wax and wash

Wow really? Would you pay someone the amount you are proposing? If you were me, what would your sales pitch be and would you be willing to negotiate?

Absolutely.

My sales pitch is simply knowing people. A casual joke about "finding someone to clean it" helps. To be honest I have just asked and I have been pretty successful. Other times people have asked me, which brings me to here...

Try offering a discount to your current clients for referrals. You'll probably get more and better customers than you would from making up flyers.

I wouldn't even do that. Let your work speak for itself and create a reputation for yourself. Eventually you will be that guy on the field who does wash and wax and does a good job to. Plus when you have an airplane pulled out and they see you busting your back all day, they might ask you next.

If you want customers, network and build a reputation. Don't sell yourself short for accepting low pay for hard work. If you have anymore questions post or PM me.

Good luck and enjoy smelling like wax for three days!
 
Absolutely.

My sales pitch is simply knowing people. A casual joke about "finding someone to clean it" helps. To be honest I have just asked and I have been pretty successful. Other times people have asked me, which brings me to here...



I wouldn't even do that. Let your work speak for itself and create a reputation for yourself. Eventually you will be that guy on the field who does wash and wax and does a good job to. Plus when you have an airplane pulled out and they see you busting your back all day, they might ask you next.

If you want customers, network and build a reputation. Don't sell yourself short for accepting low pay for hard work. If you have anymore questions post or PM me.

Good luck and enjoy smelling like wax for three days!

Thanks for the advice...If I do have more questions.....then I will PM you.
 
I can't count how many times I've washed and waxed aircraft. I know how much work it involves. Try a polished (bare metal) C-140 to really know....

My reasoning was the dude is already involved in the washing so the waxing is basically a value-added service. Now, if you divide the wash and the wax into two separate events I would agree with you.

6 hours to wash and wax a typical spam can = over $30/hour @ $200 (150 to wash; 50 to wax). With experience that 6 hours drops to less than 4 hours for a complete spit and polish supremo job. Three planes per day is not an unreasonable expectation for a serious person. Yes, your bones will hate you at the end of the day but at those rates you can afford to hire 1-2 persons to work as a 2-3 man crew. And you're still making a healthy profit to reinvest into the biz.

Making it work on paper is one thing, making it work in the field is the proof. And I can say it can and does work in the field. A 9% profit is pretty damn good for a service.

If a Bo owner walked at $200 I would gladly help him out the door. And I'm one of the cheapskate pilots.

Best advice in this thread. Being to expensive for certain people is a good thing. You don't want all the business out there. Some people just aren't worth dealing with.

Keep in mind that guy is probably spending Several hundred if not thousands a month just flying the plane around. If he can't spare a couple hours of flight time to wash his plane that is his problem.
 
Best advice in this thread. Being to expensive for certain people is a good thing. You don't want all the business out there. Some people just aren't worth dealing with.

Keep in mind that guy is probably spending Several hundred if not thousands a month just flying the plane around. If he can't spare a couple hours of flight time to wash his plane that is his problem.
Absolutely. There is that 'hassle factor' where some people are just not worth your time. You don't want them as your customers until they change their attitude. In the small world of aviation you can not afford to dismiss a potential client so you have to find another way to keep them from becoming a client.
 
I used to work for a guy building custom cabinetry. A client low balled him on a bunch of custom furniture because he "entertained a lot and would refer all of his friends."

My boss' reply was "If all your friends are cheap asses like yourself I'm not interested."

The guy paid full price.
 
I used to work for a guy building custom cabinetry. A client low balled him on a bunch of custom furniture because he "entertained a lot and would refer all of his friends."

My boss' reply was "If all your friends are cheap asses like yourself I'm not interested."

The guy paid full price.

:clap:
 
Cody, your boss prevailed because he didn't fall for the fictitous theory that he could make up a low price on volume. I can't say the same for 90% of the business owners or wanna be owners out there.

Be careful on such a direct confrontation with the client...you could win the war but lose the battle. Even bad clients have friends and word or mouth is either your best or worst form of advertisment. As nice as it feels to tell a slimeball client to go pound sand it can and will backfire.

Bidding is one of the hardest parts of being in business. I've had guys into their 4th decade of running a business admit that they still don't have a handle on bidding/customer relations. The answer I've found that works most of the time is to bid way high when confronted with a problematic client. Pay attention to how to size up a client...look for the cues that are a dead give away.
 
Setting the price seems to be a concept I have not quite grasped. It seems that one just needs experience with customer relations to really feel out a good price for economic profitability. I am excited thogh. I am working out a business plan for this washing stuff and hopefully it will do well enough where I won't have to get a "real" job.
 
Setting the price seems to be a concept I have not quite grasped. It seems that one just needs experience with customer relations to really feel out a good price for economic profitability. I am excited thogh. I am working out a business plan for this washing stuff and hopefully it will do well enough where I won't have to get a "real" job.

Instead of thinking of a hard number now, or even thinking about the current market prices right now - I would expand a little "outside the box".

First, come up with your list of services and things you would be wanting to do. Then, estimate the logistics of this - how long would it take you to accomplish these things daily/hourly (this will show your investment in time and thinking logistics starts the process of delivering services more efficiently).

Once you know what your investment is - time AND capital - then you can start to think about your customers. Is there any way you can profile these people? Do you know them? If so, what do they do? Can you look up and "average earnings" based upon what they do to estimate income? (point here - try to know as much about your market as possible). What are the airplanes they own worth roughly? How much avarage income does someone in their profession make? Google is your friend - NEVER had this kind of tool when I was a kid.

Keep in mind - people are hiring you not necessarily because they are too lazy or even mind doing stuff like this. The primary reason they would hire you to do this is to save time. I don't really care to have employees at all - it isn't a goal for me to have people work for me or not and generally they are a pain in the ass. The point is though, I can buy their time for less money than I can spend my own, thereby allowing me to use my own time making more money on other tasks than I pay them. The people you are hoping to provide this service for feel the same way (although they may not articulate it). The idea is that they are busy and their time is worth "x" amount of dollars (assume a 2000 hour work year). If they make $200,000 annually, you can roughly estimate that they make $100 per hour (although they certainly work more hours...but you have to start somewhere). The idea is that if they are worth $100 per hour, and you can save them "x" amount of hours per week/month by doing mundane crap then you have created value ("x" amount of hours times "x" dollars per hour). from this you can factor in the value you are creating and price your services as some amount of that figure. If you are asked how you created the pricing you can explain your estimates and that would allow you to explain the economic value as well as time that you are creating for these people.

Having a set methodology for your pricing allows you to decide if this is something that makes economic sense for you, and it also allows you to be able to easily explain it to your clients and prospective clients in order to show the value of your services. Pricing things based only upon the market prices for services in your area smply means that you are cedeing control of your pricing to others, and it also assumes that the services are equivalent - which wouldn't be the case in comparing a simple airplane washing to an "aircraft concierge" service. Sharpen the pencil and do these kinds of thoughts/calculations prior to starting the business/endevor. If it makes sense on paper and you can accomplish your goals faster than simply taking a job at McDonalds, then do it. If fry-man at McDonalds would get you down the road faster, then do that. Either way, come up with this kind of thinking prior to starting - too many people hang out a shingle and start a business with no deeper though than "Hey, it would be cool to have my own business", not understanding if it is actually financially worthwhile or viable prior to doing it.
 
Instead of thinking of a hard number now, or even thinking about the current market prices right now - I would expand a little "outside the box".

First, come up with your list of services and things you would be wanting to do. Then, estimate the logistics of this - how long would it take you to accomplish these things daily/hourly (this will show your investment in time and thinking logistics starts the process of delivering services more efficiently).

Once you know what your investment is - time AND capital - then you can start to think about your customers. Is there any way you can profile these people? Do you know them? If so, what do they do? Can you look up and "average earnings" based upon what they do to estimate income? (point here - try to know as much about your market as possible). What are the airplanes they own worth roughly? How much avarage income does someone in their profession make? Google is your friend - NEVER had this kind of tool when I was a kid.

Keep in mind - people are hiring you not necessarily because they are too lazy or even mind doing stuff like this. The primary reason they would hire you to do this is to save time. I don't really care to have employees at all - it isn't a goal for me to have people work for me or not and generally they are a pain in the ass. The point is though, I can buy their time for less money than I can spend my own, thereby allowing me to use my own time making more money on other tasks than I pay them. The people you are hoping to provide this service for feel the same way (although they may not articulate it). The idea is that they are busy and their time is worth "x" amount of dollars (assume a 2000 hour work year). If they make $200,000 annually, you can roughly estimate that they make $100 per hour (although they certainly work more hours...but you have to start somewhere). The idea is that if they are worth $100 per hour, and you can save them "x" amount of hours per week/month by doing mundane crap then you have created value ("x" amount of hours times "x" dollars per hour). from this you can factor in the value you are creating and price your services as some amount of that figure. If you are asked how you created the pricing you can explain your estimates and that would allow you to explain the economic value as well as time that you are creating for these people.

Having a set methodology for your pricing allows you to decide if this is something that makes economic sense for you, and it also allows you to be able to easily explain it to your clients and prospective clients in order to show the value of your services. Pricing things based only upon the market prices for services in your area smply means that you are cedeing control of your pricing to others, and it also assumes that the services are equivalent - which wouldn't be the case in comparing a simple airplane washing to an "aircraft concierge" service. Sharpen the pencil and do these kinds of thoughts/calculations prior to starting the business/endevor. If it makes sense on paper and you can accomplish your goals faster than simply taking a job at McDonalds, then do it. If fry-man at McDonalds would get you down the road faster, then do that. Either way, come up with this kind of thinking prior to starting - too many people hang out a shingle and start a business with no deeper though than "Hey, it would be cool to have my own business", not understanding if it is actually financially worthwhile or viable prior to doing it.

I am glad I have that internship this summer! It is nice seeing that some of my classes I took this year will pay off. What you explained is closely related to my micro economics class. If you don't mind though. I would like to run my business plan by you periodically so I can refine it and you can offer your advice on it. I also will be trying to build my clientele base and maybe I can show you who's who and hopefully se if there will be economic profitability. Thanks for all the help so far!
 
I am glad I have that internship this summer! It is nice seeing that some of my classes I took this year will pay off. What you explained is closely related to my micro economics class. If you don't mind though. I would like to run my business plan by you periodically so I can refine it and you can offer your advice on it. I also will be trying to build my clientele base and maybe I can show you who's who and hopefully se if there will be economic profitability. Thanks for all the help so far!

Well man...this is where we need to negotiate...lest I give help for free and am then considered a SCAB by other business types.

I will provide consulting, and will help and take an interest. For payment I require you to start a thread in the lav called "Pretty girls for Waco". You will then post pictures of pretty girls - obscure pretty girls, unknowns, famous, or any other kind. I like "natural" looking girls as well - keep that in mind. By having you post in its own thread, I am not being greedy...I am sharing it with my JC brethren (and sistren - in the case of RightSeatGirl). :beer:
 
Well man...this is where we need to negotiate...lest I give help for free and am then considered a SCAB by other business types.

I will provide consulting, and will help and take an interest. For payment I require you to start a thread in the lav called "Pretty girls for Waco". You will then post pictures of pretty girls - obscure pretty girls, unknowns, famous, or any other kind. I like "natural" looking girls as well - keep that in mind. By having you post in its own thread, I am not being greedy...I am sharing it with my JC brethren (and sistren - in the case of RightSeatGirl). :beer:


Im officially tuning in. You have all kinds of splendid ideas Waco!
 
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