{"id":47222,"date":"2026-05-29T00:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T04:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/?p=47222"},"modified":"2026-04-30T16:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:06:13","slug":"when-a-detailing-business-owner-says-he-or-she-wishes-they-give-away-their-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/when-a-detailing-business-owner-says-he-or-she-wishes-they-give-away-their-power\/","title":{"rendered":"When A Detailing Business Owner Says “He Or She Wishes” – They Give Away Their Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

You own your business, which means experiencing all consequences of your choices.<\/p>\n

You only want to do paint correction.\u00a0 You only want to perform ceramic coating services.\u00a0 You want to stick with basic detailing services.\u00a0 You want to do just car washes.\u00a0 You want to eliminate interior detailing.\u00a0 You just want to clean interiors.\u00a0 Shall I continue?\u00a0 \u00a0You wish you could charge more.\u00a0 There is a reason why I do not use the word JOB to describe what I do.\u00a0 Unless a W2 with someone else’s business name appears during tax time, I am certain that I am self-employed.<\/p>\n

I see a plethora of social media stories earmarking successes, that is outlining services and clients that business owners work with.\u00a0 It is often a price mentioned for services provided or clients who are easy to work with.\u00a0 But there are also content creators mentioning the opposite.\u00a0 But the former mentioning that they charge a premium providing specified services to a happy client.\u00a0 This often elicits a similar response by at least one business owner.\u00a0 They will often say, “I wish I could (but my excuse).”\u00a0 Statements like ‘I wish I could charge this much’ or ‘find those clients’ are common.<\/p>\n

You know you are your own boss.\u00a0 You have to accept consequences, just like you are dealing with struggling to survive with significantly cheaper prices than what I charge even several years prior.\u00a0 Yes, there is a market and other variables.\u00a0 But the market excuse commonly levied, is taken to the extreme.\u00a0 I often cite people in their area often charging twice as much, occasionally more for advertised services.\u00a0 Often, they find the lowest of low to compare their business.\u00a0 In finding the opposite success stories, I noticed professional effort.\u00a0 That means a website, a real logo, nice attire, and other indicators of a luxury operation.<\/p>\n

\"Detailing<\/p>\n

But maybe that is the proverbial elephant in the room.\u00a0 Maybe they don’t want to invest in better clothing than a old yellow stained white tank top.\u00a0 Maybe they cannot be bothered with talking on camera or cleaning their shop regularly.\u00a0 Maybe they like catering to people who do not appreciate them or vehicle incredibly uncomfortable around people with disposable income.<\/p>\n

I will often check out their social media profiles to find a commonality.\u00a0 On some level their actions attract cheap people with unrealistic expectations who also treat them like low wage employees who should be grateful for a job, versus business owners.\u00a0 Do you carry yourself like a homeless person pushing a shopping cart trying to find a job\/gig for some money outside of a McDonald’s.\u00a0 What kind of customers are you going to (or not going to) attract?!<\/p>\n

\"Business<\/p>\n

Leadership and Mindset<\/p>\n

“Hey, we are hiring this detailer to do what we want, and this is the wage you are going to get.\u00a0 If you don’t like it or don’t want to work, well find another detailer who wants a job, that will do as instructed and work hard for me!\u00a0 Don’t try to scam me out of more money either!”\u00a0 Offensive?\u00a0 These are similar phrases taken from job applications.\u00a0 I imagine there are people who would make good employees, that read this and decide this is not the employer for them.<\/p>\n

\"dirty<\/p>\n

You say you hate interiors!\u00a0 Why are you doing something you so passionately hate.\u00a0 Some say they don’t do it.\u00a0 Although that is my point, I ask why would you be so proud to not do it!\u00a0 On this surface, I may start to appear hypocritical.\u00a0 But let’s dig a little deeper.<\/p>\n

I am not saying you should or should not, as long you embrace the positive and negative consequences of either decision.\u00a0 But similar to justifying cheap pricing, I do not think that is often the real issue.\u00a0 I believe many detailers turn issues with services they do not like into a self-fulfilling prophecy.\u00a0 They do not treat it like their other detailing services.\u00a0 Not marketed as glamorously or even as professionally, not sold as a detailing service, and most importantly not priced in a way that commands respect.\u00a0 Think about it, if I did a two-stage correction and difficult coating for $600, AND OF COURSE ATTRACTING THAT KIND OF UNAPPRECIATIVE CROWD, I would hate correction and coatings too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You own your business, which means experiencing all consequences of your choices. You only want to do paint correction.\u00a0 You only want to perform ceramic coating services.\u00a0 You want to stick with basic detailing services.\u00a0 You want to do just car washes.\u00a0 You want to eliminate interior detailing.\u00a0 You just want to clean interiors.\u00a0 Shall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":49272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1412],"tags":[2812],"class_list":["post-47222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-running-a-detailing-business","tag-running-a-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Detailing-Customer-Attitudes-And-Misconceptions-That-Lead-To-Disappointment.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kPO7-chE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47222"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49273,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47222\/revisions\/49273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detailedimage.com\/Ask-a-Pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}