fad they've been around for over 20 years now so it's no longer a fad it's a thing it's here there are people that make their living simply doing ceramic coatings nothing else if you're still hesitant about a

ceramic coating you think it's snake oil it's not and it is the best thing you can offer your customer customers would come to our shop and we did a hand wash for twenty dollars that was our our basic entry level service was a hand wash every customer that walked through the door for a 20 hand wash would you like a ceramic coating with that yes it's an 800 upsell and amazingly some people actually said yes but that being said offer the customer the best thing you have to offer and the best protection you can offer

for a vehicle is ceramic coating just happens to be your most profitable service as well actually no for me it wasn't my most profitable service okay my most profitable service was a wash clay in wax so i had one employee that could consistently do three cars an hour by himself washing claying and waxing them that and without breaking a sweat he's older than i am so it wasn't a difficult task for him to do he was efficient he didn't move a centimeter or an inch unless he had to and it looked that way it looked

like he was going in slow motion around the car but lo and behold 20 minutes later there's a car that's washed clayed waxed tires are dressed it's ready to drive away out the door yeah 99 per car 300 an hour not a bad you know return on investment on my part ceramic coatings we're close to that but ceramic coatings it's the best protection you can offer your customer so you're doing your customer a great service by offering them a ceramic coating you're not price gouging you're not trying to get money out of them you're giving

them the best service you possibly can when you go into a restaurant they don't automatically start with would you like a glass of water no would you like a glass of wine and if you look at the wine list generally the most expensive one is at the front and at the back you get the cheaper and cheaper and cheaper yeah and it's the same thing they're offering you the best they have to offer you want to offer your customer the best protection you can possibly give them then work down from there let them work themselves

down don't undersell yourself absolutely i remember at the beginning that like when i was 16 that's when i started detailing yeah i used to do a few vehicles for a local car club that kind of stuff and it was like a 50 to 100 wash and wax or that kind of stuff and fast forward to today now and 99.9 of the full details i do when you see them in the videos they're full interior and exterior ceramic coating jobs so pretty much all surfaces are protected i mainly work on new vehicles or newer so i

don't want to do the disaster detail types where i'm just cleaning disgusting interiors that is not for me i've moved on great for those who do them if that's what you do for your business no problem but i wanted to do things that i enjoy doing and what i enjoy is seeing new cars that the customer absolutely loves and help them bringing to the next level because even a new car is never new until it's properly detailed yes and have them stay that way with the best possible protection and having a ceramic coating job you're

at the higher end of the echelon as far as pricing goes so you're more profitable you're working on one vehicle in a day or two days instead of working having to work on 10 12 different cars so less exhaustion on your side you're getting a great result to your customer but more importantly for a business you're as profitable as profitable can get exactly so is there any other before we close this video final tips that you have for viewers as far as what is efficiency and how to achieve that enjoy yourself a lot of people

yeah they they start as a hobby they're really enjoying it they get into the business aspect they find out they're not profitable because they're inefficient and then they don't like doing it anymore and yeah their business disappears uh we see it too often online where someone is gung-ho they're starting their business i'm getting into detailing full-time six months later we never hear from them again so don't be that person be the person that builds a business goes to school there are night classes there are online classes there are books you can read on being a

better business and two of the books that i'd like to suggest yeah first of all dale carnegie how to win friends and influence people it's a thing written in 1936 or 1939 so it's almost 100 years old now still a book you should read at least once a year and then the e-myth the e-myth is talking about the technician's mentality versus the business owner's mentality yeah big big difference those are good points and uh talking about fun i think one thing that people need to realize it's nice when you see somebody that has been that's

been in the business for decades and still has a smile and can still talk about detailing like when ivan came before we even started recording we were already getting into products what's new what are the techniques what so 40 plus years of detailing 25 years of detailing here so we're talking 65 combined years and we still have the smile i mean heck i do videos i've been doing videos for six years now over 800 videos so far yeah and i still haven't scratched the surface of what of what i want to achieve and where i

want to go so there's still lots more to come but it's a proof that if you're doing things you enjoy you're doing them well you're having fun while you're doing them you can last over decades and still be doing those things and it evolves you can start as just washing or doing basic stuff you'll progress to ceramic coatings maybe one day you will be a business owner have multiple franchises or multiple employees working for you have a youtube channel or big social media have your own car detailing products brand things can change and evolve as

long as your brain continues that business mentality and you can like basically have a larger catalog of things to offer or things that you are good at and starting off with well uh i think like sky's the limit there is no limit yeah exactly and you know for myself i've been around 40 some years in the industry yeah i literally can say i worked one week in my life i never went to work if i didn't enjoy what i was doing i stopped doing it and if i didn't enjoy the company i was working for

i quit it's that easy if it feels like you're going to work you may be doing something wrong yeah i agree yeah you should be enjoying it exactly so ivan if you guys by the way you love these business tips go check out the detailers business academy youtube channel i'll link that in the description under the video go check that out also the uh diy detail product line that ivan and his buddy uh nick mcgurk from the hawkpro detailing youtube channel started as well uh 10 discount for all the pan the organizer viewers and subscribers

link in the description with the uh the rebate code that you guys can access to uh and yeah just thanks for for being there thanks for sharing your time i really appreciate this guys a lot of knowledge that i like to to give this is our way of giving back to the detailing community so hopefully you enjoyed it if you did smash a thumbs up button that shows me your support drop a comment in the comment section is there another topic that you'd like me and ivan to discuss in the future i'm always curious and

we'll try and make that happen so in the meantime don't forget keep it tight keep it clean and i'll see you on the next one see you later