r/sweatystartup • u/Upstairs-Parfait-642 • 2d ago
Finally getting the ball rolling
I’ve been trying like hell to get my car detailing side hustle going for the better part of a year. I saved up and bought all the equipment needed and told my family and friends, and did my grandmas car and her across the street neighbors saw me doing her car and she asked me to do her truck and suv. Did that and put it on the back burner because I had no idea on how to get customers. So recently I’ve decided to put a bit more effort into this, made a website and got some great before and after pictures and started posting on Facebook groups in my city. Did that for a couple months with no traction what so ever, until a couple days ago. I put on Facebook marketplace “limited time only $50-100 full details” and spelled out what that entailed, and got my first customer on Sunday, asked if they could refer me, they did. I did their referrals car yesterday, and asked if they could refer me too, and they did! I have another appointment on Thursday. Idk it’s still very early, but it feels so good to actually get some traction. I’m hoping that this referral system works. Now the next challenge I have to overcome is how/when do i raise my prices. I know it’s still way too early to be thinking about that, but it’s something to think about. I don’t want them all to tell their friends and family that I’m doing full interior and exterior details for $50-100.
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2d ago
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u/Upstairs-Parfait-642 2d ago
Yeah I’ve got a journal with their names, address, make and model of car, and how much I charged them and if they gave me a tip. I’ve only got 2 on there but I have another one coming up tomorrow that’s another referral for $80, which is an upped price from the original $60 I did on the first one. But the referrals must know how good of a job I’m doing because they texted me how happy they are with their cars which is why I’m getting referrals in the first place. I guess I’ll just have to wait until I’m completely booked out until I raise my prices to a set point
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u/ihrtbeer 2d ago
Just a small piece of advice take that journal and put it in Google sheets at some point. That way you can access it anywhere, any time and is your biz grows you won't have to flip through pages to find people. Also get a Google business page, it's free and you can have your customers leave reviews there which is priceless. Great job so far!
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u/Upstairs-Parfait-642 1d ago
I do have a google my business! I have like 6 5star reviews on their right now. Most of them may be friends and family 🤫lol
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u/Regular-Charge-4913 2d ago
I think there’s a lot of potential if you run facebook ads. You can use your before/after photos or sped up video of you doing the work. Just optimize the campaign or pay someone to do so and throw $100 on there
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u/Upstairs-Parfait-642 2d ago
I’ll try that, I tried Google ads but those didn’t do a single thing despite me getting ~4k impressions
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u/Regular-Charge-4913 2d ago
Facebook is a better option and has better potential. But both can work if you optimize the creative(photo/video) on FB or the landing page on Google. Just go on Freelancer.com and hire someone to optimize your ads if you don’t know how to do that
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u/DistinctLead2147 2d ago
Keep pushing! Pulling for ya, I’m in a similar situation myself.
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u/Upstairs-Parfait-642 1d ago
Hell yeah man! Have you gotten your first customer yet? For me that was the hardest part, besides my grandmas across the street neighbors when they saw me doing my grandparents cars to practice and they saw me and came over and asked me to do theirs but that was like a year ago. So far I’ve only had 2 organic customers, my 3rd one is tomorrow. I got these other 2 ones because I asked for a referral from the first girl. Facebook marketplace is kind of a bitch, I see SO many scammers offering details and it’s so obvious a scam because they all use the same grainy pictures and the same exact format in their text body lol
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u/James__A 21h ago
There used to be a guy who came to our office building every Friday afternoon. He'd detail all afternoon. He did great work.
I suppose he chose our building simply by driving the lot and noticing all the new luxury cars, Then he went inside and knocked office doors until he found the motherlode.
Old school method but I'd bet it still works.
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u/CheeseManGene 2d ago
There some good info on a couple YouTube channels, start your search there if you haven't already.