I am curious, how much do you invest in yourself?  From spending money on real business training, to taking time to be around shop owners who are making $200,000 to over a million dollars in income.  We can start here.

You usually pay for what you get is one of the best-known axioms in the world, and most overlooked due to cognitive dissonance.  In this case I am not just referring to customers or enthusiasts of detailing services.  This article is more focused on the business owners, many of whom scream this rhetoric while committing the same acts that hurt them in the long run.  I often witness the common contradiction of professionals’ offerings.  There is the business owner who boasts about a high-priced service to the price conscious customer but does not do his or her part to make premium investments, often for their own sake.  Educated consumers with discretionary income notice this.

This is not an issue of me bashing someone for purchasing less expensive gear for the sake of only getting the tools they can afford.  I believe the reasoning for making certain purchases is often shortsighted and also reveals certain red flags in a detailer’s professional acumen.

The Polisher

Quality of life, tool maintenance plans, and customer support are real issues when you run a business.  Detailing as a hobby versus detailing professionally, is not the same as the repeated intensive demands of 12 hours of polishing in a 3 day span take a toll.  The quality of the experience, capacity to work at a high level, and your (long and short term) health will be affected.  Many of us are not trying to look cool on Instagram.  We would like to avoid nerve damage.

Microfiber Towels

Problems with cheap microfiber towels, aside from quality control, are they simply do not last long.  Microscopic marring of paint is more prevalent with the cheapest options, particularly over time.  In addition, die transfer is a real problem most people do not realize.  Dye transfer can happen with any use of solvents or even storing the towels on the paint for extended periods of time.  Some of this can be be alleviated by washing, but again durability goes down with each use/wash exponentially with cheap towels.

Pads

It is not just about performance.  Durability (lack thereof) can cost more money in the long run and potentially affect your results in real time.  This is also often overlooked when someone upgrades his or her polisher collection and finds out the good enough pads cannot handle the wear and tear of the newer, more advanced machines.

Lighting

It is not only about you being able to perform a service.  The lighting options affect how you present content on social media.  I learned that lesson the hard way.  A variety of available quality lighting, that you can control the intensity and color temperature of are more important than what most new detailing business owners realize.

Cleaning Products

It bothered me that someone put out a video on the PH Scale and his collection of a reputable (P&S) brand’s interior products, and this person received ridicule on his social media channel.  I have used and reviewed this interior system, by this way.  Although I have my preferences, I believe it is a solid set of products you could not go wrong with as a professional.  Credit to this company for having those options available, which are not really expensive. I have received many calls over the years from customers who told me horror stories about damaged interiors with their all purpose cleaner.  There are also the numerous posts on social media that start with a story about damaging someone’s interior, after using the CHEAPEST AVAILABLE all purpose cleaner.  The problem is often a combination of being too afraid to charge enough to afford safer options, trying to justify to their cheap $100 interior detail by shaming others for not using an extractor with APC for everything.

Ceramic Coating Companies

As experienced professionals choosing a coating and a brand, we look beyond stated durability claims.  Quality control becomes very important, as many business owners learned this lesson the hard way.  Imagine providing 3 or 5 year warrantied coatings, and receiving payments of $800, $1,600 or $2,500 for a correction and long term protection service, to repeatedly get a bad batch of coatings.  It happens, and no company is perfect.  But in providing quality customer experiences, the longer you are in business the more you value aligning with a company that is not blindly trying to just sell as many bottles as possible matters.  That also means wanting to know how a company comes to the conclusion of a coating lasting a certain number of years.  Often the answers (or lack there of) to these questions lead to paying $100 to $150 more for a product we can trust.