As a former franchisor of mobile auto detailing trailers and mobile car wash trucks throughout North America, I worked hard to turn my once small business and one-man operation into a business that would make the E-Myth author Michael Gerber quite proud. I created manuals to do the work, and a franchise-able concept.

At that time I read every book on auto detailing I could find. Including one, which I’d very much like to recommend in case you are considering starting such a business of your own someday – the name of the book I want to recommend to you, and one I have long enjoyed myself is:

“Auto Detailing for Show and Profit,” by David H. Jacobs, Jr., Motorbooks International Publishers and Wholesalers Inc., Osceola, WI, (1986), pp. 84, ISBN: 0-87938-216-3.

The book has chapters on the “detailing basics” and supplies needed, and even tools of the trade required. Learn how to clean engine areas, car interiors, exterior, and types of paint. Learn about the types of waxes, applying hand wax or using a buffer. Learn how to finish the job to perfection, and even painting inside the engine compartment. This book is perfect for the auto detailer just starting out or for a classic car buff, who likes to buy and sell, or just win at car shows.

Now then, most auto detailers learn from doing, or they shadow another expert auto detailing individual for many weeks to get the hang of it. Then, they may go off on their own, or work as a continued apprenticed. In my many years in the business, I’ve often watched new auto detailers destroy several customer’s cars over the course of 4 to 6 months, and ruin the paint.

It’s very important that those in the profession do the best they can, so they don’t give auto detailing a bad name. Sometimes that requires both street smart, and book reading. There are very few really good auto detailing instruction manuals out there, although there are a few on the Internet. This particular book is more than adequate, and it is one I would highly recommend to anybody who is serious about the car detailing industry.

Once you learn the tricks of the trade so to speak, what works, and won’t, then you can begin to get a feel for which types of products you like the best, and fit your particular style of detailing. And this book is a very good place to start. Please consider all this.

The tools of the trade is what makes your service possible, a lot of good auto detailing service providers are good at what they do, but sadly, it is their equipments that tend to malfunction and cause problematic substandard results instead. Having the right auto detailing equipment is definitely important if you ever plan on running a successful auto detailing business. Perfection should be the only kind of output each auto detailing service provider must give and in order to do this, you will have to make sure that your personnel are well trained and at the same time, that your equipments are of high quality and also very dependable. Speed and at the same time thorough cleaning, needs to be accomplished so that you can provide the best results and get a high satisfaction mark from your clients, fortunately, there are a couple of equipments that you can utilize so you can give what your clients deserve.

The interior of the car is a place where many auto detailing providers often fail to properly clean. The car interior, or should I say, the car cabin, the carpet as well as the upholstery needs to be properly checked and maintained. There are a lot of reputable manufacturers out there who make great carpet steam cleaner systems and these systems can be a great tool for auto detailers because its efficient cleaning action as well as its steam can remove the most stubborn dirt and grime on any carpet or upholstery.

Auto detailing equipments need to be effective for the most part, but they also have to be energy efficient in terms of its cost and usage and it should never cause any damage to your client’s goods. A great example of such innovative equipments is a well built carpet steam cleaner, steam cleaners made from top notch manufacturers can have water efficient properties which can lessen water usage without compromising results and it can also allow you to dry off the carpet faster, thus allowing you to do more work in a few hours. As you can see, there are a lot of things for you to consider when choosing the right kind of auto detailing equipment and there is also much to benefit from if you think things properly.

Making use of the right auto detailing equipments requires products and kits that work. Equipments need to be made for the best quality results and they need to perform well and provide excellent output at the same time. Choosing equipments made by the best manufacturers is really important and every big and small thing like cleaning machines, green chemicals and even paint systems for repairs all have to be chosen properly and with much thought. Without having the right kind of equipment getting a sizeable return can be very difficult and current clients may even opt to refrain from coming back to your shop and even want to try other service providers instead. Aside from the typical auto detailing equipments, mobile detailing supplies are also available and these mobile car detailing supplies can be very handy because they are so quick and easy to use.

If you sit down and talk to a carwash owner at Starbucks about the mobile carwashing business, you will generally get an earful of complaints about how they don’t recycle the water, and how they often work on commercial properties without permission, and even that they allow the waste wash water affluent to run into the storm drain. Yes, those are common complaints and condemnations of mobile carwashes, although, I can tell you after 27 years in the industry that not all mobile carwashes do those things.

Of course, if you do talk to a mobile operator, they will have reciprocal complaints about fixed site carwashes. For instance the mobile operator might say something like; they hire illegal aliens, they make you wait in line, they charge too much, they leave streaks on your car, the equipment can scratch your automobile, and you better check to make sure nothing is missing out of your car once the wash has been completed. Indeed, those are common complaints and condemnations, but not all fixed site washes in the industry do those things. Are you beginning to see my point?

It seems to me that there is a way to solve these ongoing feuds between the two different methods of operation. First of all I can tell you this, I have worked with fixed sites before in the industry, and I’ve had our crews purchase purified water from them so that our crews could wash without streaking the windows when cleaning car dealership new cars on the lot. I’ve also worked with fixed site carwashes, where they would offer services to their customers such as motor home washing at their home, and send our mobile crews to do the work, taking a 20% fee for getting the customer.

This way the fixed site could offer additional services to their customers, and farm out the work to the mobile crew, while still making money. It makes perfect sense. Sometimes it pays to bury the hatchet in industry, and work together towards a common cause. There’s no reason that both types of operations cannot cooperate and profit from working together. That’s always been my belief, although I still see the animosity in the industry between the two sides of the coin.

If I were giving advice to a fixed site or mobile auto washing company, I would sit them down and explain this to them, and actually I have in the past, it is amazing how that light bulb goes off in their head is soon as I explained the potential eventualities in making more profit. Please consider all this and think on it.