Is there ever a “best” time to start a detailing business?

Best is very subjective. For some, the “best” time is when they’re fed up with their current job and want a change, for some it’s a long-planned out strategy based on market trends and careful saving in order to realise their dream career. Timing is only one piece of the puzzle – our full guide on how to start a detailing business covers the rest – but with weather affecting so much of the workflow, let’s look at the seasons from a detailing perspective, and the pros and cons for a starting point.

Spring – The Revival Rush

If you already have the knowledge and equipment, spring is a great time to start a detailing business in earnest.

People are getting their cars out of the garage and going on long drives so they’re starting to notice the condition following removal of the Winter sight-blinders – the ones that made them think “why clean it, it’s only going to get dirty straight away…”.

The weather is still hit or miss though, so you’ll probably be rained off a bit, and if you’re setting up from scratch you’ll probably miss out on the “early season” – it’s going to take a few months for a business to pick up enough from zero start, unless you invest some serious time in advertising and promotion, all of which take you away from work and earning money.

Spring is generally good at revival work – cars which have sat a bit over the winter and perhaps need a bit of extra time spent getting them back ready to use, such as convertibles and second or third cars – and a lot of motorbikes start to emerge as the roads become safer, so pushing the “Spring clean” vibe has proven success.

Summer – High demand and longer hours

Starting a detailing business in summer means you pick up new clients quickly because demand is high.

The downside is many people go away on holiday over the hotter months so work can fluctuate quite a bit, and holiday costs can take priority over non-essential spending.

Add into that the months needed to build the business initially, and you’re going to start becoming busy enough right as the kids go back to school and the September lull sets in. This could change your customer type just as you were getting settled, so you need to keep on your toes with marketing to existing and new clients regardless of how busy your next week is looking.

As for the type of work; the summer sunshine usually highlights paint defects more too, so you can expect an upturn in correction work and ceramics to “lock in” the finish. You may have extreme heat to deal with, but a combination of weather watching and starting earlier or staying out of the midday heat can balance well with the extended hours of light available.

If all your ducks are in a row by the end of the spring rain though, you’re in a great position to grow quickly and develop long-term clients.

Autumn – strong demand but unpredictable weather

Autumn is a bit of a “mad rush broken up by dullness” bell curve when it comes to diary organisation.

You’ll benefit from the second wave of new car deliveries and more frequent visits caused by the wet roads, but you’ll also have shorter days and less predictable weather. Your full diary could be thrown into disarray with a week of torrential rain and strong winds if you’re unequipped to deal with it, but customers are usually happy to be flexible if you give them enough notice.

Autumn is usually a time to keep ticking over with regular clients, find and assess winter work projects, and intersperse them with larger jobs, either at businesses or client premises, or at the workshop – if static.  Winter protections are a great upsell, preparing cars for the road salt-laden days ahead, and glass treatments for the wet weather, and its a chance for many customers to invest a bit more in advance to reap the benefits of a lower maintenance winter.

Start a detailing business now and this will allow you to slowly build regular dependable clients, and give you a platform for an easy boost transition the following year when business picks up again.

Winter – short days, but not short on work

Many use a winter lull as a chance to catch up and develop their skills looking forward to the next year, but “winter hibernation” is a myth, and the season can get quite busy – if you market your services correctly.

Educated customers know that regular cleaning will help keep vehicle corrosion down to a minimum, so pushing the service more as critical maintenance rather than for vanity may be a more productive tactic, and whilst some prefer to save on cleaning for aesthetic reasons, factoring in road salt, oily windscreens, and frozen panels from water-soaked surface dirt are genuine selling points which will benefit the customer – and they can have it cleaned from the comfort of their warm living room.

Also, in Winter, the public are much less… hygienic in their vehicles, so interiors fast become damp, rubbish-filled, and stuffy from the lack of open windows. Services such as interior-only valeting, disinfection, and ozone or fog treatments can prove to be a winter hit with clients who don’t want to worry too much about the exterior, but are conscious of virus build up and spreading.

Shorter hours and cold starts can throw up problems to solve, but nothing insurmountable – you can postpone where impractical, and there’s always the option of portable lighting if a job drags on late.

Winter is a great time for training too, with shorter hours it gives you an opportunity to practice skills, tidy up social media, work on your business plan and visit training centres for the next big push on your journey to start a detailing business.

So which is best to start?

The short answer is, that there is no perfect time to start a detailing business and it largely depends on where you are at with development.

The best time is whenever you feel ready.

If you want to work up to it with a soft launch Autumn gives you a gentle six-month ramp until Spring, with the option of plenty of work if you push the right services or find there is demand. Winter is ideal if you want to develop and build the foundations ready for a Spring push and benefit from your wheels already turning in the Summer months.

Spring is great if everything is in place and you’re just looking to go full time and get down to the hard graft, and Summer will allow you to earn plenty so that you can strategise your next steps in comfort when everything calms down a bit.

The biggest variable is you, and training with UK Detailing Academy can put you in the best place to make those decisions, and get them right the first time.