Behind the Scenes
As a middle schooler, I often wanted to, “make more money”, and live that dream of being able to buy all the video games I could in the world. One day during a youth group meeting the speaker encouraged us to dig deep and give some money to something called chili cook-off. This was to support the missionaries that we had. He gave each of us in the group $10 and told us we could do whatever we wanted with it, keep it, give just $10, or make it into something more.
How detailing All Started
I naturally being the entrepreneur that I have come to be, thought let’s see how much money I can make out of this. So I got with my best friend at the time and we came up with this idea to detail cars for money. We put both of our $10’s together and started what later became known at Clear Image Detailing. In a week’s time, we detailed 34 cars and made a little over $1,100 to give to the chili cook-off.
Naturally, I thought, why am I not doing this myself? So I started detailing cars for my own money! We started detailing on night and weekends. We had busy schedules as we were in sports and extra school activities but my love for entrepreneurship and the drive to have spending cash somehow made all of that possible. I think we often lose that in today’s work ethic. The drive to want to be better. We get stuck in these day jobs and are mundane or are there too, “pay the bills” (nothing wrong with that) and we forget what fun it can be to work and make a living. I encourage everyone to do something they love doing. Maybe that’s learning how to start a blog, working as a virtual assistant, or just doing an assortment of jobs.
How did we get customers in 7th grade?
We worked hard! We went to every place possible that we could think of that might give us business;
- Car lots
- Automotive repair shops
- Offering special discounts on school fundraisers
We took business cards everywhere and talked to all our connections. Before long we had more cars to do than we could imagine. So we started offering to pay some of our friends to help do cars on the side! This was great I was young and being able to help my friends make money but at the same time, I was taking a cut off the top that helps me get ahead as well. This allowed me to do more with less work!
Can you really get customers?
Let’s be real I was in 7th grade and was getting customers by just asking! Start with friends and family, let them know you are working on doing some side hustles to either get that budget in the black, or you are wanting to make a little extra to help you not live paycheck to paycheck.
Could friends and family sustain you for longer than a week? Probably not but that gets you started somewhere. From there you have some options of either investing the money you just made back into getting more leads or keeping it to help the paycheck that week.
What do I need to buy to get started?
When I first started detailing I wasn’t sure what products to use that were cheap but still worked well. I did lots of research with quantities and prices to see which ones worked the best. Remember I started with just $10. I bought a thing of armor all car soap, one small thing of wax, a $2 shammy, and a $1 wash mitt. My first customer was my grandparents. I charged them $100 and it took me hours to complete the job, try sweeping a vehicle well with the hose off the house vacuum cleaner, it takes awhile!
I then invested that money back into getting better supplies and more tools to make it go faster. My first 3 cars the money all went towards buying more equipment and supplies to make the jobs faster and a better quality. Unless you are reading this post because you are bored and have money to just spend. Start small and work your way up to buying bigger and better things. I never once ran in the “Red” as I only spent what I made.
Side hustles can be fun!
That’s right, especially when you see instant gratification from a job well done! Car detailing could be a viable source of side income for you if you have the skills of being patient and have a knack for detail. It isn’t hard to do 1 or 2 cars a weekend and make a few hundred bucks!