Transcript
Embracing Failure as a Stepping Stone to Success
[0:00] Failure was never a deterrent, and I think that’s a big hurdle for a lot of people who do fail early in their business, or maybe it’s not for them.
Just being comfortable with failure. To me, I treat it as a stepping stone.
You know, I’ll never be as low as I was in the last failure, but just continue to keep learning, learning, learning.
And even if I have a setback, it’s not as big as the previous step.
So for me, I always see it as an opportunity for growth.
Hey dan it’s time for behind the buffer.
Introducing “Behind the Buffer” with Dan Williams
[0:36] Welcome to behind the buffer a presentation of the owner’s pride podcast i’m your host dan williams dan e williams and you know what the e stands for eco wash the drought tolerant.
Eco-friendly Car Wash and Discount Code
[0:49] Ecofriendly way to wash your car with just a little bit of water use code eco wash the the world at checkout, you’re going to get 10% off your order. It’s a true story.
And while you’re there, don’t be afraid to use the part two of the dynamic duo ceramic detailer.
Amazing. Today, I have a special guest, Mr.
Brandon Gordon, one of our newer installers in the Owner’s Pride Authorized Installer Network. Brandon, how are you doing today?
I’m great. I’m great. How are you? you fantastic on top of the world so brandon behind the buffer is you know all about you and your business journey so kind of the first thing i like to do is jump right into the way back machine and go back to ask you your very first memory of the first time you’ve ever washed detailed done anything to a car for money not for money as a kid as an adult i don’t know it’s your story you tell me yes easy so I was I was I was fortunate up growing up my mom was a sales or not even so excuse me she was a finance manager at a Toyota dealership so for my first car I actually had a car before I had my license so when I was 16 I actually got my grandmother to get take me to go take my jars test and my and come home and started driving my car that my mom didn’t even know I had my license to drive.
Early obsession with clean cars and taking care of them.
[2:15] I literally would clean that car with Murphy Earl soap or whatever was under the sink when I was 16 because I always wanted a clean car. It was something I was very proud of.
I remember a lot of family kind of being like, you shouldn’t have a new car, you know.
And I just remember thinking, like, I’m going to kind of show them differently.
You know, he’s going to destroy it.
And that literally was part of the reason why I was like, I just always want a clean car. You know, I’m going to take care of whatever is mine.
It was gifted to me. So literally started at 16, just washed the car.
And then my aunt had a BMW 3 Series, like a 328, a 325, early 2000s.
And every time I’d go home, I was her favorite. So she would let me drive it.
But the first trip I would take was to a local car wash to make sure I was driving in a clean car.
So my roots in having clean cars and just cleaning cars in general, detailing, even before I knew how to do it, it was always an obsession of mine just to make sure my car stayed clean.
And here’s what’s really cool about that. So a lot of times you hear people, they loan their car to somebody and they bring it back to them with no gasoline.
Not only do you do that, you detailed it or got it cleaned up and then gave it back.
You gave it back to them in better condition than when they gave it to you. Literally.
Okay. At least I could do it. So liquid detail. And where are you at in Virginia?
[3:35] I’m in Ashburn, Virginia. We’re mobile, so we pretty much service both Loudoun and Fairfax. On occasion, you’ll see me venturing up a little further than that in the DMV area, but primarily it’s within the Fairfax and Loudoun County area.
Okay. So a lot of guys who are entrepreneurs, they kind of get their start early on, and I often see kind of a trend that they follow.
And I think one of the things that you were in is you were in organized sports and you played baseball.
As a matter of fact, you went all the way into college playing baseball.
Tell me a little bit about how your early memories of baseball and like how playing on team sports set you up to become an entrepreneur.
Playing baseball and team sports taught discipline and tenacity.
[4:19] Yeah, yeah. So there’s so much value in playing organized sport.
[4:24] Just growing up generally definitely teaches discipline in a lot of ways.
I remember I was a late bloomer with playing baseball.
I didn’t start until I was in, I want to say middle school. And I was awful. awful.
And I remember just wanting to quit.
My mom just being like, you signed up for something, you want to finish it.
And that kind of got ingrained within me that sort of message there.
So I had to work really hard because I didn’t want to be the last on the team. I always pick last.
And just going to the baseball fields with a team by myself and just a bucket of balls, just hitting it into an empty field with no one behind me, didn’t care who was there.
That sort of drive, I definitely took further than what most would just.
[5:06] I don’t know failure was never deterrent and i think that’s a big hurdle for a lot of people who do fail early in their business or maybe it’s not for them um just being comfortable with failure, um to me i treat it as a stepping stone um you know i’ll never be as low as i was in the last failure but just continue to keep learning learning learning and even if i have a setback it’s not as big as the previous step so for me i always see it as an opportunity for growth So honestly, so that definitely playing organized sports and honestly not being the best at it, but wanting to be is what helped me get through as to being an entrepreneur now and still growing my business.
[5:47] Yeah, really interesting. I did an interview a while back with somebody that I wrestled with and they were like state champion every year.
They were like killer. And I was always the guy who is, you know, I struggled a lot, but I was like much like you. I was very tenacious and I never stopped.
And he told me, he said, you guys were the real champions of the team.
You guys who didn’t get all the accolades and all the everything out of it, but you showed up every time, every time.
How about for the first things that you started to do making money?
What was the first job that you had? Were you like selling some blow pops and now and laters or did you use newspapers, lawn mowers? What were you doing?
It was definitely lawn mowers. You hit it right on. on. I never had a real job until after I graduated college.
Started making money by hustling in the neighborhood doing landscaping.
[6:33] So my first job, I’m from Cleveland, Ohio, originally, was just hustling in the neighborhood, doing a lot of landscaping.
My neighbor next door, two doors down from me, awesome gentleman, but definitely a mentor for mine growing up, owned a landscaping company.
So every Saturday, he would take me out with him, just me and him in his truck, lawnmower, 6 a.m., high school kid, just make extra cash cash throughout the neighborhood, whatever I could do, honestly.
[6:59] A lot of my friends did have real jobs and I eventually got behind the counter of a dead queen, a family friend of my own one.
And I was actually 14. I don’t know if I’m telling myself or not, but we’re well beyond the age of 14 and I was just getting paid under the table, just here and there and whatever I could do.
It was just always just my mentality. I didn’t like being limited by just hours.
So that was my whole thing growing up.
A lot more ladies rolling through the Dairy Queen than when you’re just outside.
[7:27] It’s a definite advantage there. Okay, so how about in, what did you learn from the difference of those two things that you’ve carried with you?
Like when you were mowing grass, you had to go out and get those jobs and then go do the job and then collect the money.
Or were you working you know with this guy who had a landscaping company and working under him the whole time no that was just like an additional hustle like i actually started at myself cutting my own yard uh my mom’s lawn really i didn’t pay any bills that time so it was more so just, i don’t know anything that i do i like to put my own personal touch on i think a lot of entrepreneurs and folks in this industry can kind of relate to that to where like if my name’s on it i took pride and what I did.
So that sort of cadence or tendency actually just grew into the neighbor going, hey, you did a great job.
You want to make some extra cash? And then who cut your yard?
And then that kind of word of mouth travels. And it’s very synonymous to what I’m doing now, I would say.
But yeah, that was my early recollection of that.
And then my neighbor naturally seeing the work was like, you seem like a good fit to help me out, make some extra cash, get some extra yards on the weekend you want to join and it was pretty much like yeah and we would go from 6 a.m.
To like 2 a.m. and then right after or 2 p.m. excuse me and then 2 p.m.
From onwards it’s my own thing just hustling throughout the neighborhood so I was always very active.
Always active and hustling to make extra cash.
[8:55] If I was gonna ask an 11 year old Brandon Gordon what are you gonna be when you grow up what would you have said then oh man oh it probably would have been like professional sports baseball around Even though I knew probably it wasn’t going to happen that early.
But that was a part of the drive of just trying to do better.
But looking back, I think detailing was actually meant to be.
Because my tendencies, I just wanted things to be clean.
So after high school, you went to college where you played baseball also at the University of Miami, Ohio.
And you majored in mechanical engineering. engineering.
Tell me a little bit about why you chose mechanical engineering and what you thought that you were going to do with that degree.
Yeah, so I started out as computer science. My family owns this whole company, so I was like, I’m just going to follow in the legacy, basically.
I love numbers.
Most people probably don’t like to say that, but I actually do.
My mom was very strong in math, hence why she was a finance major, or at least a finance manager at Toyota.
Initial Interest in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science
[10:02] So I was buddies with some folks in my dorm room who were mechanical engineers, and we would do those study sessions, and I would be doing my computer science, binary ones and zeros coding.
And I’d kind of look over to them and they’re like, the speed of a train, how fast, relative speed, you know, bullets traveling.
I’m seeing all this to me, which was interesting because it kind of speaks to how the world works in real time.
Kind of lured me towards that side. And the math part of it became a little natural for me. So it was just a natural progression.
So I actually changed majors after my first year to that.
And then after I graduated, I actually worked as a construction engineer.
For Jacobs Engineering for about two years post-graduating and did actual mechanical related work, worked on teams of different engineers before progressing into my current career.
So still hustling. Yep.
So what was it, where, where did the detailing, you were very meticulous with your own cars from the beginning, anybody that loaned you a car.
And then you kind kind of rolled through some of these other jobs after school.
Where did the light come on? What was the aha moment that was like, I’m gonna detail cars?
Right, so, and like, I wanna say in like 20.
[11:18] Had to be, I was in my 20s, so let’s say like.
[11:22] Around 10 years ago, because I’m in my 30s now, I had upgraded from my Corolla to an FRS. It was white.
And I absolutely was like, okay, this is the moment where I’m going to take most pride in my car. It was literally a final.
I was lying in the sand where I was like, I’m on Adam’s polish.
I’m so sorry to be a shameless plug, but I was watching all the videos.
I was just trying to make sure that my car just, it was the first vehicle that I was responsible for payments.
And it was like truly mine it’s my first job you know and everything so uh i just wanted this thing to look good so i started ordering all these different products and then uh i got a ton of rock chips i did an awful touch-up job with some touch-up paint and i was like how do i stop i’m just always curious how do i stop rock chips and damage and then i started looking into paint protection films and ceramic coatings so then i bought an a3 shortly after that it was a 2016-83 i loved it um and that was when i actually started getting into like true paint protection and introduction to ceramic coating so i order like uh the car pro uk off of amazon i spent literally like four days in the garage just polishing a car something i probably take is hours now literally took me four days just learning the craft and it became an obsession to where, you know, the neighborhood would see me when I was home from college and they would just be like, hey, can you do the same thing to my car?
[12:50] And it kind of organically grew into what it is today just off of that.
And I still do it. It’s part-time technically, but it’s full-time, full-time because I still do have a corporate job, but I still run the business as if it was a full-time job for me as well, too.
It’s just endless hustling or movement.
Building the Car Detailing Business
[13:10] So that’s a little bit of how I got into it.
So I would imagine that coming kind of from the background that you have with mechanical engineering and working in those jobs, as you started to set this up as an actual business, even though it’s on the side, you probably used a little bit more structure than maybe some of the people.
Tell me a little bit about what steps that you did take and what things that you put in place as you were building this business from the ground up.
[13:42] Yeah. Well, the very first thing, just for context, I did was I immediately got my LLC incorporated.
Once it started to grow to a point to where some of the cars I was working on weren’t family friends and everything, I wanted to make sure I was properly protected.
So naturally, that was the first thing I did was I incorporated myself.
I got my insurance and I was just ready from there. there.
[14:01] But to your point or your question, you know, I think most people would think part-time means like truly part-time, like you don’t truly invest into it and you keep it like as not a serious investment to yourself.
But in reality, if you want to intend on growing something, you have to invest in it. So for me to build that, it started as me designing my own website.
[14:22] I do work for IT company currently now. So I had a little bit of a background and knowing how to do that hence that one year of computer science from college um and i created flyers literally went to the post office that was such a process but they do have instructors on like the postal website on how to do that get them out there um and i started getting calls organically or you know through these mail solicitations that i would send out business business cars, going to car shows, things like that.
And then because of my time with having a corporate job and how to balance this, a lot of the backend work needed to be automated for the most part.
So I needed to find software that would help me in simplifying my processes so that when I’m giving quotes, it’s not taking me an hour and making sure that my website is such a way that when people are looking over my information and the services that they have a clear image on what it is.
So the conversation that we would have once they caught me was a little more crisp and they had a better understanding.
And I was just really selling them on what service they were interested in the most for the most part.
So even to this day, as I get the business even grows exponentially, like I really doubled in the last year.
The Importance of Hiring an Assistant
[15:36] So I need a little bit more. Actually, at this point, I probably need to actually hire a physical person because I’m beyond the scope of being able to just automate from a computer point.
I probably need to hire at this point an assistant or somebody to help.
I love to see people grow, and that is awesome. And yeah, it sounds like you’re right about at that point.
So a lot of the training that you got actually came from YouTube University.
University um when as so as you started putting these things into action did it just kind of you built your own systems in of how you wanted to do things or did you take any um actual like in-person classes or anything like that yeah paint correction and detailing definitely youtube university um and networking honestly that was the strongest point i remember when i went i met that Dan, when I was with OptiCo, and we found each other off TikTok. I started growing some content off of TikTok.
And it would just, it turned into a great friendship to where I would call Dan at two, three o’clock in the morning.
I know he was out, so it wasn’t just like me calling him knowing he was sleeping.
He’s like working on somewhere. He’s traveling somewhere for an in-person seminar.
[16:51] And he would just coach me through. I’m like, hey, I got this car.
It’s just, it’s not, it’s not poshing out. so I learned how to polish with spray wax, I learned how to polish with ONR.
I learned literally from a crash course of just failure to the point made earlier of just, not catastrophic failure, but to the point to where, you know.
[17:10] You would want somebody to try to help guide you through.
Not even a class can necessarily teach you. A class is going to show you the bare essentials to get you to understanding of it, but really practice and execution is where you start to craft and polish your, like, refine your skill sets.
So I would really say network and then just that persistence, wanting to do well, wanting to take your business a step further.
Importance of Training and Gaining Experience
[17:34] But then for paint protection film and window tint yes i definitely did um did do in-person training i needed a better understanding of the actual product i was using based on understanding of like the foundation of how it’s installed things like that different techniques uh but, again going back to that you definitely need to um just gain experience and exposure so So training is one thing, but actually doing the job later to grow that skill set is definitely important.
I’ve met so many people in pain protection film who have who are just amazing at it that sometimes I feel like I could have skipped training if I met them sooner.
But I’m glad I took it and learned it myself, because then once I learned some of these additional advanced techniques, it all made sense and connected.
[18:22] So a little bit of both, honestly. So YouTube University and even now I will be on YouTube, maybe to an obsession in my spare time.
Just watching different techniques, learning how I can, you know, little things now, like, okay, you know, how do I round that edge a little bit more on that hood or that fender with the paint protection down so I can get complete coverage?
Because some of the guys that I’m good friends with now, you won’t even know there’s film on the car, like, seriously.
So it’s that level of perfection, like, that I’m chasing that, you know, that I’m looking to grow, but honing in on my crafts.
Sorry. No, no, that’s okay. Okay. It’s got to be a huge advantage for you also in your business, having that background with IT and being able to build your website and understand analytics and stuff, because that’s usually somebody has to hire somebody, you know, from the outside to do all that and having that in your pocket from the beginning and not being under the gun constantly under pressure because because you do have another full-time job.
So as you start thinking about bringing on employees, are you being kind of proactive in setting up your systems in place that you’ve dialed in over the time?
So when you do bring somebody else in, it’s a really seamless move to get them into there, doing the exact work like you want it to be done.
[19:45] Yeah that’s exactly what my goal has been for 2024 i started a few months prior kind of setting it up to where um all the back end stuff all of like my packages explanations it’s detailed enough.
[19:57] For somebody to pretty much step in one of the things that they did teach us through uh mechanical engineering was um process flow and also um oh god what is it uh instruction writing right so how to write proper instructions and i if you take that to more of a training philosophy on how to prepare somebody in your absence and equip them with information that they need and that’s very vital importance a lot of business are looking to scale so I’ve just been preparing things simplify the process as much as possible and allow everybody to have their independence once I decide to hire and if I’m like scaling as well for my website I definitely did started off my first two years like with my own like upgrades and everything but uh i’ve definitely passed that torch on to my buddy while i was literally just texting before you and i jumped on who’s my marketer my website designer because there’s a fine line where you have to have time or money in your business and um i allow somebody else to pretty much focus on that who was probably a little better and not necessarily the development of it but the marketing right knowing what the the user experience and things like that. It’s what he does for a living.
So I would never let my ego get in the way of letting somebody else do what they’re good at, you know, and what they do for a living full time, because they’d be able to spend the time on being able to get those details right that’s necessary from a marketing or sales perspective.
[21:23] But understanding how it works, even if you don’t have a background in it, I would still highly advise folks to gain an understanding, look some things up, understand their marketing a little bit, so that when you’re talking to somebody and you’re trying to hire even a website designer, you have better communication, understanding.
Importance of Acceptance Criteria and Avoiding Exploitation
[21:41] Acceptance criteria for them to be able to deliver exactly what it is that you’re envisioning so that’s really important i feel like and you have a lot less chance of somebody coming in and taking advantage of you and taking advantage of you exactly yeah you have that at least that ground.
[21:56] Understanding so i think here this i was gonna say have you have you used coaches or mentors But before we even get into that, your mom came from the sales, like, in the finance department of the dealership.
That is the salesperson right there who sells the ancillary items that, you know, your paint protection, which is what you’re selling, too.
How has, like, a growing up with her affected how you kind of sell?
And does she kind of come in and help coach you in sales?
Yeah, not as much as you think, but my mom has her own business as well.
She does a lot of event planning.
So we’re very much a family of entrepreneurs. So we just talk about our experiences and what she’s doing and we kind of feed off each other in that regard.
My mom has definitely been extremely helpful in just the financial side of it.
I think more of the financing aspect has helped.
I’ve had the luxury of leveraging and learning how to set up my business financially.
[23:02] Sales, she’s an amazing saleswoman. I’ll tell you that. She started off as a secretary and literally worked her way up to a finance manager.
So just her journey and that experience and the knowledge is just a wealth of knowledge.
I can’t say it’s late. But I would honestly say in terms of my sales.
Learning from YouTube: Perfecting Sales Pitches
[23:31] I watch a lot of what other people do, and I have to say that cautiously because I don’t want people to copy or replicate, but my gears are always turning, and I’m learning, okay, how could I? I had this sale.
I was talking too much. What can I do? I steer too far away from the truth, or I steer too much.
I pivoted too much in my sales pitch. So that’s been like the YouTube journey over last year is how to give a sales pitch or elevator pitch, right?
If you can’t captivate somebody’s attention within the first 30 seconds of conversation, you likely lost them.
And that’s what I learned over the past. And my dad, who actually owns a software company, is giving pitches all the time to different companies to sell his products.
So if there’s anybody in terms of a sales pitch, I would say I definitely lean towards him.
But together, it’s been a collective of like just knowledge that has been passed from my mom and my dad.
Yeah, what an incredible background and growing up with entrepreneurs.
It made absolute sense that you would eventually go into that direction yourself. yourself.
Now, do you, what other kind of books or resources have you used over, over your, your career that have kind of really helped push you to the next level?
That’s something that’s not YouTube, but like a different resource.
[24:50] Yeah, I normally go the less traditional route than what’s obvious.
I think in most cases, people will Google like how to be a better detailer, how to be, you know, how to sell from a detail perspective.
And in reality, marketing is pretty similar across the board.
It’s just your demographic change and your knowledge of what you’re selling is different.
Right but the premise of how to give a sales pitch or how to run the business is very consistent in a lot of ways I’ve met a lot of shop owners here in the Northern Virginia owners who are area who have extremely successful businesses.
[25:29] And none of them came from a detailing background they were like I was in IT sales I was in cosmetic sales I was doing this and I realized how lucrative this industry was so I just switched over and they’re like there’s no way you could do that but then you see their success and they treat it as a pure marketing business they’ll hire the talent but they know how to go out there and get the business and that’s what sells it but for me other than YouTube and talking to different people that’s really what I like to do I like to actually go talk to people I don’t mind being told no or I don’t like you that information because for every two or three people who said tell you know one One person will tell you yes or give you what you’re asking.
But from books, I read a lot of just proper money management for staff.
A lot of the cliche books that people who want to get rich would read, but they have a lot of good lessons in it.
And I would just learn how to be a better business person, a better business minded.
How to I think I’m pretty sure I’m pretty bad at ADHD. I hate to admit that on the podcast, but I had to actually learn how to control that due detailing.
Otherwise, I’d be obsessing over detail.
And time is money in detail and we get paid hourly. So I read a lot of books on just time management, breaking bad habits and how to focus my craft in such a way that helps me be profitable.
Learning from Mistakes: A Costly Lesson with a McLaren
[26:52] Now, we’ve all made mistakes. Can you tell me, like, maybe one of the biggest oopses that you had while working on somebody’s car and the lesson that you learned from it and kind of how you dealt with it?
Oh, man, if my client sees this, I’m so sorry.
They know. Listen, the one thing I do is I don’t hide things.
If I see something or something happens, I will literally.
First thing you want to do is have a solution before you call the client.
I will definitely tell people to do that I will not call a client get them panic and say we’ll figure it out let you know so a client has a McLaren 720s spider.
[27:33] That’s that increase the price on it a little bit and brings it to me we do the full front end on it we did a full three years ceramic coating on it beautiful beautiful car beautiful results and later down the road he calls me and goes hey my daughter accidentally hit it opening their family car in the garage and put a ding and chip in the quarter panel and for reference mclaren has singular like quarter panels there’s not much separation to where a traditional person can get under the the behind the panel to get the pdr and get it out and they have volcanic blue whatever i think of metallic blue paint so it’s a a very beautiful expensive car with a very beautiful expensive paint color and a dent right in the middle of the quarter panel on the driver’s side so he sees it every day and um my dent guy who’s amazing came through it’s like i can get it it’s aluminum it’s right on the crease um paint’s gonna be thin there but we can get it so long story short we take the wheel off he finds a way it takes like two hours to get this small dent um just to get to it nine to finish it took him like three hours total and by the time he actually worked it out uh i had to then touch up the paint and i’ve done touch-ups on a whole 9-11s ferraris a lot of exotic cars no problem blended out no issue but the issue was that crease of where the dent and the flexing of the paint softened the paint so.
[29:02] When I went in there dabbed it did my.
[29:05] Slight 2000 grit wet sand polished it that’s fine I started noticing blemishes I was like it’s not a little polished I’ll polish it a little bit more with.
[29:14] A lighter pad and the blemish is getting more blurry and I’m like what is that and the paint had got burnt and, the paint was burning and i was losing it like inside like i was i can stay calm in the moment but i’m calling my guy who’s a body shop who does a lot of the high-end cars in the area of paint work and uh he’s like yeah that’s burnt let me see what i can do and uh we talked to the client we told him we showed him everything and we gave him the option of my guy who owns the paint shop has trained a lot of the painters to some of the exotic um who run some of the exotic like paint booths basically they do a lot of high-end cars in the area and he was like for you i would literally do his job for 700 bucks like i will fix it you know we would just get it done and i’m like well let me at least give the client the option so i told him the options and the client’s like don’t worry about it like i’ll fix it no issue um so it came back to me about two months later He was like, finally got the car fixed. I was wondering if you could just detail it.
The Client’s Surprising Response and a Generous Gesture
[30:21] So I was able to get him to tell me how much he paid. And it was about five times more of what we was calling him for, just that little area, just to paint it around that area and blemish it in. And I felt awful.
So what I ended up doing is once he finished that area, I complimented and just gave him free PPF for pretty much the whole rear end of the car.
So that was it. But that was a very long process that I just felt guilt for.
And the client, he, I don’t know what it is. Some people just have better patience than me.
But, you know, I freak out if one of my cars outside at nowhere near costs as much as a McLaren.
So him, it was just, he handled it.
I’m appreciative of the relationship that I have with my client.
I like to be transparent. And mistakes do happen, unfortunately.
So, yeah. yeah taking ownership that was is exactly the right move you know um trying to skate out of it would have been tragic and it wouldn’t put you where you are right now and amazing that you handled it in a way that that customer brought that car back to you after he had it fixed i mean that’s yeah that’s incredible i mean that’s that’s really really awesome okay what what do you think or what do you feel that it is that sets your business apart and kind of makes you really unique in what you’re doing?
What Sets Your Business Apart? Uniqueness and Transparency
[31:44] Well, going off the last note, transparency.
I also like to do a little bit more on the educational side of things.
Maybe to a flaw, I would say, in some sense, but I don’t necessarily see it as a flaw. Maybe other people will.
I grew my TikTok in like a month to $25,000 just from just showing people how to do things.
You’d be surprised that even if you educate clients on how to do things as its most people will go well if I teach them how to do I won’t get their business or do it themselves but not realizing that a lot of times just, opening up a little bit your process and being a little transparent to what you’re doing how you’re doing it builds confidence and a lot of people towards your business right they trust you trust so oh god so for me what sets me apart would probably be I will sit on a call with somebody for an hour lady called the other day or a potential customer let me say at least called me the other day and she she had put ceramic coating on the inquiry I called her back and my first thing was not to sell her own ceramic packages Because my first thing or question to her was, what seems to be your trouble area?
Like, tell me about your journey with your vehicles, right? And she started to say, like, I like to keep my cars for long periods.
[33:08] I have a black car. She started speaking about, like, defects in the paint when she noticed when she picked it up.
She started speaking about wanting that perfect finish. So to me, it didn’t sound like she wanted ceramic.
It sounded like she wanted paint protection film because she keeps her cars long she is obsessive over the details she knew about paint nibs and things like that this wasn’t your normal client so she had no idea what paint protection film was so i explained it to her and i did some videos after we hung up i was working on the r6 in the shop uh full body paint protection and i showed her you know she was worried about contrast and coloration between panels uh things like that and And I gave her a confidence by saying, hey, here’s a little bit of insight to our process.
These are some things you can expect. And a lot of times, as a lot of people know who are in the profession, your work, when it’s happening through a project, isn’t going to be as polished.
And I had no problem. I was like, hey, there’s going to be some scratches and swirls. But let me show you the film self-healing.
You know, we’re squeegeeing it. And maybe sometimes we’ll do it when there’s not enough lubrication on it.
So you’re going to get some scratches. and she’s looking at all the swirls in the paint as I’m showing in the video, I can imagine.
And I take a heat gun and I say, this is what I mean when the product’s self-healing.
And she immediately was like, I need that.
Building Trust with Transparent and Personalized Approach
[34:29] So hopefully we’ll get her business soon. We just talked to her a few days ago, but it’s just one of those things to where just taking that time, I feel like a lot of shops feel like they’re just too busy, too busy.
You know, if you’re talking to me longer than five minutes, you’re just wasting my time. And having a little bit more personable, like, I don’t know what the word, I should follow that word, but being a little more personable, I think is what sets me apart in a lot of businesses.
People do business with people and you definitely say like, you’re going in and establishing a relationship.
And here’s the other thing that you said that was just incredible.
So many of the guys who are detailers focus the light on themselves.
I’m the best paint polisher west of the Mississippi.
But you literally said, I asked her questions to find out what she needed.
And then it was an easy path to sell her something which i bet that’s really came from your mom too because i know she’s the shark in the effing well it makes people feel like it comes from them right well not necessarily like it feels like like you allow them to make the decisions that they want to make but you need to inform them so that they can make those decisions properly another guy briefly called me for a black wing recently and um you know he wanted a ceramic seven year and And, you know, I started to talk to a little bit about, like, the PPF and different options, very similar to this potential client who had called me with the Volvo.
Similar Approach with Another Potential Client
[35:53] But, you know, I had educated him because he was like, well, what’s the difference between your product and the next product, like the brands, in terms of what we sell from a ceramic perspective?
And as you know, I’m selling at Owner’s Pride.
He was comparing it to, I forgot what it was. It might have been, like, Ceramic Pro or somebody. And, you know, the technology that exists over the last 20 years is, you know, owner’s pride is amazing.
Like, don’t get me wrong. Like, I switched to you all for a reason.
But it’s a hard sell to sell product to product versus company to company.
So I started telling him a little bit about the warranties that are offered, a little bit about the process that we do differently that I know a lot of people won’t like to share. And I was explaining to them, like, these are some of the questions that you want to ask the other shops that you shop around.
Because I know, I’m honest with myself, that people are shopping around versus why product A or B.
Because two people can install the exact same product and you can get completely different results, right?
But really what it comes down to is what value is that shop or that person providing to you? How can you trust them with your $140,000 or even $60,000 or $20,000 car, you know, with your possessions and your belongings?
[37:03] So now you’re working a whole mess because you’re doing this part-time and your job full-time, full-time.
How do you manage to have some healthy work-life balance?
And what kind of stuff do you like to do when you’re not detailing cars or doing your engineering?
I always have a business idea. So my fiancée, I mean, we still have time to ourselves, but I’m always, my gears are always turning. That’s my one flaw for sure.
But how do I balance it?
I schedule around my corporate schedule for the most part so weekends after hours most projects are with us between three to five days anyways um so if you figure work day ends around five o’clock every day you spend three to four hours after until nine o’clock working on your or my detailing company side of it um it’s pretty much full-time full-time um in between there if i have an inquiry you know on my lunch break i try to respond to those early morning before i log on to to my regular job, I’m checking emails, to respond to queries, setting things up.
And then I have a buddy of mine who is a detailer and I just subcontract a lot of the work out to him and have him help me a lot of it as well too.
So that helps balance me throughout the week.
And then when I can be there and be present, I am physically there.
Like weekends, I can easily on just one day, if the weather’s nice, six, seven cars in the day, just watching.
[38:23] Two ceramic coatings in a day, if necessary, when we get really booked up in the summertime.
Time like uh having that extra hand and help definitely helps me be in multiple places, so if we were to break out the crystal ball and look into it and have the spirits tell us where where do you see your business going what’s your big hairy audacious goal with this business in in the future where do you see it i would love to continue to grow um the detailing side of it with the paint protection film ceramic coatings um i would love as an engineer to figure out how to automate some of this stuff and process and i don’t mean necessarily like from a mechanical or machinery perspective but if there’s a way to be able to pump out volume of these things and giving people just you know the basic form of just protection and value added to for them to to enjoy their investment in their vehicles.
[39:23] Honestly, really down the road, I would love to see it actually expanded to more of a franchise. And that’s something I’m really, I’m actually kind of working on that background.
I’m sure you can speak to how difficult something like that is.
So as you can imagine, there’s a lot of people involved.
I try to get some folks involved, investors and things like that, to try to help that turn into a vision.
Future Goals: Automation and Franchising
[39:45] Fantastic. Okay. So if somebody wants to get ahold of you, how do they find you all over the internet and et cetera?
Yeah. So on Facebook and Instagram, it is liquid detail underscore V a, uh, tick tock as well.
We have that same handle as well.
Um, website, uh, liquid va.com.
Um, all of our information in terms of our services, uh, our experience and the brands we work with should be listed on that website.
Um, a lot of our work we try to cater or, or at least, uh, posts on social media.
Our TikTok is very much more of a hands-on educational source for a lot of folks and just teaching tips, tips and tricks, excuse me.
Our TikTok, our TikTok is a source for a lot of tips and tricks to help educate younger detailers as well to help them through their journey.
And yeah, I think that is the main ways of reaching us for right now.
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And you know what, giving back is very rewarding too, especially since that’s where you got a lot of your start from.
And every one of those is just building your brand and your authority even more into the detailing industry, which is incredible.
[41:06] Yeah, definitely. And then, so here’s kind of one last one I just want to throw out there.
So, and I know you haven’t been with Owner’s Pride for a really, really long time, But how has it been since switching over to Owner’s Pride and what’s been kind of different and helpful for you from us?
[41:24] It’s really hard to beat the performance and the nationally backed insurance policy or warranties that an owner’s product has to offer, both from a sales and also from as a consumer perspective.
I’ve used a lot of professional products. I will say this is funny.
I got started right as clothing was a thing.
So when I was working with different vendors early on for professional products, I couldn’t get access to certain ones because factories were closed.
So those suppliers had to expand their network and try different brands.
So there was a time where I was just literally getting handed whatever they had for me to try as a professional brand.
So I had the luxury of trying a lot of different brands early on and have an opinion on them.
So Owner’s Pride is the simplest, most effective product that I’ve used.
And I’ve already sold more interior and glass coatings, I will say, than I ever have collectively totaled before with other products that I’ve used through because of not only the performance, but that nationally-backed warranty policy that is behind both of those products. Well, outstanding.
[42:40] It kind of seems like any challenge that’s going to get put in front of you for the rest of your days, you’re just going to look at it, strategize a little bit, and then knock it right out.
Yeah, yeah. That’s typically, I’m an engineer. My gears get turning.
When I see a problem, I typically work through it. And then after is when I started thinking, like once I get past it is typically when I start, the anxiety kicks in.
But during the moment, I tend to try to at least get past a problem.
[43:08] That’s not a good thing when you’re in a relationship. Listen, somebody’s talking about they have an issue and you’re like, how do we fix it? Don’t do that.
Do that to your You’re in business, not your relationship. Yeah.
Venus and Mars, Venus and Mars. Yeah.
All right, man. Brandon, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to hang out with me here on the Owner’s Pride Podcast Behind the Buffer.
I truly, truly appreciate it. And I truly appreciate you being part of our network.
Yeah. And thank you for having me on. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Owner’s Pride Podcast.
If you found value in what we were putting out, please take a moment and hit the like and subscribe button. And if you’re more interested in listening to it instead of watching, then we’re available everywhere for audio podcast.
And if you use code ECOWASHTHEWORLD at checkout on OwnersPride.com, you’re going to get 10% off of your order.
Again, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to hang out with us here. Without you, it would just be me talking to myself.
Until next time, stay glossy.
0 Comments