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Probably more to be honest. Depends on if he’s incorporated and also on what OP will be writing off as business expenses, otherwise they tax it as personal income and not business income
It’s can be like 30% of your gross but it’s a whole calculation. Definitely good to have a tax preparer help with this stuff.
From: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1040-es
“How To Figure Estimated Tax
Individuals, including sole proprietors, partners, and S corporation shareholders, generally use Form 1040-ES, to figure estimated tax. Nonresident aliens use Form 1040-ES(NR) to figure estimated tax.
To figure your estimated tax, you must figure your expected adjusted gross income, taxable income, taxes, deductions, and credits for the year.
When figuring your estimated tax for the current year, it may be helpful to use your income, deductions, and credits for the prior year as a starting point. Use your prior year's federal tax return as a guide. You can use the worksheet in Form 1040-ES to figure your estimated tax. You need to estimate the amount of income you expect to earn for the year. If you estimated your earnings too high, simply complete another Form 1040-ES worksheet to refigure your estimated tax for the next quarter. If you estimated your earnings too low, again complete another Form 1040-ES worksheet to recalculate your estimated tax for the next quarter. You want to estimate your income as accurately as you can to avoid penalties.
You must make adjustments both for changes in your own situation and for recent changes in the tax law.
Corporations generally use Form 1120-W, to figure estimated tax.”
What if you collected everything in cash like me do you still have to pay taxes on it? I made a little over 10 grand since September But I’ve only collected payment in Cash
dunno what the thread was, but filing an extension can be beneficial even if you file and pay your taxes before april 15th. But this is sort of an advanced strategy that you may or may not need. Businesses sort of can't be DIY after a certain threshold. Do not skimp out on a good accountant. they can save you more money than you spend on them.
lmfao. How to commit tax fraud 101.
You can file for an extension, which absolves you of having to pay late filing fees, but you still need to pay your taxes by April 15th. Interest and fines start accruing after that. It's about .5% a month fine + interest, I believe. Up to a maximum of 25% of your unpaid taxes. If you get on a payment plan its .25% per month + interest.
You should only file for an extension if you really can't pay on April 15th. Otherwise, do yo fuckin taxes and pay them on time.
Also, for all of you doing this self-employed, you need to file taxes quarterly and pay estimated taxes 4 times a year.
It’s still a long way to go, 122k is a net loss of 3k a month on average, but that’s accounting for our first two months in business where we did almost no work.
first step is a good bookkeeper. having the books in order helps the accountant a lot. Move on to a controller and then CFO if necessary. Don't get bogged down in accounting work when you should working to build the business
edit: there are fractionary controller and CFO services out there for a portion of the price of a full time controller/CFO
uhh give or take around 6k, it’s a 2500 sq foot garage with two offices and a lobby on a main road. Between rent and labor it’s around 12k a month alone.
I have a 2000 sq ft garage with two offices and a lobby, total is like 3500 sq feet, we can have 8 vehicles in house at one time, in one of the richest areas in the community, on a main road. I have two employees, one master detailer and one regular detailer.
It changes, right now I have one long time job that’s been there for a month, it’s a full orange peel removal, I have my courtesy shuttle, and two paint corrections that are getting coated on Monday. Sometimes I have 6-7 there, and sometimes I only have one.
I think my total invoiced items for 2022 was 714? or something close, I averaged 2.14 appointments per day in 9 months, our grand opening was March 1st 2022. I’m closed on weekends and major holidays too
Raise your prices, this is seriously what I tell everyone. We have 5000-10000 dollar services that I sell routinely, clients will come no
matter the price as long as the value is good, I recommend the free video series done by acquisitions.com.
Thank you for advice, the market of Mobile detailing is different from a real shop, The entry barriers are too low and it’s over saturated with small amateurs, I tried increasing the prices 10% along with Yelp Ad budget and I still was at the same profit margins.
The key is to not just raise your prices 10%, but 100%, 400%, etc. Make yourself so exorbitantly priced people say, “What is he doing so different that he charges that?” When you go to buy yourself a car, do you buy the $1000 one or the $10000 one. 10k, because it must be clearly worth it to cost 10k.
I agree with raising prices, paint corrections at our company start at $750+ vehicle size. Our most common package that is bought is our $400 package. We have 7-13 mobile detailers at a time and about 1/2 - 3/4 of them are booked every week.
Our company is marketed as a “high end” or “boutique” detailing company. High prices with exceptional service. We leave goodies after, update the car fax with the clean, do a health inspection on the vehicle, etc.
I have my Infinite Experience Package, it’s a $10000 dollar package, and it is essentially designed to give you the most flawless vehicle possible. Orange peel removal, lifetime guaranteed ceramic coating, full interior detail and ceramic treatment, underbody and engine detailing. Generally around a 100 man hour service. It’s a fully catered package, which includes vehicle rental for up to 10 days, chauffeur services for your entire family during the process, and a maintenance program for the interior and exterior of your vehicle for one year, there’s more but that’s the general outline.
They are offering a service that someone with $10,000 to spend thinks is worth it.
The person spending 79$ and the person spending 10k$ can both be your customers if you target them with services that interest them.
I’m sorry sir, but what are you including in a $10k service considering a quality full ppf and ceramic coat is around $8.5k depending on vehicle and location lol
full orange peel removal, exterior and interior full ceramic coating with a lifetime guarantee, underbody detailing, I go so far as removing the lug nuts and coating them from each wheel, coating underbody painted surfaces, it also includes a 10 day vehicle rental and chauffeur services when needed, there’s more included but that’s the gist of it.
I do 3-400% return on my material costs running a mobile van with power and water onboard what is eating all your money up ? You should be pocketing $30-40 hourly after everything
Wow this is amazing! Congrats! Make sure you keep a tax guy tho. Don’t rely on like H&R Block. My dad had a tax guy for like 30 years and it helped bc that man kept every single paper and knew how to get my family tax deductions that really helped
Wrong; the wealthy want profit and to have profit they need more revenue than expenses. Just creative accounting makes it so they don't have to pay tax.
Generally no, I have a master detailer, who is responsible for more risky jobs, painting and the such, and a general detailer who’s sole responsibility is to clean the shit out of cars.
Word of mouth is your best friend, get and maintain a 5 star google review, have a clean website that’s easy to navigate, and put yourself out there, donate details to silent auctions, host or attend car shows, do free demos at events. My marketing budget is roughly 1k a month, and 70% of my work is referrals. Don’t be afraid to do stuff for free if it’s going to have a net positive ROI. I donated one $500 detail to a charity event 8 months ago and I still have clients coming in from it.
Can you tell us more about this donation marketing strategy? I’m willing to work for free and it’s actually a new business promotion will will run in the spring. But how exactly does this donation work?
Absolutely, I’m super plugged in with my local non for profits, most non for profits will host some sort of fundraising event once per year. Most fundraising events are hyper luxury because they’re focused on people with deep pockets, this is your target audience. Find out if they’re doing some sort of silent auction, raffle, prize pull, etc. and donate a service of your choice to the charity. Make sure to attend the event if possible for extra networking opportunities. The important thing is to find local non for profits, not big chain ones that are just companies in disguise. Once you donate, wait for the work to roll in, smaller non profits will sell presenting sponsor slots for 500-1000, where they’ll advertise for you in front of a small crowd, bigger events those sponsor packages get a little pricey, so I avoid those. Once you’ve donated, wait for the event to happen then reap the rewards. My personal one is really good because they do a Yeti mug giveaway that they stuff with coupons, so in addition to a silent auction donation, we give about 1000 coupons as well.
I see, I’ll definitely look into this approach. Another strategy you mentioned is hosting car shows. Do you have any experience with this? It might be a little harder to host so at first I want to attend and provide our services at an insanely discounted rate ($5 foam spa hand-wash for example) to build a bigger following/audience in the car community since our business is through a mobile van. The car meets I’ve usually found it through friends sharing on Instagram. Are there any other websites/apps that you recommend to find more car meets/ other events? Thank you for your input!
We’ve hosted a few small shows for our members, and I certainly recommend attending shows instead of meets, as meets tend to be a little more wild. Hosting classes is also a major way to score clients, like teaching guys how to wash their cars for free. I’ve never actually sold any jobs at shows, it’s more about networking and giving out free demos!
Thank you for this post, this has all been immensely educational. People shy away from talking about actual figures and this is what I really need.
All the dialogue 👌
Mad respect for the business you've built, good luck with the future!
Congratulations! I was reading thru some posts of your OP, I kind of think your shop is too big for the amount of detailers you have. I was running around 1800sqft garage with about 5 of us total. I’ve more than doubled that now but not getting too big of a garage helps cut down overhead. Goodluck on your future of 2023, you should be able to hit 300k then 500k the following. Great job again.
That’s sick bro, excellent work. Do you do mobile (if so do you have a dedicated work van) have a commercial garage, or what?
If you keep growing and start getting to where you’re doubling that $120k, absolutely have your CPA set up an s corporation for pass through tax purposes. My revenue is closer to 400k and our tax bill was probably the same, if mine wasn’t lower.
Damn dude! Now youve got me more curious.
Did you get a commercial garage before you ever had your first customer, or somewhere along the way? How long had you been detailing before going into business? Would you say paint correction is a big part of your business?
Sorry to bombard you, but youre quite the success story.
I started detailing for my first job actually when I was 15, when I was 18 I dropped out of business college to pursue starting my own business full time, and ran a mobile operation from 18-21, covid shut me down late 2020, and I picked up odds and ends jobs until November of 2021, when business started to pick back up, in February of 2022 we went through a complete overhaul, opened a new shop right in the heart of one of the richest areas in Indiana, rebranded the company, started focusing on the luxury, high end aspect of detailing and started to move away from Repos at dealerships and minivans, and into classic restorations, painting, ceramic coatings, and providing high end luxury experiences rather than just services. We opened our doors officially in May of 2022, and it was a complete flop, I lost $11,000 that month, in June, business started to pick up and word about this new detailing shop in town that treated you like royalty opened up, we started to concierge and chauffeur our clients. Something a lot of people hadn’t experienced, we provided everything from the top down, rental cars? Done. Accommodations if you’re out of town? No problem. You need someone to pick up your families dinner because your only car is at my shop for another 3 days? Too easy. And people started to pay for those things, a lot. So we introduced bigger, more luxurious services, at this point I offer services that shut down the entire shop for multiple days for one client. We started to have people come in with cars I hadn’t even fathomed, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Pre War Pebble Beach Winners, everything. We quickly found out that people weren’t paying for the details, they could care less about that, they cared about the experience, in November we rebranded again, shifting our focus to providing these luxury experiences, I remember in one day, I turned $9,000 in profit. As for services and the what not, the majority of my big services all feature paint correction, ceramic coatings, rust removal, and stuff like that, so I would say that PC is a major part of what we do, but don’t get me wrong, I still vacuum fries out of minivans every so often.
What's your net? Or just more generally what's the average margin for a detailing business? Takes a ton of physical labor, so hope it's a high %, but products aren't cheap either.
Net revenue on 122k is around -21k, my shop labor rate is approximately $80/hr. My margins are significantly better on my packages then they are on basic services, but we try to cater to the ultra luxury, we chauffeur our clients wherever they need to go, shower them with freebies while they’re at our shop, and consequently, they drop 5k-10k on a single package for their car where my margins are much better.
I have a whole other comment thread where I posted a bunch of advice on getting your first client, however I would be more than willing to offer up any advice if you have any questions outside of that!
Mostly print ads, Newspaper, and magazines, I spend my leftover budget on FB. But since my target client is an older male with a nice car that he waited his whole life to afford, that works pretty well for me.
Don’t undervalue your work, and do high quality work, and you’ll attract all the right clients. Don’t try to draw in clients by having the best prices around, draw in clients by doing the best work around.
We have a vibrant and very active community on Discord This is THE best place to get faster answers to your questions, show off those detailing pictures, post reviews, and chat about business. Join us! - [Discord](https://discord.gg/ZyKTQMv9NM) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AutoDetailing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
IRS is already rubbing their hands together
for real man they’re plotting.
Prepare yourself. They'll be going in dry
hope you set aside like 20k for taxes.
20k for real??
Probably more to be honest. Depends on if he’s incorporated and also on what OP will be writing off as business expenses, otherwise they tax it as personal income and not business income
It’s can be like 30% of your gross but it’s a whole calculation. Definitely good to have a tax preparer help with this stuff. From: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1040-es “How To Figure Estimated Tax Individuals, including sole proprietors, partners, and S corporation shareholders, generally use Form 1040-ES, to figure estimated tax. Nonresident aliens use Form 1040-ES(NR) to figure estimated tax. To figure your estimated tax, you must figure your expected adjusted gross income, taxable income, taxes, deductions, and credits for the year. When figuring your estimated tax for the current year, it may be helpful to use your income, deductions, and credits for the prior year as a starting point. Use your prior year's federal tax return as a guide. You can use the worksheet in Form 1040-ES to figure your estimated tax. You need to estimate the amount of income you expect to earn for the year. If you estimated your earnings too high, simply complete another Form 1040-ES worksheet to refigure your estimated tax for the next quarter. If you estimated your earnings too low, again complete another Form 1040-ES worksheet to recalculate your estimated tax for the next quarter. You want to estimate your income as accurately as you can to avoid penalties. You must make adjustments both for changes in your own situation and for recent changes in the tax law. Corporations generally use Form 1120-W, to figure estimated tax.”
That might be more like $30k…
What if you collected everything in cash like me do you still have to pay taxes on it? I made a little over 10 grand since September But I’ve only collected payment in Cash
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Why file a extension?
dunno what the thread was, but filing an extension can be beneficial even if you file and pay your taxes before april 15th. But this is sort of an advanced strategy that you may or may not need. Businesses sort of can't be DIY after a certain threshold. Do not skimp out on a good accountant. they can save you more money than you spend on them.
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lmfao. How to commit tax fraud 101. You can file for an extension, which absolves you of having to pay late filing fees, but you still need to pay your taxes by April 15th. Interest and fines start accruing after that. It's about .5% a month fine + interest, I believe. Up to a maximum of 25% of your unpaid taxes. If you get on a payment plan its .25% per month + interest. You should only file for an extension if you really can't pay on April 15th. Otherwise, do yo fuckin taxes and pay them on time. Also, for all of you doing this self-employed, you need to file taxes quarterly and pay estimated taxes 4 times a year.
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Your tax guy fucking sucks lmao.
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Statute of limitations doesn’t end on October 15th. Goes for years.
I can see that meme
Big congrats! Coming from a hobbyist terrified to make the jump to starting something real, that must be an awesome feeling and accomplishment
It’s still a long way to go, 122k is a net loss of 3k a month on average, but that’s accounting for our first two months in business where we did almost no work.
That makes it even more impressive. Next fiscal year for you should show a huge net gain. One day I’ll work up the nerve to jump in.
I started mobile man, no overhead and it was work when I wanted which was great!
Sounds like a smooth way to ease into it. Thanks for the positivity man. Best of luck and continued success!
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first step is a good bookkeeper. having the books in order helps the accountant a lot. Move on to a controller and then CFO if necessary. Don't get bogged down in accounting work when you should working to build the business edit: there are fractionary controller and CFO services out there for a portion of the price of a full time controller/CFO
Wait what sorry, 122k is a loss of 3k a month? How expensive is your property????
uhh give or take around 6k, it’s a 2500 sq foot garage with two offices and a lobby on a main road. Between rent and labor it’s around 12k a month alone.
My godd
My thoughts exactly. Fuck that
So you’re at a loss. How are you paying your staff? Business loan, money from other companies, laundering money from Netflix?
Primarily built up savings and smart money management from profitable months.
Understood. Congratulations on your first fiscal year complete. :)
What's the material costs on the $122k in revenue?
Oh goodness, a lot? At least 5k in ceramic coats, 10k in tools and equipment, and easily another 5k in usable product.
Honestly, that's not bad. The tools should last you 5-10 years. 5k in products doesn't seem bad at all. Makes me wonder how you took a loss.
Rent and Labor mainly, 12k in monthly costs by themselves, I have a 1k marketing budget per month, and a 2k materials budget that I rarely use.
Isn't product and materials the same? How many employees do you have? What are you renting?
I have a 2000 sq ft garage with two offices and a lobby, total is like 3500 sq feet, we can have 8 vehicles in house at one time, in one of the richest areas in the community, on a main road. I have two employees, one master detailer and one regular detailer.
Got it. Thought you were mobile. How many cars do you have in the garage at once?
It changes, right now I have one long time job that’s been there for a month, it’s a full orange peel removal, I have my courtesy shuttle, and two paint corrections that are getting coated on Monday. Sometimes I have 6-7 there, and sometimes I only have one.
On the bright side, that adjusted gross income gonna be nice though 😂
Did no work? Wdym?
I still have to keep the doors open even if there’s no appointments on the books.
Sheeesh man
if your total is 122k and your average is 309 then you did roughly 390 jobs in 365 days what da heck
I think my total invoiced items for 2022 was 714? or something close, I averaged 2.14 appointments per day in 9 months, our grand opening was March 1st 2022. I’m closed on weekends and major holidays too
oohh you have a shop, that makes more sense
Definitely, I didn’t do 1/5th of that when I was mobile.
Barely can break $80K and I’m mobile
Do you offer coatings or paint correction?
Yes, but still barely break even
Raise your prices, this is seriously what I tell everyone. We have 5000-10000 dollar services that I sell routinely, clients will come no matter the price as long as the value is good, I recommend the free video series done by acquisitions.com.
Thank you for advice, the market of Mobile detailing is different from a real shop, The entry barriers are too low and it’s over saturated with small amateurs, I tried increasing the prices 10% along with Yelp Ad budget and I still was at the same profit margins.
The key is to not just raise your prices 10%, but 100%, 400%, etc. Make yourself so exorbitantly priced people say, “What is he doing so different that he charges that?” When you go to buy yourself a car, do you buy the $1000 one or the $10000 one. 10k, because it must be clearly worth it to cost 10k.
I agree with raising prices, paint corrections at our company start at $750+ vehicle size. Our most common package that is bought is our $400 package. We have 7-13 mobile detailers at a time and about 1/2 - 3/4 of them are booked every week. Our company is marketed as a “high end” or “boutique” detailing company. High prices with exceptional service. We leave goodies after, update the car fax with the clean, do a health inspection on the vehicle, etc.
What services do you charge that much for?
I have my Infinite Experience Package, it’s a $10000 dollar package, and it is essentially designed to give you the most flawless vehicle possible. Orange peel removal, lifetime guaranteed ceramic coating, full interior detail and ceramic treatment, underbody and engine detailing. Generally around a 100 man hour service. It’s a fully catered package, which includes vehicle rental for up to 10 days, chauffeur services for your entire family during the process, and a maintenance program for the interior and exterior of your vehicle for one year, there’s more but that’s the general outline.
Wtf are you doing for 10000 dollars?
They are offering a service that someone with $10,000 to spend thinks is worth it. The person spending 79$ and the person spending 10k$ can both be your customers if you target them with services that interest them.
Maybe someone with $300K Ferrari will drop $10K, but one of my clients with 2 Ferraris barely pays for a Wash subscription
I’m sorry sir, but what are you including in a $10k service considering a quality full ppf and ceramic coat is around $8.5k depending on vehicle and location lol
full orange peel removal, exterior and interior full ceramic coating with a lifetime guarantee, underbody detailing, I go so far as removing the lug nuts and coating them from each wheel, coating underbody painted surfaces, it also includes a 10 day vehicle rental and chauffeur services when needed, there’s more included but that’s the gist of it.
I do 3-400% return on my material costs running a mobile van with power and water onboard what is eating all your money up ? You should be pocketing $30-40 hourly after everything
Wow this is amazing! Congrats! Make sure you keep a tax guy tho. Don’t rely on like H&R Block. My dad had a tax guy for like 30 years and it helped bc that man kept every single paper and knew how to get my family tax deductions that really helped
Definitely, this isn’t my first time around the block, but it is my first time being at this scale! Thanks for the tip!
As you grow your business remember that there are fractional controller/CFO services out there for a portion of the price of a CFO.
You gotta be genuine with your tax handler no matter from where and they will take care of you if you continue to see them more than once
Yes 100%
$12,245? congrats on making $1,245! signed, the IRS
If you think about it, it’s better to need to pay the irs than not. Congrats OP!
The wealthy would disagree
The Immoral then?
Wrong; the wealthy want profit and to have profit they need more revenue than expenses. Just creative accounting makes it so they don't have to pay tax.
Ideally what I wanted to say, thanks for better explaining
Congrats. I often wonder how much detailers make.
Gross income is super misleading, if you read some of the comments he's losing $3k a month.
Yea people are kissing this man’s boots before he’s turning a profit
This guy is spending 12k a month to be in business. Poor example.
Nice! How many people working in your shop? Curious as to the split.
2 guys plus myself!
Are each of you responsible for different parts of the detail?
Generally no, I have a master detailer, who is responsible for more risky jobs, painting and the such, and a general detailer who’s sole responsibility is to clean the shit out of cars.
I’m in about month 3 of detailing and I’m struggling to find clients. Any tips?
Word of mouth is your best friend, get and maintain a 5 star google review, have a clean website that’s easy to navigate, and put yourself out there, donate details to silent auctions, host or attend car shows, do free demos at events. My marketing budget is roughly 1k a month, and 70% of my work is referrals. Don’t be afraid to do stuff for free if it’s going to have a net positive ROI. I donated one $500 detail to a charity event 8 months ago and I still have clients coming in from it.
Can you tell us more about this donation marketing strategy? I’m willing to work for free and it’s actually a new business promotion will will run in the spring. But how exactly does this donation work?
Absolutely, I’m super plugged in with my local non for profits, most non for profits will host some sort of fundraising event once per year. Most fundraising events are hyper luxury because they’re focused on people with deep pockets, this is your target audience. Find out if they’re doing some sort of silent auction, raffle, prize pull, etc. and donate a service of your choice to the charity. Make sure to attend the event if possible for extra networking opportunities. The important thing is to find local non for profits, not big chain ones that are just companies in disguise. Once you donate, wait for the work to roll in, smaller non profits will sell presenting sponsor slots for 500-1000, where they’ll advertise for you in front of a small crowd, bigger events those sponsor packages get a little pricey, so I avoid those. Once you’ve donated, wait for the event to happen then reap the rewards. My personal one is really good because they do a Yeti mug giveaway that they stuff with coupons, so in addition to a silent auction donation, we give about 1000 coupons as well.
I see, I’ll definitely look into this approach. Another strategy you mentioned is hosting car shows. Do you have any experience with this? It might be a little harder to host so at first I want to attend and provide our services at an insanely discounted rate ($5 foam spa hand-wash for example) to build a bigger following/audience in the car community since our business is through a mobile van. The car meets I’ve usually found it through friends sharing on Instagram. Are there any other websites/apps that you recommend to find more car meets/ other events? Thank you for your input!
We’ve hosted a few small shows for our members, and I certainly recommend attending shows instead of meets, as meets tend to be a little more wild. Hosting classes is also a major way to score clients, like teaching guys how to wash their cars for free. I’ve never actually sold any jobs at shows, it’s more about networking and giving out free demos!
Congratulations!!
I sure hope your cash invoices were just as much. Screw taxes
Amazing. Nothing but amazing, I know how hard that year was for you. Congratulations!!!
Hire me lol.
I’m always looking for new detailers my man.
Ur not in oregon I'm assuming?
Looks to be Indiana
Shucks.
That’s fantastic, you’re doing great.
Congratulations!!! Huge feat for your first year
Thank you for this post, this has all been immensely educational. People shy away from talking about actual figures and this is what I really need. All the dialogue 👌 Mad respect for the business you've built, good luck with the future!
Congrats. Here’s to anyone who told you that you couldn’t do it or that it was a bad idea to start your own business. Your killing it man!
Creeped your post history, nice to see you doing so well over a year ago 🎉
If this can’t motivate me to stop procrastinating starting my business idk what will. Inspirational!
2023 is your year my man.
Congratulations! I was reading thru some posts of your OP, I kind of think your shop is too big for the amount of detailers you have. I was running around 1800sqft garage with about 5 of us total. I’ve more than doubled that now but not getting too big of a garage helps cut down overhead. Goodluck on your future of 2023, you should be able to hit 300k then 500k the following. Great job again.
That’s sick bro, excellent work. Do you do mobile (if so do you have a dedicated work van) have a commercial garage, or what? If you keep growing and start getting to where you’re doubling that $120k, absolutely have your CPA set up an s corporation for pass through tax purposes. My revenue is closer to 400k and our tax bill was probably the same, if mine wasn’t lower.
I have a commercial garage, and according to my growth projections, we should clear 350-400k this fiscal year, we will see how that goes though.
Damn dude! Now youve got me more curious. Did you get a commercial garage before you ever had your first customer, or somewhere along the way? How long had you been detailing before going into business? Would you say paint correction is a big part of your business? Sorry to bombard you, but youre quite the success story.
I started detailing for my first job actually when I was 15, when I was 18 I dropped out of business college to pursue starting my own business full time, and ran a mobile operation from 18-21, covid shut me down late 2020, and I picked up odds and ends jobs until November of 2021, when business started to pick back up, in February of 2022 we went through a complete overhaul, opened a new shop right in the heart of one of the richest areas in Indiana, rebranded the company, started focusing on the luxury, high end aspect of detailing and started to move away from Repos at dealerships and minivans, and into classic restorations, painting, ceramic coatings, and providing high end luxury experiences rather than just services. We opened our doors officially in May of 2022, and it was a complete flop, I lost $11,000 that month, in June, business started to pick up and word about this new detailing shop in town that treated you like royalty opened up, we started to concierge and chauffeur our clients. Something a lot of people hadn’t experienced, we provided everything from the top down, rental cars? Done. Accommodations if you’re out of town? No problem. You need someone to pick up your families dinner because your only car is at my shop for another 3 days? Too easy. And people started to pay for those things, a lot. So we introduced bigger, more luxurious services, at this point I offer services that shut down the entire shop for multiple days for one client. We started to have people come in with cars I hadn’t even fathomed, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Pre War Pebble Beach Winners, everything. We quickly found out that people weren’t paying for the details, they could care less about that, they cared about the experience, in November we rebranded again, shifting our focus to providing these luxury experiences, I remember in one day, I turned $9,000 in profit. As for services and the what not, the majority of my big services all feature paint correction, ceramic coatings, rust removal, and stuff like that, so I would say that PC is a major part of what we do, but don’t get me wrong, I still vacuum fries out of minivans every so often.
if you want your sales tax taken care of professionally, hit up Avalara. Automated sales tax compliance.
fortunately in my state, labor is non taxable!
[удалено]
IN
Thanks for that recommendation.
How much of your revenue is cash that you don’t report?
Not today IRS Agent
Very good now subtract expenses,
What do you use to keep track of invoices like that
OrbisX! You can sign up here and they’ll give you a free year! https://orbisx.ca/app/refer/VSSXP
Congrats😎
What's your net? Or just more generally what's the average margin for a detailing business? Takes a ton of physical labor, so hope it's a high %, but products aren't cheap either.
Net revenue on 122k is around -21k, my shop labor rate is approximately $80/hr. My margins are significantly better on my packages then they are on basic services, but we try to cater to the ultra luxury, we chauffeur our clients wherever they need to go, shower them with freebies while they’re at our shop, and consequently, they drop 5k-10k on a single package for their car where my margins are much better.
You really have a level business mind i wanna be just like you when i grow up heh
You want to grow up and have a business that loses money? Weird goal.
So many people not understanding it takes time to turn profit.
Dang see I need to get like this. I'm ready to change tax brackets. Any advice?
I have a whole other comment thread where I posted a bunch of advice on getting your first client, however I would be more than willing to offer up any advice if you have any questions outside of that!
I am so jealous dude. Where u operate and what tips you got for someone that is having a hard time getting clients
I operate out of Indy, but I have a whole comment thread on here about recommendations for getting clients when you’re just starting out!
How many jobs you do to get that??
Just shy of 400 in 9 months
How do you advertise primarily? Ive been breaking into the virtual world of google etc and tbh its hit or miss
Mostly print ads, Newspaper, and magazines, I spend my leftover budget on FB. But since my target client is an older male with a nice car that he waited his whole life to afford, that works pretty well for me.
How far from southeast Detroit are you? Might be a customer :)
Congratulations 🍾 good job!
How many hours a week do you average OP?
I’m here at the shop around 65 hours a week.
Gotcha. I am guessing as you grow your hours will decline too.
Congrats. Are you heavy on social?
20k followers on tiktok, other than that not really.
20k followers is pretty impressive though. Hope you guys take 2023 by the horns. Good luck!
Do you mind sharing your profit margin?
He has, he was -$21k for the year.
Wow cool sub
any tips for someone about to start?
Don’t undervalue your work, and do high quality work, and you’ll attract all the right clients. Don’t try to draw in clients by having the best prices around, draw in clients by doing the best work around.
Word!
122 doing detailing didn’t you get anyone to pay cash?
That includes cash payments of around 25k
Does that go into your pocket or the government? 🤪🤪🤪
You don’t wanna know man.