7 bolt-on services to grow your detailing business

Once you’re ticking along with your detailing empire and the work is flowing through, you can look to add significant growth to your detailing business.

Bolt-ons are what we would call complementary services – something that you can use as either an up-sell or a stand-alone service your existing customers will also be interested in.

Here’s a rundown of UKDA’s seven best options, in order of expense vs reward.

1: Headlight Restoration

Investment – 2/10

Profitability – 4/10

Headlight refurbishment is not going to make you rich overnight, but it’s a relatively quick and in-demand service you can offer when needed, without keeping expensive stock. It’s also an upsell on anything from standard valets to a stand-alone MOT failure.

The typical charge is anything from £45 per headlight and it can be completed with some wet & dry paper and your normal compounds. Alternatively, you can speed up the job with a mini dual-action sander and some reusable sanding film discs, making the process more efficient. Depending on severity, these can take anything from 10 minutes a side for slightly oxidised headlights, to 25 minutes for making the best out of a severely neglected set.

Sanding is removing lots of material, and plastic can overheat and craze, so be mindful that a damaged headlight can be quite expensive – Porsche Cayenne headlights, for example, can be around £2000 to replace, so perhaps some scrap headlights for initial practice are in order. if you want a headstart, our Professional Sanding course covers headlight restoration as a module, and it also features on our Level 2 Professional Development course as our route to building your business.

2: Odour Treatments

Investment – 3/10

Profitability – 4-5/10

Again, more of a service upsell. The investment could be anything from a £30 fog machine and a bottle of fluid, or reactive chemical odour kits, to a professional ozone machine for several hundred pounds.

Each has merit and can be charged accordingly – again, as an up-sell with an interior detail or as a stand-alone service. At £40-90 a hit for odour services, it offers a good return, especially once an ozone machine is paid off as it doesn’t have any consumables.

However, don’t expect the process to take the cause of the smell away on its own – remove the cause first or they’ll be back a week later. Odour removal is just one of the topics on our Advanced Interior Detailing course.

3:Stone Chip touch-ins

Investment – 2/10

Profitability – 3/10

Stone chip touch-in services are an easy add-on if you’re already polishing – though you might need a bit of advanced notice unless you have a paint mixing system in to get the colour match, but anyone who drives a Porsche will need AT LEAST one stone chip repairing, along with wheel arch gravel rash – and that applies to most cars, especially pre-sale or lease returns.

Sanding is a skill you will need, either by hand or spot machine, and a denibber can be useful, but most of the cost is in paint and time.

If sanding is something you’re looking to start or take up, our sanding and flatting course will give you all the skills you will need.

4: Leather Repair

Investment – 4-6/10

Profitability – 8/10

A specialism potential customers will search for when tidying up a car. Leather recolouring and repair can be anything from a minor bolster scratch on a black leather drivers seat, costing little in consumables and time, to a full restoration of a worn and tired interior; including door cards, handles and even dash boards.

At the complex end, this would require a full kit to repair, grain match, colour match and finish on the fly – unless you order ready-made colours in. The potential for profit is limited only by your capacity and marketing ability – and if you’re not offering it, customers may go to a competitor who does it all just for convenience, so it can pay back twice with other work to complete in tandem.

Training costs will vary depending on how ready for action you want to be. Our courses are designed to get you earning straight away at any level, but if you have time to experiment and practice alone, there are more basic courses available to test the water with before full investment.

5: Window Tinting

Investment – 6/10

Profitability – 3/10 – on a part-time basis

Window tinting is a business in its own right, but you can potentially install as an additional service.

The issue is you need to be doing it regularly to build up your install speed and skill level, so don’t be surprised when a “quick tint” takes up most of a day you could have spent machine polishing for twice the amount.

Training can be fairly cheap with some manufacturers, and starter tools aren’t expensive. You will need to purchase by the roll for the best prices on film though, so stock can get quite costly over several ranges and options when maximising profit, but you can buy in smaller amounts to start from some suppliers.

A clean environment is a must, while some basic trim removal knowledge will help. There will likely be lots of small specialist competition in built up areas area though, and per-job rates aren’t that high for the time it can take.

6: Caliper Painting

Investment – 6/10

Profitability – 7/10

Being labour intensive, and needing to abide by paint drying times, make this service worthwhile as part of bigger-picture detail when you have a car in for a larger enhancement project.

It’s messy, and depending on the style of refurb offered, you will need some decent knowledge of the mechanical side, along with a good eye for painting and preparation, but it is a profitable add-on to consider.

Whilst you CAN complete them on axle stands, if you are competent at jacking safely, those who have a ramp are most of the way through the investment on the wisest method, so it’s mostly the skills you need. This suits unit-based companies best, as a ventilated workshop space ensuring protection from the elements is a must for high quality results.

7: Paint Protection Film

Investment – 9/10

Profitability – 9/10

Tricky and infuriating, but incredibly profitable. That pretty much sums up PPF install.

Once you’re in the flow it’s a dream for income, but don’t expect that flow to arrive in the first six months. Add to that the cleanest of workspaces, an expensive plotter and pattern license, and rolls of film costing around £1000+ each for 60 inches wide, and it’s not a quick return. But if you stick with it, have the right place and enough to invest, it can be a business in its own right.

Other options

So there you are. Seven options to expand your business with bolt-on services.

It doesn’t stop at these seven by any means – you can look at smart repairs, car storage, motorcycle detailing, or even studio photography services for the client’s freshly detailed treasure…

Whatever it is, if you’re looking to grow, UK Detailing Academy can help. Whether with one of our trainers in our studio, to learn skills in a safe and controlled environment, or a Business and Marketing day with our guru to see where the opportunities may be. Get in touch for a chat and see what we can do to grow your detailing business and add new detailing services.