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I'm not joking - see if you can make inroads into valeting for private/corporate aircraft. OK, they don't get so covered in mud and grime, but if you are paying >£100/hour to use it, you want it looking nice.
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One of the guys in work has started a gardening business - he does it in his downtime from us - testing the market - but he seems to be doing well enough, won't earn a fortune but its keeping him sane. May be worth considering it as a paying hobby first.
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Iknow a couple of people, who after redundancy/retirement, have taken up home gardening for pensioners and the like. Very lucrative it seems, although I'd imagine there's not much work around at the moment.
A neighbour's son does it full-time. Liveried old Transit van and all.
You would need to be quite fit.
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Unless the OP knows (via some nifty local marketing research or other) that the start of the biggest recession in 70 years is a good time to start a (very) discretionary service business & there aren't 101 other people (maybe newly redundant etc.) thinking of this or very similar, I'd say don't waste your time, money & effort: keep that 'dull' 9-5 job, dullness in a time of great uncertainty has its virtues. If the worst comes to the worst & you lose your 9-5 job, then that's the time to think about it. Just my opinion.
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6 years ago when I started up on my own, things were rosy and the market had plenty of slack to be taken up.
Then we had alot of immigrants set up these quick wash places that generally last a year or two before disappearing which covered the bottom of the market - they are like moles, they pop up, disappear and reappear somewhere else.
I strongly suspect that as the customers of these places loose their jobs and thus disposable income, this is the very area of valeting which will be affected if any is going to be. In short, I wouldnt myself.
If I was going to advise anything, I would go mobile and specialise in semi pro valeting, ie nothing too difficult like full valeting but any valet that can be completed in 2 hours or less.
The bit of valeting that needs experience is the more specialised stuff so staying away from that keeps it simple.
Success would hang on you being persistant and inspirationally proactive, knock on every door, find out how much people want to pay and always look smart.
My business has worked because I cultivate my existing customers - impress one person and they may get you three new customers.
For a simple service, vehicle aside Id say you would need about £3-350 for start up. Remember to get Public Liability insurance whatever you do, I know a very good company for that - £70 a year.
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Should be noted that I work just 20 hours a week nowadays and have become a semi house-husband as my misses is never at home so im support staff!
Business was exceptional in December and I have advance bookings for January for two weeks solid. If I didnt read the papers, I wouldnt know there was any recession at all.
In short, Im doing fine thanks :-) and after ten years doing this work, I still love it, esp when customers get new cars which alot are right now, I live out my dreams through their nice motors!
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Good luck if you go for it. With regard to advertising, I set up a one man breakdown and recovery service. I only ever felt it was worthwhile using the local Yellow Pages and I felt that a 1 inch display ad. didn't make you look like a fly-by-night outfit using a 'one-liner'. A larger advert gave the impression you had to charge customers more to pay for it. A mobile unit is, I think, the way to start.......there may always be customers who cannot get the vehicle to you.
Ted
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I guess an issue with being mobile is dealing with the days when it rains/drizzles all day, unless your clients have large garages to work in, or you can take a large pop-up gazebo.
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Get round the smarter business parks so you can do cars while the owners are at work, perhaps, or offer a pick-up service if you are static.
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I advertise in a local directory which goes to 50,000 homes all in my local area. Costs £82.50 every 6 months. Very effective, sometimes people think a big advert means big prices so I dont pay anything for Yellow Pages and spend my money on a local business.
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I do some IT on the side and advertise at £62 a month for half page on an a5 size book to around 5000 homes. Id be interested to know the magazine you advertise in (for IT, not valeting) as it seems very cheap.
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I used to work at a small hospital - we got a valeter in to do the 5 or so vehicles the hospital had. He did a good job and soon staff wanted to use his service and they would leave their keys and money with reception and he would do the cars - in the car park using his own equipment - and return the keys to reception. It was totally hassle free for staff and very popular - he ended up getting at least 2 days a week work from our small hospital. A small (20p) donation to the hospital's charity of the year for each staff car valeted kept the managers ok about allowing it. The same thing happens at the hospital I now run. If you can get a set up like this at a couple of businesses I think you would be on reasonable earner.
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How is the IT sideline Xtype? Any signs of slowing down in the downturn?
As for the valeting, when I used to work in big corporates I was amazed by the number of people who used to have their cars valeted at work. A mobile chap would come in once or twice a month and have no shortage of work.
If you could get 2 or 3 corporates to allow you on site you could be onto a winner - probably need to get onto the Personnel dept and have some kind of discount plan for their staff as a sweetner. Probably best to approach them after a few months of being set up so you can show you have been doing it for a while. A good handle might be getting yourself a Police criminal check-up to show that you are an honest and reliable kind of bod or offering something like buy 5 valets and get 1 free? People like deals.
Best of luck.
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I would pay to have it done in work.
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I have an agreement with a company locally. I dont even need to supply water as they have an outside tap. I started going on Friday mornings to clean the bosses car. This lead to lower management having their cars done and I eneded up doing 4 cars a week atleast.
Then one week I was called in to tidy up a pool car at short notice on a Tuesday - people saw me there and I ended up cleaning a whole load of other cars and stayed for 6 hours.
Quick word with the boss and he said come on Tuesdays aswell.
I do a wash for £8 and wash/hoover for £12 which given the level of work they give me, all in the same place, its easy money. Just keep the management happy and other staff follow.
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We have a big office in the Manchester area. A company comes to site often... we have a site near Warrington and a company when I was last based there came to site often but our company stopped that somehow.
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Is there any problem with environmental agency over this type of thing, i know where you have fixed washes that water treatment, recycling, separation etc can be quite rigorously enforced.
I don't suppose the authorities would bother about a mobile chap washing a half a dozen cars once a week, unless there's some licence money to extract of course, but what sort of water recycling systems do the semi permanent car washes at nearly every supermarket or closed filling station have to comply with, as i see precious little evidence.
I understand there are restrictions in Germany on car washing with a hose pipe, i wonder how long we'll be allowed to do such a thing for.
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.. wonder how long we'll be allowed to do such a thing for.
Not too long, going by these stories [can be found in other reports using a search engine, I have chosen the shortest links ]:
www.laughingcavalier.co.uk/couldntmakeitup.htm
www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/67288
"A company boss faces a £300 fine ? for failing to declare his sandwich wrapper as ?industrial waste?. "
timworstall.com/2008/12/19/bwahahahahahaha-2/
"A JEWELLER has been told by a council to hand over £2,000 of gold dust ? so it can be taken to a tip. Torbay Council has ruled that the gold dust is commercial waste and has asked him to prove that he disposes of it properly. Mr Doble says that the authority refuses to believe that he is not putting it into his dustbin. "
Edited by jbif on 02/01/2009 at 23:48
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Many thanks for the links, i agree it won't be long, the loonies really are etc.
Edited by gordonbennet on 03/01/2009 at 00:09
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Interesting about Germany.......also in Manchester. Unless it has been repealed, the Manchester Waterworks Improvement Act of 1844 banned the washing of any 'carriage' on a public highway within the city.
Another point, I always thought that it was good sense to turn up dressed properly.....polished Doc Martins, collar and tie and overalls with company badge on. I don't know, but it always made me feel more professional.
Ted
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Just dont even mention it! The industry is well aware of the threat and is why a large proportion of valeters I know keep voting for any party that will withdraw from EU.
You do need to have separate drainage for a static operation which is why many of the sites that pop up dont last forever as once the powers that be are onto them, they presumably get moved on.
You can now buy 'safe' chemicals which are apparently eco friendly, no acids etc.
In reality, very little of the car valeting chemicals are very hazardous and pressure washers are quite economical with water, esp if you use rainwater which was suggested, but when the company I clean cars for considered it, they worked out that I dont really use much water and it wasnt costs effective. From an eco point of view good stuff tho.
Prewash is basically a variation on Fairy Liquid ( fancy degreaser ) and the only really nasty stuff is wheel cleaner which is Hydrochloric acid based - this stuff DOES burn if you spill it on skin and leave for a while ( I know I soaked my trainer in it once and thinking it was water, left it - ouch big time, no shoe for three days! ). The actual concentrations and amounts you use in practice are so small though - I use about 6 ltrs a year if that and it is heavily diluted with water in use.
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Insurance wise how do things work?
You put son of a gun on the brake pedal rubber???
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I guess an issue with being mobile is dealing with the days when it rains/drizzles all day unless your clients have large garages to work in or you can take a large pop-up gazebo.
Whatever you decide, I hope that you'll use more than one bucket of water when you clean each car.
The local 'professionals' operating and who have taken over about 40 prime parking bays in my local town centre's shopping mall seem, on casual looking, to use one bucket of water per car, including the wheels.
There is always a high proportion of black cars being cleaned, not unsurprisingly.
Why people choose black in a country such as ours that has such grotty weather is beyond my comprehension
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I use one bucket per car BUT always use pre-wash so you get most of the muck off anyway before soaping down. If the first car is really clean then you can use it for the next car though.
I do use the soap for the wheels BUT only after ive already soaped the bodywork, so that brakedust isnt slapped all over the paintwork. Its just basic common sense and procedure - a sure sign of someone not properly trained if they lack this.
A sponge a valeter does not make.
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