Every detailing business has a starting point.
Mine started knocking on doors.
About eight years ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was walking neighborhoods offering car details for about $100 a vehicle. I had some basic tools, very little experience, and a lot of determination.
And honestly… it sucked.
Most people said no. Work was inconsistent. Some days I didn’t get anything.
But I kept going.
Because every car I touched taught me something.
Learning the Craft the Hard Way
Early on I realized something important:
I didn’t know enough about professional detailing.
So instead of pretending I did, I started doing something a lot of people are afraid to do.
I walked into detailing shops and chemical suppliers and started asking questions.
One day I stopped by Great Lakes Chemical and Detailing Services in Grand Rapids.
A young guy there took the time to talk with me, explain professional detailing products, and help me understand the difference between what professionals use and what you buy off the shelf.
That day I bought my first professional buffer and my first real detailing chemicals.
That moment changed everything.
I learned quickly that most store-bought detailing products aren’t designed for real production work. Professional chemicals and tools are built for efficiency and consistency.
And that’s when my results started getting better.
Finding Consistent Work
I kept knocking on doors and slowly building a few customers.
But eventually I realized something.
Residential customers are great, but they’re not always consistent enough to build a real business.
So I started approaching car dealerships.
Most of them said no.
But eventually one small dealership gave me a chance.
Suddenly I had two or three cars every day.
I wasn’t getting rich — maybe a couple hundred dollars per vehicle.
But I was making around $1,000 a week while learning the craft, and that consistency was huge.
It gave me repetition, speed, and real experience.
Moving Into Luxury Vehicles
As my skills improved and I kept learning from different shops and suppliers, someone eventually recommended me for a job at a luxury dealership detailing department.
They handled brands like:
• BMW
• Land Rover
• Mini Cooper
Working there exposed me to a completely different level of vehicles and expectations.
I stayed there for about a year, especially because Michigan winters make mobile detailing extremely difficult.
And that’s where I learned something even more important than detailing.
The Power of Systems
When I first got there, the detailing department had a major problem.
There were no systems.
Chemicals weren’t labeled.
Processes weren’t consistent.
Everyone detailed cars differently.
It was chaos.
So I started organizing everything.
Labeling chemicals.
Creating workflows.
Standardizing how vehicles were detailed.
Quality control became a huge focus.
Eventually customers started coming to the dealership specifically for detailing because they loved the quality of the work.
At that time I had been detailing for less than a year.
A lot of that attention to detail came from how I was raised. My parents were extremely strict about discipline, organization, and doing things properly — even things like cleaning a room or finishing homework.
Those habits carried over into the business.
College, Life, and a Hard Decision
During all of this I was attending Grand Valley State University studying biology in a pre-med program.
But life started getting real.
Rent was expensive. My partner and I had responsibilities, a dog, and bills to pay.
Eventually I had to make a tough decision.
School alone wasn’t going to cover those bills.
So I stepped away and focused on building a career.
The $24-a-Day Job
Before everything started working out, I also worked at a detailing shop that was honestly a disaster.
Long hours. No structure. Poor management.
After ten-hour shifts with no breaks I was making about $24 a day in profit.
It wasn’t sustainable.
But it taught me something incredibly valuable.
Sometimes the best lesson you can learn is what a bad business looks like.
Building My Own Company
Eventually I went back to doing what worked.
Knocking on doors.
Building relationships.
Learning every system I could.
I took everything I had learned from dealerships, suppliers, shops, and mistakes and started building my own company.
Over time the systems improved.
The reputation grew.
Customers started coming consistently.
By the fourth year, the company generated about $467,000 in revenue.
Training Hundreds of Detailers
Over the years I’ve trained hundreds of detailers.
Some of them went on to build incredible businesses. A few built companies doing six figures and even seven figures in revenue.
But here’s something important I learned.
The guys who did the best early on were usually the ones who started when we had the least amount of systems in place. They had to figure things out themselves and grind through the problems.
Now that we have better systems and structure, I’m seeing even stronger results from the people coming through training.
Because success in detailing isn’t just about polishing paint.
It’s about running a real business.
The Biggest Mistake I Made
If there’s one major mistake I made during that journey, it was this:
I spent too much time working in the business instead of working on the business.
I focused on doing the work.
But I didn’t focus enough on building systems early.
And systems matter.
Because when you don’t have systems, everything depends on you.
If you don’t have:
• customer tracking
• proper booking systems
• tax structure
• hiring processes
• onboarding procedures
• marketing systems
Then the business stops the moment you stop.
What happens if you get sick?
What happens if you want to take a vacation?
What happens if you want to replace yourself?
Without systems, the business can’t grow.
Why DirtLab Exists
That’s exactly why DirtLab was created.
DirtLab isn’t just about detailing techniques.
It’s about helping detailers build real businesses.
We focus on things like:
• business systems
• marketing strategies
• CRM tools
• automation
• professional detailing methods
• the chemicals and tools that actually work
And most importantly, helping detailers avoid the mistakes that cost me years of trial and error.
Because the internet is full of TikTok advice, YouTube opinions, and comment-section experts.
But real detailing businesses are built on real experience and real systems.
The Diary Continues
This blog is called The DirtLab Playbook — the Diary of a Detailer for a reason.
Because every detailer has a story.
The struggles.
The mistakes.
The lessons.
And this is where those stories get told.