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| Subject: Re: self-carwash | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 22:56:59 08/04/03 Mon In reply to: Robert 's message, "self-carwash" on 23:00:22 08/02/03 Sat Hi Robert, Thank you for using this forum. Find out what your liability exposure would be for injuries & damage to vehicles. A lawyer or insurance agent should be able to guide you well. You should find out about environmental/legal concerns with dirty water & the chemicals used in washing vehicles. Below I'll suggest using environmentally friendly washing (even if it's a legal requirement) as a way of gaining business. I think the main "competition" of automatic car washes & probably others is people's ability to wash vehicles at home. You may be able to overcome this by focussing on how much hassle your car wash will save people. How much set up & stowing time is needed for washing a vehicle at home (time the efforts of some people). If your business requires less time (including driving from areas where your prospects will be coming from (work places & residential) emphasize that. Your business will probably have more effective tools & chemicals than the average citizen has at home. You should do research about the effect of chemicals people use (at home to wash vehicles) on the environment. A big part of marketing is putting advantages & disadvantages of different options on a "scale." Be upfront about disadvantages of the option(s) you offer because it increases your credibility. People will trust you more when they realize you're not hiding anything. Example- some advantages of using your facility may be: Saving time, making vehicles cleaner & less likely to rust, better for the environment, ease of applying car finishes/ wax, tips for doing it well, & a strong vacuum cleaner made for cleaning vehicles. Some disadvantages: Finding your location, driving time/ traffic, learning how to use your equipment, & costs more money. Then explain what you do to limit those disadvantages. You should do your best to make the advantages side of the "scale" outweighs the disadvantages. Would these tips require a long marketing message? Probably. How can you deliver the message(s) inexpensively? Have a BIG grand opening!!! How would it be big? You can let Big Brothers/Big Sisters volunteers (or any other non-profit group) have a fund-raising car wash using your facilities. People can donate money to the organization & still pay your business for the wash. But please consider giving a portion of your revenue for those days to the group. Giving them money will increase goodwill & possibly get more exposure & participation. You can think of it this way - You'd have to pay for marketing anyway. If you use mass media advertising, you'd probably end up paying a lot of money even if you don't get much, if any, benefit from the advertising. This way, youi'd be donating a percentage of what you receive so you'd definitely get something worthwhile out of it. They should be able to get publicity for the fund-raiser (& your business). If they advertise it, they'd probably get a lower fee than you would. If you'll have machines that accept tokens you can donate a certain amount of tokens for a specific number of washes they perform instead of giving money. They can sell the tokens later to raise more money. A hypothetical example- The group washes 700 vehicles during their fund-raiser. You get full retail price for those washes. Then you give the group 100 tokens to sell. That way, there will be people who will use your facilities who weren't able to have the group wash their vehicles (for whatever reason). The group will want to get a lot of customers for the first event, so they'll promote & publicize it. Hopefully, people will give them tips/donations in addition to what they pay for the washes. Plus, the group will be eager to get the tokens to sell later. You should have flyers printed & give them to each person who comes to the group's car wash. If you have compelling sales copy & a solid offer, some of those people will return to wash their vehicles after the fund-raiser. Since you're in Minnesota, you may be acquainted with the problems of doors freezing up. If you have a way to prevent the problem, you may want to promote it. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Re: self-carwash | MTD | 08:51:26 08/26/03 Tue |
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