#43 How to Get High-Paying Clients Without Spending a Dollar on Ads | Coty Barnum

Networking, client acquisition, organic marketing, entrepreneurship, personal branding, and business growth—Coty Barnum explains how he built a successful detailing business without spending money on advertising.

In this episode of Based Business, Parker McCumber sits down with Coty Barnum, founder of Slick Detailing Company, to discuss how networking, free work, referrals, and relentless outreach helped him build a thriving business serving high-end vehicle owners across Utah.

Before launching Slick Detailing, Coty worked in construction, metal fabrication, and door-to-door sales. Those experiences taught him how to connect with people, build trust, and create opportunities long before he had a marketing budget.

His biggest insight?

👉 The fastest way to grow a business isn't ads—it's relationships.

💡 In this episode, you'll learn:

• How to get clients without running ads
• Why doing free work can accelerate growth
• The networking strategy that built Coty's business
• How to attract high-value clients
• Why referrals outperform most marketing
• How to build authority through organic content
• The benefits of memberships and recurring revenue
• When to hire your first employee
• Why most entrepreneurs quit too early

🚀 Who this episode is for:

• Entrepreneurs trying to get more clients
• Service business owners
• Detailers and automotive business owners
• Anyone building a business from scratch
• Founders looking to grow organically

🔗 Connect with Coty Barnum:

🌐 Website: www.SlickDetailingCompany.com
📸 Instagram: @slickdetailingcompany
📘 Facebook: Slick Detailing Company
📞 Text: (702) 271-3081

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Showcase Your Craft
00:40 Meet Coty Barnum
01:08 Two Year Milestone
03:24 From Sales to Detailing
05:07 Working for Free to Win
09:56 Trading Value for Mentorship
13:09 Targeting High-Value Clients
17:21 Efficiency Through Car Clubs
20:10 Why Expertise Protects Reputation
23:39 Services, Pricing & Memberships
26:38 Organic Growth Playbook
28:59 Authority Engine Content
35:15 Networking for Referrals
37:34 Start With What You Have
40:16 Start Before You're Ready
41:15 The Hustle Story That Built Trust
42:59 Grinding Through Limits
43:46 Hiring Your First Employee
48:26 Hiring Math and Trust
53:57 Content Strategy for Growth
56:18 Video Hooks & Testimonials
58:20 Final Thoughts & How to Connect

#entrepreneurship #networking #businessgrowth #organicmarketing #smallbusiness

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

And the thing is, man, when you when you're good at what you do and you're passionate about what you do, if you can just get out and showcase it, people will see that. People will respect that. They build a relationship and a connection with it.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Throwing in free details, doing whatever it took to just kind of get your foot in the door. Honestly, I can't say how many details I've done for free, especially in the beginning, just to get my foot in the door. And it's opened many doors and just compounded.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

Hustle, determination, and grit are necessary for an entrepreneur, but what are you using those skills to? Networking is a superpower. Network marketing can directly grow your business and your brand, as well as build you and your relationships. I'm here today with Cody Barnum, who is a pro at networking and network marketing. Cody, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yeah, my name is Cody Barnum. Um I own and operate Slick Detailing Company here in Utah. It's a mobile detailing company. Nothing too crazy, but we get to work with some really cool.

SPEAKER_05 0:58

Don't be so humble, man. What's the nickname? Slick. King of Carpet Lines. Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

He's the king of carpet lines. True that. Um, but yeah, just uh I started a company back, um, it's been two years now this month. So it's been going pretty good and grateful.

SPEAKER_05 1:17

Dude, I love to hear you're at the two-year mark. I mean, I think we've talked about this before. The concept of uh just sticking with it for enough time, right? Most and the thing is, man, when you when you're good at what you do and you're passionate about what you do, if you can just get out and showcase it, people will see that. People will respect that, they build a relationship and a connection with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Throwing in free details, doing whatever it took to just kind of get your foot in the door. Honestly, I can't say how many details I've done for free, especially in the beginning, just to get my foot in the door. And it's opened many doors and just compounded.

SPEAKER_05 1:50

Hustle, determination, and grit are necessary for an entrepreneur, but what are you using those skills to? Networking is a superpower. Network marketing can directly grow your business and your brand, as well as build you and your relationships. I'm here today with Cody Barnum, who is a pro at networking and network marketing. Cody, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, my name is Cody Barnum. Um, I own and operate Slick Detailing Company uh here in Utah. It's a mobile detailing company. Nothing too crazy, but we get to work with some really cool.

SPEAKER_05 2:26

Don't be so humble, man. What's the nickname? Slick. King of Carpet Lines. Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

He's the king of carpet lines. True that. Um, but yeah, just uh I started a company back um two years now this month. So it's been going pretty good and grateful.

SPEAKER_05 2:45

Dude, I love to hear you're at the two-year mark. I mean, I think we've talked about this before, the concept of uh just sticking with it for enough time, right? Most businesses fail in the first year. You look at that, maybe it's 51%, right? Yeah. It's like 90% of businesses fail in the first five. So if you can just stick with something long enough to make it past that first five-year mark, you're gonna find a way to be successful. So just don't give up, right? Uh, man, I use uh Slick Detailing. You guys are awesome. Love the work you do. You've grown in the last year. That's awesome to see. Oh yeah. Tell us a little bit about what got you into wanting to start a detailing company. Like how'd you get into entrepreneurship? What were you doing before? What kind of led you to this path?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, I've kind of had kind of a weird path because I, well, I originally started in like construction, um, welding. I ran a CNC laser and water jet, um, doing a lot of metal fabrication stuff, but ended up leaving that, doing door-to-door sales, classic here in Utah, but did that for four years. And I guess that kind of gave me that little itch to like get into more entrepreneurship, but also I just wanted to do my own thing. Um, and I've always loved cars, so kind of was a gateway just to kind of go right into doing cars, and I've always loved detailing, um, pretty OCD, so that helps as well. But yeah, I just kind of jumped right into it, and I guess with that network of door to door, which was the biggest blessing, because that's where like 95% of my customers were coming from at the beginning, and just those skill sets from door to door has helped a ton to just network, get out of your comfort zone to just kind of get go out there and get customers.

SPEAKER_05 4:40

So tell me about that that process a little bit. Um, because a lot of people on the the viewers of this show are primarily new entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, people who are trying to grow a business that they're just starting. How did you build the relationships that brought in those initial customers? You said a lot of it came from just the networking that you had developed doing the door-to-door sales, but what does that actually look like when it comes to building that?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, no, it's uh Yeah, going straight into it. Um just reaching out was probably the biggest thing and just being relentless with just reaching out and talking to people, also throwing in free details, um, doing whatever it took to just kind of get your foot in the door. Uh honestly, I can't say how many details I've done for free, especially in the beginning, just to get my foot in the door. And it's opened many doors and just compounded.

SPEAKER_05 5:37

I love that you talked about the concept of working for free. That's something that's been a recurring theme on my show now, um, for the last, you know, really probably the whole show, but but especially the last few episodes. The uh last one that I filmed was with Emmanuel Na from Car Guys. And I shared my story. You know, I went I worked for free in my e-com business for two years before I took a paycheck. And my uh, you know, my wife was the sugar mama essentially took care of us. He had a similar story, you know. He worked for a full year for free before he made any money in car guys, and then it was another year before he actually made real money in car guys. So he worked for two years for practically nothing. Um talking to uh Adam King, I think before him. Uh Adam's on the show talking about, you know, he went in on his own business and his wife was like the support, the foundation. He's learning and working through this. I'm like, man, the secret here is you have to be willing to go and do some hard work and expect nothing in return. And that's a difficult ask for people because it's not safe. There's not financial security in doing that, but it's how you get your foot in the door and how you start to build something that actually has value or that, like in your case, those free details develop relationships with people. You demonstrate your work, the quality of work. They can see that, then they want to, okay, hey, can we leverage that into a testimonial maybe? Can we get our a review out of that? And then how do you use those to sell? I think is the next step. Is that kind of the path that you were you took?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah, 100%. And it's funny you say, like, Adam King, like I was just listening to that podcast with you and him. And yeah, it's just cool to see like that. You, him, and Emmanuel, like all these guys, like I look up to you guys, and like the things you guys have done to get to where you are motivates me because like, yeah, I want to be like you guys who don't write, but you definitely have to do things that you don't totally want to do, but it definitely is worth it in the end.

SPEAKER_05 7:40

I like that you you know, looking at the long-term goal there because it's difficult, it's a hard sell to work for free at all in any capacity, right? Yeah, uh, let alone the crazy dudes who are working for for free or for nothing for a year, you know, type thing. Um you have to be willing to invest in yourself, you have to be willing to invest in your brand, your business. And the reality is that means a lot of times you're going without or giving up on the early stages. Uh when I say giving up, I mean financial security or or a paycheck or something like that. But the trade-off is maybe after those two years, people start looking at you a little bit different. They wonder, well, how the how did he do this? Did he get overnight success? Where'd all the money come from? The money came from I didn't get paid for two years. I put every dime back into the business and the business grew as a result. You know? Um I think it's really important. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, perhaps, or you're building a business right now, you have to be willing to invest in you. You have to be willing to invest in the business, and you have to do it for a long enough period of time that you just you make anything but success unreasonable.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Very true. Yeah. No, I think it's definitely it's a path and everyone has their own way, but I think it's definitely, I mean, it's gonna take sacrifice, especially if it's working for free. Um, like who wants to work all day for nothing, right? Yeah. Or let alone a whole year.

SPEAKER_05 9:10

Uh well, it's not just working for free, I think. Okay, so in your example, you're out doing details for free. But what's it actually cost to do a detail outside of your time? Yeah, you have resources that have to go into that, right? You've got cleaning supplies and you know, you're wearing out some of that stuff or using it up the the like there's a cost associated, you're actually paying to do work in some of those instances. But that again is an investment in the business and the relationship and the brand. And the thing is, man, when you when you're good at what you do and you're passionate about what you do, if you can just get out and showcase it, people will see that. People will respect that. They build a relationship and a connection with it. I mean, that was one of the things that first um impressed me about you. So, Cody, our backstory, Cody reaches out to me on Instagram. He's like, hey man, I used to detail some of your cars. Uh would you teach me about like how to get cars and watches or something like that? Like, coach me on that. I'm like, Yeah, man, sure. Come on in. Let's let's let's talk. He said he agreed to trade me details. You're like, I'll detail a couple cars for you if you'll coach me a little bit. First off, I love that like the mindset, the deal around that. If you have a resource, you can always find a way to leverage. Um, so even if you can't afford to pay for something, make a trade, make a deal with somebody. Like that's that's G status, in my opinion. Um because it you're on the hustle, you're on the grind. People respect that. So I respect that for sure. Um, you come in, we talk for a little bit, we kind of break down your business, uh, identify maybe some points to work on. But here's the thing Cody comes in and does the details then on my cars. And I see that, and I'm like, well, now we've had an ongoing relationship, right? Uh by the way, your details since you started your own company are way better than whatever that other company was. I forget what their name was.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, sure, yeah. So after I did Door Door, there that Door Door company had a detail company. It was called Shine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it was, Shine. And I worked for them for it was like maybe a couple months. And then I ended up going back to Door Door. Well, that's really how we met was through Shine. And then start mount, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

Gotcha. Yeah, dude. But you get out there, you demonstrate you're passionate about the work, you're doing good quality work, then you get the referrals, you get the testimonials, you get the network, you get people that want to refer you to other people. It's all great, man. So I love that mindset. I think that that's something somebody who's listening to the show or watching on YouTube right now could take and say, you know what, maybe there's a strategy here for me where I can connect with people who could help me, or I could connect with people that will be good clients if I can just make a deal on the front end.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, no, it's funny you say that because with working with you, doing starting with that, I also did kind of similar things with like Bronson Gomez, who's been a ton of help, and a few other guys, and all of you guys kind of worked together, I guess without knowing, to get me into Club Paddock, which has been a huge blessing because I guess the opportunity came and they're looking for someone to kind of take over and replace further detailing. And I just got a random message from Angelo asking, Hey, would you like to be like, would you detail the rest? And I was kind of surprised, but I was like, How'd like how do you find me? And I guess from a ton of people.

SPEAKER_05 12:50

He's like, Well, well, Parker and Bronson and 20 other people referred you.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah, exactly. And it just crazy.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

Turns out all of the members are already using you on the outside.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah, really. Yeah. And it's just kind of funny how like compounds like just kind of set taking a sacrifice direction, we'll just compound and then open doors for you.

SPEAKER_05 13:09

So this is a good business model, and I don't know if you're consciously recognizing it, but I want the viewers to hear it too. Think about the people you want to work with or serve, right? The people you want as a customer. Who's the ideal customer for your business? Think about that for a second. In in the case of Slick, and I'm not, you know, you, but this would be my assessment is I want to work with people who own multiple supercars. You're not wrong. One, if they have multiple supercars, that means I can detail more than one car a month, so a bigger paycheck. Two, those people have money, and so they're not gonna stiff you or be a bad customer. They're not, you know, sweating the little details, that kind of thing. Three, they know other people that have supercars and multiple supercars, and they have the network and they participate in clubs like Club Paddock and Fast Lane Drive and all those kind of things, right? So that's how I think, okay, my target avatar is someone who owns more than one supercar. Here's the beauty of it. You get in with one, we're all friends. Yeah, we all hang out, we do business together, we know each other. So when they see me post about it on social media, they can see my car is in good shape, and they say, Oh, yeah, that would that could help me. That'd make my car look good. So it's it's just uh it's a fast track. You need to change the model of chasing every dollar or every small ticket and start chasing the people that are gonna make the business work. Chasing the right customers. Um, and a lot of people I think do that the wrong way, especially you know, now everything's everything's online. People will chase the quick buck. And they might think of it in the sense of, you know, how many Honda Civics are there out there versus Ferrari SF-90s? Yeah. So they start chasing the Honda Civics. But the Honda Civic customers are not the same as the SF-90 customers. Totally not. And the Honda Civic customers might get a little bit more antsy about paying a couple hundred bucks for a detail that's a harder sell to them. They might also uh not necessarily have the same network of people with multiple cars, they're not going to get the referrals the same way. They might, you know, tell their friend about you, but even telling their friend about you is a harder sell again because it's maybe money's a little bit tighter or they don't have the right uh mindset or frame of reference to appreciate what the detail does for the car, for them, for the brand, for the image, for the mindset. Because all those things actually matter, right, at a higher level. A lot of people who who are working maybe as an employee versus an owner or uh an executive, they don't necessarily care about their image in the same way. They're not worried about who's checking out their car when they pull up. They're not looking at how's the mental bandwidth and mindset improved when they're in a clean vehicle with, you know, a fresh smell, you know, hanging from that rear view mirror type thing. All of those things make me a better me. So actually, it's a weird thing. Investing in a detail makes me a better entrepreneur, a better leader. I can because I I feel refreshed when I get out of the car, then it's not a drain on me. I hope all that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, no, say it louder for the for everyone. Because yeah, I think that's great because um I've always been kind of conscious on like who I want to do business with. Um it's kind of funny how you said like I've always been conscious on like, all right, do I want to just start building a brand around like, like you say, Honda Civics? I would personally would rather, and I'm sure most detailers would rather work on the really cool cars, SVJs, SF90s, stuff like that. Um, and I think in the I've kind of seen where my I guess crazy plan kind of is starting to work really well because now I'm doing tons of really, really awesome cars. But I've always been conscious on like I'd rather just take the short end now, but also get into different networks so I can slowly start to grow with more clients. And it's been working slowly, but it's starting to compound now. I'm starting to get more and more traction, which has been fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 17:21

Yeah, I really like the um the model too. I'm just thinking about the business side of things because I'm a nerd for that stuff. If you can get into clubs or storage facilities like Paddock, for example, like if I'm you next, I'm targeting bricks, I'm targeting uh the keep, I'm targeting any of those car storage facilities. Oh, yeah. If you get the in on those places. How much easier is it for you to do business and get a better return on investment? Because now you're not driving all over the county or the state to go do details. You pull up to one spot and you've got 10 customers in one location that you can just whip them out faster, more efficiently.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah. No, it's very true because like I remember I've gone to Colville. I've never even been there. And I'm sorry. But like you get customers like so scattered out, like we're driving around all over the place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:16

That was a problem I remember uh you sharing a year ago. Yeah. Was like you were doing a detail in uh, I don't remember, man, North Salt Lake, Bountiful, something like that. And then you were driving an hour down to do my detail next. There's a lot of losses time there. Yeah. I mean, you've well, if you just put those things together, you've essentially got uh a minimum of three and a half hours of driving in that day. Yeah. That three and a half hours of driving, that's uh how long does it take you to do a detail? Two to three hours, two and a half to three hours? Most of our c clients are maintenance clients, so about an hour and a half to two hours. Okay. So you just lost out on three cars that day. How much does that three cars, you know, pay you? Anywhere from like 150 to like probably like two, two fifty. Okay, on a maintenance plan. Yeah. So then then you you missed out on, you know, potentially 750 bucks. Yeah because you're driving, which is costing you money because you're paying for gas and maintenance in your vehicle and tire. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

And if I have employees, I'm paying them to sit there while we're just driving, stuck in traffic.

SPEAKER_05 19:16

For the people listening right now, here's the the thing that I want you to take away from this now. You have to ch look at the model, look at your actual business model and try to change it in such a way that one, you're getting ideal clients, not not what you think is maybe the low-hanging fruit. And two, how do you make it more efficient? Getting into the clubs for you, that makes you more efficient. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

And now we have like customers where we go and they they got four cars, S of 90, A12 Superfaz, yoursperf. And we that customer actually has a Valhalla now. But like we go to one stop and show, tell me who they are. All right. I want to know who got the Valhalla. Oh yeah. And uh yeah, we go there and we we're there for pretty much most of the day. And then yeah, one stop, it's just way more convenient. And those customers only come because of building a brand around a those cars.

SPEAKER_05 20:08

Oh, for sure. For sure. Like it real talk. Um, you know, I've got a handful of supercars. If you come and approach me and you want to detail my supercars, and the only reviews you have are Honda Civics, there's a risk level there. Oh, yeah. Big time. I don't want somebody who's gonna damage my car or hurt my PPF or you know. Yeah. Maybe they they get in there and they use some kind of cleaner on the carpet that stains it or dyes it, or like, dude, I I need to know that whoever's gonna come in there is gonna take care of my vehicles because those vehicles are my investments.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

100%. I mean, actually, funny story about that is like I have a customer that uh he's been using me forever, and he's still an awesome customer. And um one kid kept trying to like hit him up to do a free detail, trying to get shoot a shot, get in the door, yeah, and uh he ended up just saying, you know what, whatever, sure. And it was uh Lamborghini Urus. I've ceramic coated it, everything awesome. But when this kid did it, I don't know what products he was using, like non-neutral pH soap or whatever, but it broke down the ceramic coating. Oh he was pissed, used like armor all, so it's all greasy on the inside. And he got he was pissed, but he learned his lesson. Like, like you said, you don't want just anybody doing it, but luckily I was able to save it. But yeah, it is kind of funny how that goes because you gotta shoot your shot, but you also gotta build a brand around it. But it's hard, especially at the beginning when you don't have anything.

SPEAKER_05 21:46

Well, and part of that is is the knowledge base, right? Yeah. So you knew what products to use to protect those vehicles in the right way. This other guy, Armorall on the on the Uris. Oh, buddy. Oh, yeah. Um If you're building a brand, you're building your business, you need to commit to learning everything that you can learn about one, the customer, who you serve, what they care about, what's important to them, what are they thinking, what are they feeling, how do you message to that? How do you work with that? Two, you need to learn everything about the product, not just in your case, like the soaps. Part of your product is a result of the vehicles that you're working on, right? You're you're serving the end state of those cars being detailed. So you need to learn everything you can learn about those cars, because that also changes how you work on them, how you how you uh get in the nooks, the crannies, the special maybe materials that you need to clean each vehicle. Then you also have a different way that you engage the customer again based on the car, but you have to know all of that stuff to be effective at it. And if you don't learn those things and you just, you know, run in haphazardly, shoot your shot with the armor all, dude, you're dead on arrival.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Oh, yeah. And like you said, like knowing beforehand, like I have a few customers with STOs. Most detailers don't know how to even take the back engine cover off. It's 50 grand. If you drop it, scratch the paint, it's all carbon, you're screwed, right? But you have to take it off to clean the back glass. Because when you wash it, water sprays right in and it looks like it looks like it looks terrible if you don't clean it. And I've cleaned so many that previous detailers never even touched because they don't know how to take it off, nor do they want to take the risk of taking it off because it's so expensive.

SPEAKER_05 23:29

Yeah. So there's definitely a value added with the higher level of service with going with somebody who's knowledgeable. Like, dude, I'm I'm so glad you brought that that point up because that's important. So you made a comment just a minute ago. You ceramic coated a car. Yeah. So what all what services do you actually uh provide? Give us the full spectrum, you know, for a minute. Tell us uh, I mean, we're learning about your business, we're learning about slick detailing, obviously details, but what else?

SPEAKER_01 23:57

So I do obviously full inside, interior, exterior details, um, paint corrections, ceramic coatings, um, headlight restoration, stuff like that. But um I do eventually, I mean, I guess for the future, I do want to eventually get into more PPF, final, tints, stuff like that. But as of right now, those are the only things I do do. But um, yeah, little by little.

SPEAKER_05 24:21

Okay. So say that I'm a first-time customer. I'm coming to you. I'm like, Cody, dude, you have an awesome, awesome service. Uh, what's it cost for me to get a detail from you? Yeah, I guess uh do you want to be more of a do you want to have full service, awesome detail. I know it's maybe different for the different size cars. Totally uh a sedan versus a coupe versus an SUV. Let me know, uh, just just real quick, what's the the price range that I should expect if I want to approach you to get a detail?

SPEAKER_01 24:46

If you want to get your SF90 done, uh I charge about 200 bucks for a one-time detail. Let's say I'm a more normal person uh driving.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

I shouldn't say more normal person.

SPEAKER_05 24:56

I got an Audi A6.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Audi A6.

SPEAKER_05 24:59

You'll be looking for 240. Okay. Do you have discounts for people who are subscriptions or do you sell a membership? 100. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

What's that look like? So for typically, like if you want to be a bi-weekly customer, which you're getting way more often, takes less time, takes less product. Um, you'd be looking at as cheap as like 129. Um, and then we got bi-weekly, we got monthly, we even have bi-monthlies. I am depending on getting rid of bi-monthlies. But uh yeah, it just depends on the how frequent. There's definitely a discount because it saves us time. Also, it saves us product. You're happier because you're getting more frequent. But end of things, like it helps us keep our routes way more full. So it's way more beneficial. Right on.

SPEAKER_05 25:44

As a business uh coaching note on the side, get rid of the buy-monthly. Yeah. You said you think about it. I'll just tell you right now, I can see from a mile and a half away that is more hassle than it's worth. Giving somebody a discount, but they're not actually using the service enough to actually make it beneficial for you to give them the discount. They still got to come in and you're gonna do a full service because over the course of two months, that car is filthy again, you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Oh, yeah. It's actually funny. So I I've been actually working on rebuilding my my website and kind of price structure. I'm actually I already eliminated it. I just haven't officially done it yet. I think I have like three customers on bi monthly.

SPEAKER_05 26:21

Yeah, I would just reach out to reach out to them, let them know, hey, we'll grandfather you in. You can keep your deal. I'm not gonna take it away from you. But just so you know, in the future, I'm not I'm not offering this anymore. Don't refer people to it. I don't know, man. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Curious. Uh okay. So we've talked a little bit about your ideal clients. We've talked about um the business that you run. We've I don't know if people picked up on it. We talked about your lead gen as far as you're operating mostly off network and referrals now. Yeah. Um, are you running any paid ads or anything like that? Yeah, I actually haven't ran a single ad. Um I love to hear that. I mean, as a paid ads guy, I'm like, ah, you know, there's an opportunity there. There's opportunity for sure. I'm really impressed, actually, with the growth of you and your business all off of organic and networking. That's something that I think, you know, maybe we we should dive in on real quick and teach the people at home how that that looks and that works, because it's tricky to grow a business off of organic alone. The only way that you do that is you are a true master of social media, which I'm not, or you are a true master of the network building, which you are. I try, I at least. Well, you at least figured out what you needed to do to change the model to get you to where you wanted to go as far as starting the business, right? Because slick, right? You're on year two, but you were profitable in year one. Yeah, barely. Yeah. But you made money. Yeah. Year two, you're more profitable. Here's the thing it took me two years before I took home a dime. Yeah. It took a manual over a year before he took home a dime. So you already figured out at least a model that allows you to make money and you can, you know, grow and scale as a result of that. But you did that with your network and building the network and building the connections. So I want to dive in on the lead generation aspect here a little bit because the the two ways that I see you can do that easily organically is again social media or network building. The social media bit, you know, I'm I'm a decade into business at this point. That's one that I'm just now mastering. Now, I learned over the course of the last decade through a lot of trial and error, and I've paid, you know, a quarter million dollars to coaches and things like that to, you know, help develop me. Um, the thing that I'm seeing right now that works the best is, I mean, obviously, I do, I'll share my authority engine real quick so everybody can hear it, but but I'm gonna tell you the specific piece of content that's working the best for me right now is long form written post with a captivating hook. Then I tell a story, and then on the end of the story, call to action. I'm posting those on social media every day across every platform. I'm using them to sell tickets to my mastermind. Upcoming Mission Ready Mastermind is back July 23rd and 24th at Club Paddock in American Fork. It's bigger and better than ever. Get your tickets today. Anyways, um, so hook story. The story provides value. It teaches a lesson, it's helping people. Then call to action at the back end, and I throw a picture on it as well. A still image is now outperforming, for me at least, my reels and things like that. Now, that's not to say I don't do the reels. The reels are the most consistent way to get views, but um those those individual long form written story posts, especially on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, those are outperforming my video posts on those platforms, which is cool. Now, the video is the engine for me. So for my my social media homies, if you're trying to do this, we this is what I recommend. I teach a concept called the authority engine to my clients. It is the four piston system, because I like cars, four piston engine, uh-huh. Four piston system to building trust and authority at scale. The framework, real quick, we start with our omnipresence, right? We post on every platform that my audience is on every single day. Multiple times a day. I think I told you before the show we did like over 300 pieces of content in in the last week. So we're posting everywhere. People see us. Then we do at least one long form piece of content every week. So that's piston number two. The reason the long form content is important is because it shows people how you think, how you solve problems, how you help other people. That's where the trust is built. Third piston, short form content specifically geared to amplify the long form content. So we take the long form, we will clip it up. Shorts, reels, clips, tick tocks, whatever. And then also we do educational content, talking head contents, those kind of things. All of those are geared just to get views, but to drive curiosity and interest back to the long form content because the long form content is answering more questions and helping people learn things. So the short form amplifies the long form. Again, they get back into the long form, that's where the trust is built. Number four, consistency and cadence. Algorithms now on all social media platforms reward you for posting consistently and for a um sorry, the term trying to think of, it's for uh a cadence that is uh predictable, a predictable cadence. So the benefit to that is that humans, all of us, have patterns of life.

unknown 32:20

Animals.

SPEAKER_05 32:20

We have animal habits and instincts. Instagram knows that every night at 8 p.m., Parker McCumber is on his Instagram account scrolling. So Instagram can more effectively serve me content that is going to be interesting to me at that time because it knows where I'm at, what I'm doing, how long I'm gonna be on the platform, because of my pattern of life. That also allows it to then get a better reading on okay, this content is engaging with these people at this time every single day and holds their attention for this much time. And so we either want to keep serving them that content or we don't want to serve them that content. So the algorithm can learn more easily when you're consistent and uh repeatable. So then it rewards you to be consistent and more repeatable because it learns it can be more effective as an algorithm. So use that against the platform or use it for your own benefit, I mean. You pair those four pistons together, and now you've got an engine that just cranks out content. You know, I mean, like for real, if you come in, you film uh for an hour in a month, it's very easy to get 31 clips, reels, shorts, posts out of that. Very easy. So then you have daily content every single day. You're always posting, your content calendars always ran. So obviously, you can take those things, you can apply those at home, right? With a phone camera, even.

SPEAKER_08 33:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:46

But if you want to go totally hands-off, that's why like we got into this podcast studio. I was running my podcast at home, spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy soundproof panels and cameras, and then I'm paying a videographer hourly, and I'm paying the video editor hourly, and like it just got expensive. Oh, yeah. But you know me, man. My mindset is all about how do I monetize everything in my life. Well, the answer is professional studio, rent out the studio space when we're not using it. So if you want help, you want to go totally hands off on your content creation. That's why we have the rookery studios in Oram. And even if you're not local and you don't want to come in and film here, we'll take your, like just send us your raw footage, videos. We will edit it, audio engineer it, we'll go through, do the clipping for you, all that stuff, like make it the best that we can make it, obviously. But if you are local, just come in and film and you get, you know, the professional 4K video and all that stuff. The beauty of it now is to make it totally hands-off for people. We also do um social media management. So like we have uh software that lets us host your content, host your content for you, run your content calendar, and that way it can be totally hands-off. Like just easy, easy setup. So you've got to build the authority engine, is what I call it. That's the secret to mastering your social media right now in your presence. That's part one of the organic side. Part two, the networking piece. You're way more successful than me at the networking piece. It's getting out there, building the relationships. Maybe it's the detail for free, but you get it to the right people, and this is what's important. You have to identify with your business. Am I networking with the right people, the right circles, the ones that are going to promote me, promote my brand, that are gonna get me into Club Paddock. If you can identify who the right people are, you can go all in on building relationships with them and going deep with them. And the deeper you go, the better the relationship you build. That's what gets you into their circles, their friend groups, their relationships. And then you get to leverage their network, not just your own. And that's how you master the networking side of that, in my opinion. Provide an exceptional service, give people a good experience, because it's all about the experience, and then just invest time and a little bit of energy into maintaining those relationships, right? Because relationships are all based on time and attention. So as long as you can do that, provide an excellent experience, give them time, give them attention, your network grows. Agree? Oh yeah. That's how you build a business totally organic in five minutes, boom, free, free meat, free chicken, something like that. That's what they say, right? Okay. Uh what else haven't you told us about slick detailing? So we kind of know the services you provide, we've gone over the pricing, we know who you want to help. What's the uh the payoff or the experience for these people that you see? I mean, obviously, you've got a ton of five-star reviews, you've got some uh great video testimonials now. What's the the average customer experience?

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Uh, I would say probably just less hassle not having to worry about, oh, is my car being taken care of properly? Is it gonna be done well? Um, also, like they can trust that if they refer us, like their friends or whoever will get the same service. Um, I think it just comes down to just the quality. That's kind of been my biggest thing is just focusing on the quality. Um and then just slowly compounding. Like I hired my first employee, which is my brother, uh, back in October full time, which has been a great a ton of help because before that, uh if you remember, I was out of my I do remember. Yeah, I was out of my Audi A4.

SPEAKER_05 37:48

I was telling Cody a what it's been a year two years almost. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

I was like, you hey man, you've grown, you need to hire an employee. And I mean, I was out of my little Audi A4 and just grinding, right? But yeah, I should have hired my someone or my brother, whoever, a lot sooner when you told me to.

SPEAKER_05 38:08

Can we talk about this for a minute? Yeah. Because there's a couple things that I think are really important to unpack about like your journey and and the success that you're starting to have with this all now. When Cody started, I talked about at the beginning of the show in my awesome hook that all of you guys loved, I talked about the grit, the determination, the perseverance, right? Your refusal to quit and build your network. Cody was legit detailing out of an Audi A4. He had a water tank on a pallet in the trunk, right? Yeah. Most people are not thinking how to start a business like that. They're thinking, oh, I gotta get the van first. I've got to, oh, I um it's not a big enough water tank first. Dude, you found a way. That's huge. Yeah. I I think that that's something that a lot of people miss out on. If you have an idea, a concept you think you can pull off, even if it's only 80% of the way there. In the artillery, the field artillery, I'm a field artilleryman. We have a saying Fifi, F it, fire it. It essentially just means send it, send it. You get a concept 80% of the way there, send it. I like that. And you did. But like you wouldn't have grown, the business wouldn't have grown if you didn't do that. It would have just sat in this conceptual phase. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

No, it's true. Like, I mean, I had I wanted to have that van. I wanted to have the best setup and all that before jumping into it. But obviously, financially, I didn't have that. So I just had started with what I had, which was my car, and I just put made a little platform with some two by fours, put the water tank, got a generator, got all the equipment, and just kind of threw it all in the car. Uh, did that for way way longer than I should have. Done it for I think like a year and a half. Um, and then I just got the van in the end of February, which has been a game changer. Now I got way more water, uh, so we could do more jobs at one stop, um more professional, more equipment, more product. Um, but yeah, I would say for anyone listening, like just don't let anything like limit you just because you think you need it. Yes. Just start.

SPEAKER_05 40:30

Dude, thank you for sharing that because that is that is the biggest obstacle to somebody, I think, finding their success. They refuse to start. Yeah. They're afraid of the rejection, the per the perception, right? Like, and you you touched on it just barely. You wanted to have the the van, you wanted to have the more professional appeal. If you didn't take those first steps in your Audi, you would have never built the relationship with people that would have got you to the point where you could have got the van. Yeah. You would have never built a business if you didn't just start.

unknown 41:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

And I mean, some people even respected it. Like they're like, oh, this kid's grinding. Like, hell yeah, I like it better than the van. And I think you might have even said that too. Um it's a yeah. Okay, so think about this.

SPEAKER_05 41:18

Me and my background, now that I mean, you know it a little bit, we've known each other for a few years now. I built my business from nothing. Yeah. I bootstrapped and then I tried to monetize everything. I'm not uncommon in the supercar world when it comes to that mindset, that mentality. Most people who've built a business built it from nothing. They built it because they had a dream, they had a vision. Those guys, like the Emmanuels, the Adams that we just talked about, they respect that hustle so much because it speaks to them. It's their background. They did the same thing. They relate to that. When they look at you hustling out of the back of the Audi A4, they know that that was them 10 years ago. I mean, that's how I felt. I see that and I'm like, hell yeah. Like, dude, I'm all in on this guy. One, you know your stuff. Two, excellent product and service. Three, I can see that you are hustling. So I want to support that. Like that it speaks to me on a on a one, the logical level, two, on the emotional level. Because I relate to that journey. And I think that that I mean, you should always, always, always tell that story. Because that story connects with people.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

No, that's a great point. Like you, because like Adam King and like you have heard like say, like, oh, I have respect. I love seeing the hustle. Uh, especially nowadays, apparently it's not that common. But it's not common anymore, man. People aren't willing to do it. That's why they do it, they don't grow. And I feel like it is more common, at least to me, because I'm around people.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Yeah, you're in it now.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yeah, you're in it now. Yeah, that's true, yeah. But I would say also just like not letting anything like stop you. Like, I work from the hottest temperatures to I mean, work here in Utah, like I've done details when it's snowing. Like, don't let any limitation stop you. Um, because also like that helps you grow a ton. Like, I wouldn't have never wanted a detail in the snow, right? But it's possible for those who think it's not possible. But doing the things that you don't totally want to do will help you grow and like learn and adapt to become the person that you need to become. Yes. But yeah, I think it's it's been a ton of help starting from I guess ground zero to getting to where I'm at, and I'm far from where I want to be at. But no, I think I'm grateful for every step of the way.

SPEAKER_05 43:46

Okay, let's talk about uh, you know, you mentioned hiring somebody. You should have done it sooner. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. It was either the first uh coaching session we had or the second. It was one of the first two. Early on, yeah. Where I was like, holy smoke. Cody, you just gotta hire somebody. Uh let's talk about that for a minute because that's an obstacle for a lot of people. And and you relate and you can you can talk about it now from experience. It's scary to hire your first person. Big time. Because and and I I know you went through this, so I I want to hear it from your perspective. But a lot of people feel like they have to let go of quality control. They have to let go, uh they have to, it's hard to trust. It's their baby. You've built this company by yourself, and now you've got to let somebody else in. And that means you necessarily lose some control. Tell us what that process was like for you. And actually, let me preface this too with when you approached me about it, you told me you're doing a hundred cars a month, averaging two to three hours a car by yourself. Yeah. I'm like, you're working 300 hours a month. I'm like, okay, most people 40-hour work week, they're going uh, you know, 160 hours a month. You're doubling that. You're capped out, you can't make more money. Yeah. So I'm like, dude, there's an obvious limitation here that we have to get around to grow you and your business. But then you also have to overcome all of the obstacles with hiring somebody, the fear and and all that. So tell me a little bit about that process. What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What was it like? And then what's the payoff once you actually hire somebody and got them trained and now what the business can do as a result?

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yeah. And I'm, I mean, I'm not perfect in this. I'm still learning. Um, but no, it's, I mean, just grinding every day. Like, you get to the point where you don't want to do that forever, and you need to hire and grow and expand, especially if you want your business to grow. But I uh I mean, I remember when you were telling me for early on, and I was just so scared because I was like, yeah, if I do that, I'm gonna take a big pay cut with the little amount I was making, and I wasn't too ready to do that, even though I knew like I I knew like back, like if I did it, then it would work on the like long-term things, but I wasn't totally ready to like just jump into it. Very hesitant, very um stubborn, um, which I still am, still trying to learn. I feel like most people are, but um, yeah, I just hired my brother and he works with me full time. Um, it just has secreted the point where we can do a lot more jobs, which then allows more revenue because we're doing more jobs, also not working as long of days. We still work, don't get me wrong, very long days, and I still work pretty much every every day, Saturdays and Sundays. Um, but I don't know, I feel like it once you start to like trust the process and it starts to work better. Like, if I'm being honest, like I'm today's is the first day that my brother's running a route by himself because I'm here, and it's hard to like just trust that things will go well, even though I know that he can do it, just not just letting him go and do it. But yeah, it's just been him and me working side by side, um, busting out jobs, and I'm grateful for him. Um, I'm sure he probably has gets tired tired and resentment towards me sometimes because I we work so much and I push, push, push to like do more. Um, also I'm a people pleaser. Like, if someone's like, hey, can you also do this? I'm like, in my head, I'm like, all right, cool, more revenue. We're helping this customer out. Yeah, sure enough. We can add it. And I know my brother does it, probably doesn't want to do it every single time, but I'm grateful for him. But I do believe it's definitely part of the process to just grow, it's just jumping into it, letting someone into the business that you can trust. And I do believe it has to be someone that you trust, especially at the beginning. If you just pick anyone, things could go south. Um, I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with hiring lots of people. I've only hired my brother so far, but I feel like I've picked a good person to hire and trust. I've worked with my brother in tons of other jobs prior. So I know that he was someone I could trust. And I think that's been a big help towards me and this business to grow and to also keep that quality and just eventually start to expand, give him more responsibilities. Let's talk about this real quick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:27

Um, three things that I want to get into. Sorry, I gotta rewrite down my note before I forget it. He talked about the revenue shift. At the time, you're looking to hire somebody, build your team, you're nervous about, okay, this is gonna hurt my immediate income.

SPEAKER_09 48:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:46

Right. Uh I'm I'm thinking, you know, we, I think when I told you we need to hire somebody, maybe, maybe this if I didn't do it at the that session when we were coaching together, I definitely did it on the next session. We mathematically broke down, okay, if you can give up this amount of work to this person, that allows you to take on, even if it's just 50% of the clients that you gave to your brother or to your employee, uh, you would make X amount of more money. Right. And we kind of played around with those numbers a little bit and said, well, if you give up this much work to them and you take on this many new clients as a result of that, then you can have X amount of dollars played. Um, and one of those scenarios was like, I remember we had written it down, broke it out. It's like, dude, if you just give up, you know, I can't remember off the top of my head, but 40 cars a month to him, and that lets you take on an additional 25, 30 cars because and you still so you're still working less, but you now have 30 cars more of monthly workload. I'm like, you make an extra 40 grand. And that's not 40 grand to him. That was 40 grand like your take home. And then I'm like, dude, that look at the mortgage payment that you get. Now you got a dream house, now you've got your your car that you want to have. Like, there's a financial equation that that I would recommend people look at when it comes to hiring. And it's, okay, if I give up X amount of work, that allows you as the entrepreneur to do more money-making activities, whether that's uh attract new clients, whether that's uh actually like you already had a wait list because your network was so good and strong. Like I think at the time you told me you're like, yeah, there's we're booked out for six weeks or something like that. Like we're just we're slam, like, okay, well, if you can take those two weeks and now put them into a month, you can now do six weeks worth of cars in four weeks. That's huge. That's big revenue generation. So you have to look at what activities you get to do now that also generate more revenue to the company. And then you subtract what you're gonna pay the employee from the total revenue generated now from your added activities. And then you can look at, okay, what's the actual net to you to the business? And if it's positive, you should do it. Like if it's if it's you get to make another, you know, 10 grand a year or something like that, why wouldn't you do it? It's 10 grand a year. Like 10 grand a year is a nice car payment. Like true. So there's there's a uh an equation there that I think people should consider. That's just the logic side of me. The emotional side of me is the trust piece is hard, right? Um you talked about having to lead with trust and and give up some of that. Something that you mentioned was the hiring aspect, and and I I think this is really important for people to understand. I always recommend hiring based on trust. We can teach someone how to do a skill, we can teach someone how to do the work. I can't teach someone to be a highly trustworthy individual. Like that's just way harder. So I always, always, always prioritize trust and culture fit in the organization over the hiring the best person at whatever the skill is. Like, I don't want a slimy salesman. Yeah. I want a high trustworthy person that I can teach how to do sales. And then this is the beauty of entrepreneurship now. You're not just developing as a car detailer. Now you're developing as a leader. Now you have somebody who is looking to you for the guidance, the vision of the company, all that stuff, right? So you're developing in that sense. You're also now developing as a coach and a trainer. You're teaching someone else how to do everything. But all of like I say this often, entrepreneurship is the best method for self-development because now you're growing in so many different areas that you wouldn't have been growing if you didn't one, start the business, two, develop the business, three, hire an employee, four, teach an employee. It's cool, man. True that, yeah. And and for me now, I'm all about the journey of self-actualization, right? If you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is the top level. And that is, in short, the pursuit of becoming the best possible version of yourself. Now, I don't think it's actually possible to achieve that. You're always, there's always a way to get better, incrementally better, improve, right? Humans are never going to be perfect. But if you can focus on becoming the best version of yourself, you become more valuable. And if you become more valuable, you earn more. And if you earn more, you have a higher quality of life. And if you have a higher quality of life, your family, your network, your community also all has a higher quality of life. There's a ripple effect because now you can influence more. You can give back more, you can donate to the charities that supported you and your family. You can volunteer to coach, you know, your kids' soccer team or whatever. But the world gets better as you pursue the better version of you. And I think entrepreneurship is the best vehicle to achieve that. Totally agree. Oh yeah. Okay, we've already kind of dove into strategy a little bit. But let's talk about the strategy. Okay. How are you growing right now?

SPEAKER_01 54:05

It's probably not the smartest. I mean, paid ads, I've seen tons of my um, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 54:11

Dude, if you don't need them, don't use them.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 54:15

But how's the growth? I guess let's let's talk about that. Because if you're maybe capping out on the networking side of things, then maybe you want to look at a different, you know, an alternate path to growth.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Yeah. Um yeah, I think right now we're growing pretty uh sustainable. Um, nothing too crazy though. Um, I mean, I do want to eventually, I mean, the goal is to hire on another person at the end of the year um and get maybe a Ford Maverick or something. But uh I do plan on probably going to the next level um with doing paid ads. But I would say right now networking's been great. We get referrals every week. Um, we get people that just jump on the schedule from the website or social media DMs. Um but I would say right now we're continuously growing. So sure.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

I would I would just keep going all in on the uh organic side. I mean, you're already you're already there. You're already cheaper side too. It's the cheaper side. You've got great content. I mean, like you go do a detail, take the pictures, the videos. I need to be better at that.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

True.

unknown 55:29

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

Videos is definitely the way I um I need to go.

SPEAKER_05 55:33

And well, recognize this. If somebody doesn't know you, they don't trust you. Yeah, if they don't trust you, they're not gonna buy from you. But what do they trust? If they don't have a relationship with you, it's the herd mentality. So they want to see other people trust you. And if other people are vouching for you, trusting you, then they can it's an easier sell, an easier gap for them to bridge.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Which has probably been the way that's been working the most, because I don't really post my face or anything. I don't talk. I do want to, and I should, but um, most of our content is just pictures. Um, just because it's easier and quicker, because videos, I'm unless I'm doing it wrong, takes a while to film while while I'm just trying to bust out the job to get to the next one, to the next, to the next. Yeah. So that's typically why I do just pictures.

SPEAKER_05 56:18

Well, keep in mind, you're not uh you're not a videographer or anything like that. If it's me and I'm in your position, what I'm doing is I'm just pulling out my phone and I'm just, hey, we're finishing up this detail on this SF90, dude. Check out the interior on this. Look at how clean that is whatever, you know, and it's a 30-second story. That's true. Yeah, I can't. Right, you're still posting the the pictures, but it's just a quick, a quick video. People connect with that.

SPEAKER_09 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:44

You can stand in front of it selfie mode. We're just wrapping up this uh the detail here. If you need a detail, you got a uh supercar, hypercar, you wanted to make sure it's in good hands, you know, give us a call.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

I mean, that's definitely something I can easily do, and I definitely should and need doing.

SPEAKER_05 57:01

I'd recognize or I'd recommend um just use a simple hook story offer format for those. The hook doesn't always have to be spoken, the hook is visual too. Somebody sees you standing in front of a freaking S SVJ, people are gonna pay attention. Right? When when when you're when you see the SVJ, you stop and you look, right? So you can leverage the cars as a hook as well. Um make a funny face, look at the car. Just finished up that detail on this uh beautiful S SVJ. Show them the value add. You know, one of the things that my customers say about me all the time is that when they get into their vehicle, it's clean, it's fresh, they feel refreshed. They have more mental bandwidth. You know, their mindset isn't uh focused on you know the little things anymore because they can sit back and be rejuvenated by their vehicle. If you want to feel like that, give me a call. Simple call to action. Not a hard sell, not a hard push. But you just do that repetitively. And people see you, they see your face, and they associate your face with hypercars and supercars and awesome work, and they see the carpet lines. They're sold. They're sold. That's what gets them. That and the video testimonies. Very true, yeah. Well, Cody, you've provided a ton of value to the audience today. We got into some great topics. Yeah, it's been it's been fun. Is there anything that I can do for you and for your audience?

SPEAKER_00 58:32

Uh no.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

I mean, dude, you've been a ton of help, especially from the beginning. Um, I've anyone's debating on like if you should or shouldn't work with Parker, I think you definitely should. Um, he's got a lot of value. Uh, he's been a ton of help to me. And um look forward to learning more and more every day.

SPEAKER_05 58:50

I want to see you making $10 million a year with your detailing empire.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Hey, that's the goal, right? What's your favorite car? My favorite car. Yeah, I'm a big Porsche guy. Okay. Um, yeah, I love the Carrera GT. Um, but hell yeah. I would say if I can, I mean, my goal is to get to a point where I can buy a GT3 RS. Uh, I know it's pretty common for people to say, but the 991, I think it's just you you actually had a 991. Yeah. Um, this first supercar, right? It was my first supercar. That's like my ideal dream car. If you see me driving that, I I'm I'm going in the right direction. I want you.

SPEAKER_05 59:28

Going in the right direction. Cody, in the next 12 months, I want to see you in a 991.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

Yeah, I'm working towards it. So say, just say hell yeah. Hell yeah. Guys will look at this and they'll say, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:41

Hell yeah. All right, dude. As a as a thank you, man, I want to give you a signed copy of my book. We'll stand up, we'll shake hands. Oh, wait, stop before we stand up. Look at that camera and tell them where can they find you? How do they follow you on social media? How do they connect if they want to get a detail?

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Yeah, dude, uh, hit me up, Slick Detailing Company on Instagram, Facebook, um, or you can just text me at 702-271-3081. Sweet.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:09

We're gonna stand in front of this camera, maybe. We're gonna shake hands, lean in. Awesome show. Tons of value.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:18

Most businesses fail in the first year. You look at that, maybe it's 51%, right? Yeah. It's like 90% of businesses fail in the first five. So if you can just stick with something long enough to make it past that first five-year mark, you're gonna find a way to be successful. So just don't give up. Uh, man, I use uh Slick Detailing. You guys are awesome. Love the work you do. You've grown in the last year. That's awesome to see. Oh yeah. Tell us a little bit about what got you into wanting to start a detailing company. Like how'd you get into entrepreneurship? What were you doing before? What kind of led you to this path?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

Yeah, I've kind of had kind of a weird path because I, well, I originally started in like construction, um, welding. I ran a CNC laser and water jet, um, doing a lot of metal fabrication stuff, but ended up leaving that, doing door-to-door sales, classic here in Utah, but did that for four years. And I guess that kind of gave me that little itch to like get into more entrepreneurship, but also I just wanted to do my own thing. Um, and I've always loved cars, so kind of was a gateway just to kind of go right into doing cars, and I've always loved detailing, um, pretty OCD, so that helps as well. But yeah, I just kind of jumped right into it, and I guess with that network of door to door, which was the biggest blessing, because that's where like 95% of my customers were coming from at the beginning, and just those skill sets from door to door has helped a ton to just network, get out of your comfort zone to just kind of get go out there and get customers.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:03

So tell me about that that process a little bit. Um, because a lot of people on the the viewers of this show are primarily new entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, people who are trying to grow a business that they're just starting. How did you build the relationships that brought in those initial customers? You said a lot of it came from just the networking that you had developed doing the door-to-door sales, but what does that actually look like when it comes to building that?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Yeah, no, it's uh Yeah, going straight into it. Um just reaching out was probably the biggest thing in just being relentless with just reaching out and talking to people, also throwing in free details, um, doing whatever it took to just kind of get your foot in the door. Uh honestly, I can't say how many details I've done for free, especially in the beginning, just to get my foot in the door. And it's opened many doors and just compounded.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:00

Dude, I love that you talked about the concept of working for free. That's something that's been a recurring theme on my show now, um, for the last, you know, really probably the whole show, but but especially the last few episodes. The uh last one that I filmed was with Emmanuel Na from Car Guys. And I shared my story. You know, I went I worked for free in my e-com business for two years before I took a paycheck. And my uh, you know, my wife was the sugar mama essentially took care of us. He had a similar story, you know. He worked for a full year for free before he made any money in car guys, and then it was another year before he actually made real money in car guys. So he worked for two years for practically nothing. Um, talking to uh Adam King, I think before him. Uh Adam's on the show talking about, you know, he went in on his own business and his wife was like the support, the foundation. He's learning and working through this. I'm like, man, the secret here is you have to be willing to go and do some hard work and expect nothing in return. And that's a difficult ask for people because it's not safe. There's not financial security in doing that, but it's how you get your foot in the door and how you start to build something that actually has value or that, like in your case, those free details develop relationships with people. You demonstrate your work, the quality of work. They can see that, then they want to, okay, hey, can we leverage that into a testimonial maybe? Can we get our a review out of that? And then how do you use those to sell? I think is the next step. Is that kind of the path that you were you took?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:34

Yeah, 100%. And it's funny you say, like, Adam King, like I was just listening to that podcast with you and him. And yeah, it's just cool to see like that you, him, and Emmanuel, like all these guys, like I look up to you guys, and like the things you guys have done to get to where you are motivates me because like, yeah, I want to be like you guys who don't write, but you definitely have to do things that you don't totally want to do, but it definitely is worth it in the end.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:03

I like that you you know, looking at the long-term goal there because it's difficult, it's a hard sell to work for free at all in any capacity, right? Yeah. Uh let alone the crazy dudes who are working for for free or for nothing for a year, you know, type thing. Um, you have to be willing to invest in yourself. You have to be willing to invest in your brand, your business. And the reality is that means a lot of times you're going without or giving up on the early stages. Uh when I say giving up, I mean financial security or or a paycheck or something like that. But the trade off is maybe after those two years, people start looking at you a little bit different. They wonder, well, how the how did he do this? Is he an overnight success? Where'd all the money come from? The money came from I didn't get paid for two years. I put every dime back into the business and the business grew as a result. You know? Um I think it's really important. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, perhaps, or you're building a business right now, you have to be willing to invest in you. You have to be willing to invest in the business. And you have to do it for a long enough period of time that you just you make anything but success unreasonable.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

Very true. Yeah. No, I think it's definitely it's a path and everyone has their own way, but I think it's definitely, I mean, you it's gonna take sacrifice, especially if it's working for free. Um, like who wants to work all day for nothing, right? Yeah. Or let alone a whole year.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:33

Uh well, it's not just working for free, I think. Okay, so in your example, you're out doing details for free. But what's it actually cost to do a detail outside of your time? Yeah, you have resources that have to go into that, right? You've got cleaning supplies and you know, you're wearing out some of that stuff or using it up the the like there's a cost associated, you're actually paying to do work in some of those instances. But that again is an investment in the business and the relationship and the brand. And the thing is, man, when you when you're good at what you do and you're passionate about what you do, if you can just get out and showcase it, people will see that. People will respect that. They build a relationship and a connection with it. I mean, that was one of the things that first um impressed me about you. So, Cody, our backstory. Cody reaches out to me on Instagram. He's like, hey man, I used to detail some of your cars. Uh would you teach me about like how to get cars and watches or something like that? Like, coach me on that. I'm like, Yeah, man, sure. Come on in. Let's let's let's talk. He said he agreed to trade me details. You're like, I'll I'll detail a couple cars for you if you'll coach me a little bit. First off, I love that like the mindset, the deal around that. If you have a resource, you can always find a way to leverage. Um, so even if you can't afford to pay for something, make a trade, make a deal with somebody. Like that's that's G status, in my opinion. Um because it you're on the hustle, you're on the grind. People respect that. So I respect that for sure. Um, you come in, we talk for a little bit, we kind of break down your business, uh, identify maybe some points to work on. But here's the thing Cody comes in and does the details then on my cars. And I see that, and I'm like, well, now we've had an ongoing relationship, right? Uh by the way, your details since you started your own company are way better than whatever that other company was. I forget what their name was.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So after I did Door Door, there that Door Door company had a detail company. It was called Shine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it was. Shine. And I worked for them for it was like maybe a couple months. And then I ended up going back to Door Door. Well, that's really how we met was through Shine. And then start mode, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:55

Gotcha. Yeah, dude. But you get out there, you demonstrate you're passionate about the work, you're doing good quality work, then you get the referrals, you get the testimonials, you get the network, you get people that want to refer you to other people. It's all great, man. So I love that mindset. I think that that's something somebody who's listening to the show or watching on YouTube right now could take and say, you know what, maybe there's a strategy here for me where I can connect with people who could help me, or I could connect with people that will be good clients if I can just make a deal on the front end.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

Yeah. No, it's funny you say that because with working with you, doing starting with that, I also did kind of similar things with like Bronson Gomez, who's been a ton of help, and a few other guys, and all of you guys kind of worked together, I guess without knowing, to get me into Club Paddock, which has been a huge blessing because I guess the opportunity came and they were looking for someone to kind of take over and replace further detailing. And I just got a random message from Angelo asking, Hey, would you like to be like, would you detail the rest? And I was kind of surprised, but I was like, How'd like how'd you find me? And I guess from a ton of people, he's like, Well, well, Parker and Bronson and 20 other people referred you.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:17

Yeah, exactly. And it just crazy. Turns out all of the members are already using you on the outside.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

Yeah, really. Yeah. And it's just kind of funny how like compounds, like just kind of set it taking a sacrifice direction, we'll just compound and then open doors for you.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:32

So this is a good business model, and I don't know if you're consciously recognizing it, but I want the viewers to hear it too. Think about the people you want to work with or serve, right? The people you want as a customer. Who's the ideal customer for your business? Think about that for a second. In in the case of Slick, and I'm not, you know, you, but this would be my assessment is I want to work with people who own multiple supercars. You're not wrong. One, if they have multiple supercars, that means I can detail more than one car a month, so a bigger paycheck. Two, those people have money, and so they're not gonna stiff you or be a bad customer. They're not, you know, sweating the little details, that kind of thing. Three, they know other people that have supercars and multiple supercars, and they have the network and they participate in clubs like Club Paddock and Fast Lane Drive and all those kind of things, right? So that's how I think, okay, my target avatar is someone who owns more than one supercar. Here's the beauty of it. You get in with one, we're all friends. Yeah, we all hang out, we do business together, we know each other. So when they see me post about it on social media, they can see my car is in good shape, and they say, Oh, yeah, that would that could help me. That'd make my car look good. So it's it's just uh it's a fast track. You need to change the model of chasing every dollar or every small ticket and start chasing the people that are gonna make the business work. Chasing the right customers. Um, and a lot of people I think do that the wrong way, especially you know, now everything's everything's online. People will chase the quick buck. And they might think of it in the sense of, you know, how many Honda Civics are there out there versus Ferrari SF-90s? Yeah. So they start chasing the Honda Civics. But the Honda Civic customers are not the same as the SF-90 customers. Totally not. And the Honda Civic customers might get a little bit more antsy about paying a couple hundred bucks for a detail that's a harder sell to them. They might also uh not necessarily have the same network of people with multiple cars, they're not going to get the referrals the same way. They might, you know, tell their friend about you, but even telling their friend about you is a harder sell again because it's maybe money's a little bit tighter or they don't have the right uh mindset or frame of reference to appreciate what the detail does for the car, for them, for the brand, for the image, for the mindset. Because all those things actually matter, right, at a higher level. A lot of people who who are working maybe as an employee versus an owner or uh an executive, they don't necessarily care about their image in the same way. They're not worried about who's checking out their car when they pull up. They're not looking at how's the mental bandwidth and mindset improved when they're in a clean vehicle with, you know, a fresh smell, you know, hanging from that rear view mirror type thing. All of those things make me a better me. So actually, it's a weird thing. Investing in a detail makes me a better entrepreneur, a better leader. I can because I I feel refreshed when I get out of the car then. It's not a drain on me. I hope all that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

Yeah, no, say it louder for the for everyone. Because yeah, I think that's great because um I've always been kind of conscious on like who I want to do business with. Um it's kind of funny how you say like I've always been conscious on like, all right, do I want to just start building a brain around like like you said, Honda Civics? I would personally would rather, and I'm sure most detailers would rather work on the really cool cars, SVJs, SF90s, stuff like that. Um, and I think in the I've kind of seen where my, I guess, crazy plan kind of is starting to work really well because now I'm doing tons of really, really awesome cars. But I've always been conscious on like I'd rather just take the short end now, but also get into different networks so I can slowly start to grow with more clients. And it's been working slowly, but it's starting to compound now. I'm starting to get more and more traction, which has been fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:44

Yeah, I really like the um the model too. I'm just thinking about the business side of things because I'm a nerd for that stuff. If you can get into clubs or storage facilities like Paddock, for example, like if I'm you next, I'm targeting bricks, I'm targeting uh the keep, I'm targeting any of those car storage facilities. Oh, yeah. If you get the in on those places. How much easier is it for you to do business and get a better return on investment? Because now you're not driving all over the county or the state to go do details. You pull up to one spot and you've got 10 customers in one location that you can just whip them out faster, more efficiently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:26

No, it's very true because like I remember I've gone to Colville. I've never even been there. And I'm sorry. But like you get customers like so scattered out, like we're driving around all over the place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:38

That was a problem I remember uh you sharing a year ago. Yeah. Was like you were doing a detail in uh, I don't remember, man, North Salt Lake, Bountiful, something like that. And then you were driving an hour down to do my detail next. There's a lot of loss. Yeah. I mean, you've well, if you just put those things together, you've essentially got uh a minimum of three and a half hours of driving in that day. Yeah. That three and a half hours of driving, that's uh how long does it take you to do a detail? Two to three hours, two and a half to three hours? Most of our c clients are maintenance clients, so about an hour and a half to two hours. Okay. So you just lost out on three cars that day. How much does that three cars, you know, pay you? Anywhere from like 150 to like probably like two, two fifty. Okay, on a maintenance plan. Yeah. So then then you you missed out on, you know, potentially 750 bucks. Yeah. Because you're driving, which is costing you money because you're paying for gas and maintenance in your vehicle and tire. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

And then if I have employees, I'm paying them to sit there while we're just driving, smoking traffic.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:39

For the people listening right now, here's the the thing that I want you to take away from this now. You have to ch look at the model, look at your actual business model and try to change it in such a way that one, you're getting ideal clients, not not what you think is maybe the low-hanging fruit. And two, how do you make it more efficient? Getting into the clubs for you, that makes you more efficient.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

Oh, yeah. And now we have like customers where we go and they they got four cars S of 90, A12 Superfaz, yours perf. And we that customer actually has a Valhalla now. But like we go to one stop and after the show, tell me who they are. All right. I want to know who got the Valhalla. Oh yeah. And uh yeah, we go there and we we're there for pretty much most of the day. And then yeah, one stop, it's just way more convenient. And those customers only come because of building a brand around a those cars.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:31

Oh, for sure. For sure. Like it's real talk. Um, you know, I've got a handful of supercars. If you come and approach me and you want to detail my supercars, and the only reviews you have are Honda Civics, there's a risk level there. Oh, yeah. Big time. I don't want somebody who's gonna damage my car or hurt my PPF or you know, maybe they they get in there and they use some kind of cleaner on the carpet that stains it or dyes it, or like, dude, I I need to know that whoever's gonna come in there is gonna take care of my vehicles because those vehicles are my investments.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:09

100%. I mean, actually, funny story about that is like I have a customer that uh he's been using me forever, and he's still an awesome customer. And um one kid kept trying to like hit him up to do a free detail, trying to get shoot a shot, get in the door, yeah, and uh he ended up just saying, you know what, whatever, sure. And it was uh Lamborghini Urus. I've ceramic coated it, everything awesome. But when this kid did it, I don't know what products he was using, like non-neutral pH soap or whatever, but it broke down the ceramic coating. Um he was pissed. Use like armor all, so it's all greasy on the inside. And he got he was pissed, but he learned his lesson. Like, like you said, you don't want just anybody doing it, but luckily I was able to save it. But yeah, it is kind of funny how that goes because you gotta shoot your shot, but you also gotta build a brand around it. But it's hard, especially at the beginning when you don't have anything.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:08

Well, and part of that is is the knowledge base, right? Yeah. So you knew what products to use to protect those vehicles in the right way. This other guy, Armorall on the on the URIS, oh, buddy. Oh, yeah. Um, if you're if you're building a brand, you're building your business, you need to commit to learning everything that you can learn about one, the customer, who you serve, what they care about, what's important to them, what are they thinking, what are they feeling, how do you message to that, how do you work with that? Two, you need to learn everything about the product, not just in your case, like the soaps. Part of your product is a result of the vehicles that you're working on, right? You're you're serving the end state of those cars being detailed. So you need to learn everything you can learn about those cars, because that also changes how you work on them, how you how you uh get in the nooks, the crannies, the special maybe materials that you need to clean each vehicle. Then you also have a different way that you engage the customer again based on the car, but you have to know all of that stuff to be effective at it. And if you don't learn those things and you just, you know, run in haphazardly, shoot your shot with the armor all, dude, you're dead on arrival.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:17

Oh, yeah. And like you said, like knowing beforehand, like I have a few customers with STOs. Most detailers don't know how to even take the back like engine cover off. It's 50 grand. If you drop it, scratch the paint, it's all carbon, you're screwed, right? But you have to take it off to clean the back glass because when you wash it, water sprays right in and it looks like it looks like it looks terrible if you don't clean it. And I've cleaned so many that previous detailers never even touched because they don't know how to take it off, nor do they want to take the risk of taking it off because it's so expensive.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:52

Yeah. So there's definitely a value added with the higher level of service with going with somebody who's knowledgeable. Like, dude, I'm I'm so glad you brought that that point up because that's important. So you made a comment just a minute ago. You ceramic coded a car. Yeah. So what all what services do you actually uh provide? Give us the full spectrum, you know, for a minute. Tell us uh, I mean, we're learning about your business, we're learning about slick detailing, obviously details, but what else?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

So I do obviously full inside, interior, exterior details, um, paint corrections, ceramic coatings, um, headlight restoration, stuff like that. But um I do eventually, I mean, I guess for the future, I do want to eventually get into more PPF, final, tints, stuff like that. But as of right now, those are the only things I do do. But um, yeah, little by little.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:44

Okay. So say that I'm a first-time customer. I'm coming to you. I'm like, Cody, dude, you have an awesome, awesome service. Uh, what's it cost for me to get a detail from you? Yeah, I guess uh do you want to be more of a do you want to have full service, awesome detail. I know it's maybe different for the different size cars. Totally uh a sedan versus a coop versus an SUV. Let me know, uh, just just real quick, what's the the price range that I should expect if I want to approach you to get a detail?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:09

If you want to get your SF90 done, uh I charge about 200 bucks for a one-time detail. Let's say I'm a more normal person uh driving.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:17

I shouldn't say more normal person. I got an Audi A6.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:21

Audi A6.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:22

You'll be looking for sedam 240. Okay. Do you have discounts for people who are subscriptions or do you sell a membership? 100%. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:31

What's that look like? So for typically, like if you want to be a bi-weekly customer, which you're getting way more often, takes less time, takes less product. Um, you'd be looking at as cheap as like 129. Um, and then we got bi-weekly, we got monthly, we even have bi-monthlies. I am depending on getting rid of bi-monthlies. But uh yeah, it just depends on the how frequent. There's definitely a discount because it saves us time, also saves us product. You're happier because you're getting more frequent. But end of things, like it helps us keep our routes way more full, so it's way more beneficial. Right on.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:07

As a business uh coaching note on the side, get rid of the buy monthly. Yeah. You said you think about it. I'll just tell you right now, I can see from a mile and a half away that is more hassle than it's worth. You're giving somebody a discount, but they're not actually using the service enough to actually make it beneficial for you to give them the discount. They still gotta come in and you're gonna do a full service because over the course of two months, that car is filthy again, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:29

Oh, yeah. It's actually funny. So I I I've been actually working on rebuilding my my website and kind of price structure. I'm actually I already eliminated it. I just haven't officially done it yet. I think I have like three customers on bi-monthly.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:44

Yeah, I would just reach out to reach out to them, let them know, hey, we'll grandfather you in. You can keep your deal. I'm not gonna take it away from you. But just so you know, in the future, I'm not I'm not offering this anymore. Don't refer people to it. I don't know, man. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Curious. Uh okay. So we've talked a little bit about your ideal clients. We've talked about um the business that you run. We've I don't know if people picked up on it. We talked about your lead gen as far as you're operating mostly off network and referrals now. Yeah. Um, are you running any paid ads or anything like that? Yeah, I actually haven't ran a single ad. Um I love to hear that. I mean, as a paid ads guy, I'm like, ah, you know, there's an opportunity there. There's opportunity for sure. I'm really impressed actually with the growth of you and your business all off of organic and networking. That's something that I think, you know, maybe we we should dive in on real quick and teach the people at home how that that looks and that works, because it's tricky to grow a business off of organic alone. The only way that you do that is you are a true master of social media, which I'm not, or you are a true master of the network building, which you are. I'd try, I at least. Well, you at least figured out what you needed to do to change the model to get you to where you wanted to go as far as starting the business, right? Because slick, right? You're on year two, but you were profitable in year one. Yeah, barely. Yeah. But you made money. Yeah. Year two, you're more profitable. Here's the thing. It took me two years before I took home a dime.

SPEAKER_13 1:25:30

Yeah. It took a manual over a year before he took home a dime.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:37

So you already figured out at least a a model that allows you to make money and you can, you know, grow and scale as a result of that. But you did that with your network and building the network and building the connections. So I want to dive in on the lead generation aspect here a little bit because the the two ways that I see you can do that easily organically is again social media or network building. The social media bit, you know, I'm I'm a decade into business at this point. That's one that I'm just now mastering. Now, I learned over the course of the last decade through a lot of trial and error, and I've paid, you know, a quarter million dollars to coaches and things like that to, you know, help develop me. Um, the thing that I'm seeing right now that works the best is, I mean, obviously, I do, I'll share my authority engine real quick so everybody can hear it, but but I'm gonna tell you the specific piece of content that's working the best for me right now is long form written post with a captivating hook. Then I tell a story, and then on the end of the story, call to action. I'm posting those on social media every day across every platform. I'm using them to sell tickets to my mastermind. Upcoming Mission Ready Mastermind is back July 23rd and 24th at Club Paddock and American Fork. It's bigger and better than ever. Get your tickets today, anyways. Um, so hook story. The story provides value. It teaches a lesson, it's helping people. Then call to action at the back end, and I throw a picture on it as well. A still image is now outperforming, for me at least, my reels and and things like that. Now, that's not to say I don't do the reels. The reels are the most consistent way to get views, but um those those individual long form written story posts, especially on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, those are outperforming my video posts on those platforms, which is cool. Now, the video is the engine for me. So for my my social media homies, if you're trying to do this, we f this is what I recommend. I teach a concept called the authority engine to my clients. It is the four piston system, because I like cars, four piston engine, uh four piston system to building trust and authority at scale. The framework, real quick, we start with our omnipresence, right? We post on every platform that my audience is on every single day. Multiple times a day. I think I told you before the show we did like over 300 pieces of content in the last week. So we're posting everywhere. People see us. Then we do at least one long form piece of content every week. That's piston number two. The reason the long form content is important is because it shows people how you think, how you solve problems, how you help other people. That's where the trust is built. Third piston, short form content specifically geared to amplify the long form content. So we take the long form, we will clip it up. Shorts, reels, clips, TikToks, whatever. And then also we do educational content, talking head content, those kind of things. All of those are geared just to get views, but to drive curiosity and interest back to the long form content because the long form content is answering more questions and helping people learn things. So the short form amplifies the long form. Again, they get back into the long form. That's where the trust is built. Number four, consistency and cadence. Algorithms now on all social media platforms reward you for posting consistently and for a um sorry, the term trying to think of, it's for a cadence that is uh predictable, a predictable cadence. So the benefit to that is that humans, all of us, have patterns of life.

unknown 1:29:42

Animals.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:43

We have animal habits and instincts. Instagram knows that every night at 8 p.m., Parker McCumber is on his Instagram account scrolling. So Instagram can more effectively serve me content that is going to be interesting to me at that time because it knows where I'm at, what I'm doing, how long I'm going to be on the platform, because of my pattern of life. That also allows it to then get a better reading on okay, this content is engaging with these people at this time every single day and holds their attention for this much time. And so we either want to keep serving them that content or we don't want to serve them that content. So the algorithm can learn more easily when you're consistent and uh repeatable. So then it rewards you to be consistent and more repeatable because it learns it can be more effective as an algorithm. So use that against the platform or use it for your own benefit. I mean, you pair those four pistons together, and now you've got an engine that just cranks out content. You net, I mean, like for real, if you come in, you film uh for an hour in a month, it's very easy to get 31 clips, reels, shorts, posts out of that. Very easy. So then you have daily content every single day. You're always posting, your content calendars always ran. So obviously, you can take those things, you can apply those at home, right? With a phone camera, even.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:09

But if you want to go totally hands-off, that's why like we got into this podcast studio. I was running my podcast at home, spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy soundproof panels and cameras, and then I'm paying a videographer hourly and I'm paying the video editor hourly, and like it just got expensive. Oh, yeah. But you know me, man. My mindset is all about how do I monetize everything in my life. Well, the answer is professional studio, rent out the studio space when we're not using it. So if you want help, you want to go totally hands-off on your content creation. That's why we have the rookery studios in Oram. And even if you're not local and you don't want to come in and film here, we'll take your, like just send us your raw footage, videos. We will edit it, audio engineer it, we'll go through, do the clipping for you, all that stuff, like make it the best that we can make it, obviously. But if you are local, just come in and film and you get, you know, the professional 4K video and all that stuff. The beauty of it now is to make it totally hands-off for people. We also do um social media management. So like we have uh software that lets us host your content, host your content for you, run your content calendar, and that way it can be totally hands-off. Like just easy, easy setup. So you've got to build the authority engine, is what I call it. That's the secret to mastering your social media right now in your presence. That's part one of the organic side. Part two, the networking piece. You're way more successful than me at the networking piece. It's getting out there, building the relationships. Maybe it's the detail for free, but you get it to the right people, and this is what's important. You have to identify with your business. Am I networking with the right people, the right circles, the ones that are going to promote me, promote my brand, that are going to get me into Club Paddock? If you can identify who the right people are, you can go all in on building relationships with them and going deep with them. And the deeper you go, the better the relationship you build. That's what gets you into their circles, their friend groups, their relationships. And then you get to leverage their network, not just your own. And that's how you master the networking side of that, in my opinion. Provide an exceptional service, give people a good experience, because it's all about the experience, and then just invest time and a little bit of energy into maintaining those relationships, right? Because relationships are all based on time and attention. So as long as you can do that, provide an excellent experience, give them time, give them attention, your network grows. Agree? Oh yeah. That's how you build a business totally organic in five minutes, boom, free, free meat, free chicken, something like that. That's what they say, right? Okay. Uh, what else haven't you told us about slick detailing? So we kind of know the services you provide, we've gone over the pricing, we know who you want to help. What's the uh the payoff or the experience for these people that you see? I mean, obviously, you've got a ton of five-star reviews, you've got some uh great video testimonials now. What's the the average customer experience?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:29

Uh, I would say probably just less hassle not having to worry about, oh, is my car being taken care of properly? Is it gonna be done well? Um, also, like they can trust that if they refer us, like their friends or whoever will get the same service. Um, I think it just comes down to just the quality. That's kind of been my biggest thing is just focusing on the quality. Um and then just slowly compounding. Like I hired my first employee, which is my brother, uh, back in October full time, which has been a great a ton of help because before that, uh, if you remember, I was out of my I do remember. Yeah, I was out of my Audi A4.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:11

I was telling Cody a what it's been a year two years almost. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:15

I was like, you hey man, you've grown, you need to hire an employee. And I mean, I was out of my little Audi A4 and just grinding, right? But yeah, I should have hired my someone or my brother, whoever, a lot sooner when you told me to.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:30

Can we talk about this for a minute? Yeah. Because there's a couple things that I think are really important to unpack about like your journey and and the success that you're starting to have with this all now. When Cody started, I talked about at the beginning of the show in my awesome hook that all of you guys loved. I talked about the grit, the determination, the perseverance, right? Your refusal to quit and build your network. Cody was legit detailing out of an Audi A4. He had a water tank on a pallet in the trunk, right? Yeah. Most people are not thinking how to start a business like that. They're thinking, oh, I need I gotta get the van first. I've gotta, oh, I I'm it's not a big enough water tank first. Dude, you found a way. That's huge.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:21

I I think that that's something that a lot of people miss out on. If you have an idea, a concept you think you can pull off, even if it's only 80% of the way there. In the artillery, the field artillery, I'm a field artilleryman. We have a saying Fifi, F it, fire it. It essentially just means send it, send it. You get a concept 80% of the way there, send it. I like that. And you did. But like you wouldn't have grown, the business wouldn't have grown if you didn't do that. It would have just sat in this conceptual phase. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:56

No, it's true. Like, I mean, I had I wanted to have that van. I wanted to have the best setup and all that before jumping into it. But obviously, financially I didn't have that. So I just started with what I had, which was my car, and I just put made a little platform with some two by fours, put the water tank, got a generator, got all the equipment, and just kind of threw it all in the car. Uh, did that for way way longer than I should have, did it for I think like a year and a half. Um, and then I just got the van in the end of February, which has been a game changer. Now I got way more water, uh, so we could do more jobs at one stop, um, more professional, or more equipment, more product. Um, but yeah, I would say for for anyone listening, like just don't let anything like limit you just because you think you need it. Yes. Just start.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:53

Dude, thank you for sharing that because that is that is the biggest obstacle to somebody, I think, finding their success. They refuse to start. Yeah. They're afraid of the rejection, the per the perception, right? Like, and you you touched on it just barely. You wanted to have the the van, you wanted to have the more professional appeal. If you didn't take those first steps in your Audi, you would have never built the relationship with people that would have got you to the point where you could have got the van. Yeah. You would have never built a business if you didn't just start.

unknown 1:38:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:27

And I mean, some people even respected it. Like they're like, oh, this kid's grinding. Like better than the van. And I think you might have even said that too. Um it's a yeah. Okay, so think about this.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:41

Me and my background, now that I mean, you know it a little bit. We've known each other for a few years now. I built my business from nothing. Yeah. I bootstrapped and then I tried to monetize everything. I'm not uncommon in the supercar world when it comes to that mindset, that mentality. Most people who've built a business built it from nothing. They built it because they had a dream, they had a vision. Those guys, like the Emmanuels, the Adams that we just talked about, they respect that hustle so much because it speaks to them. It's their background. They did the same thing. They relate to that. When they look at you hustling out of the back of the Audi A4, they know that that was them 10 years ago. I mean, that's how I felt. I see that and I'm like, hell yeah. Like, dude, I'm all in on this guy. One, you know your stuff. Two, excellent product and service. Three, I can see that you are hustling. So I want to support that. Like that it speaks to me on a on a one, the logical level, two, on the emotional level. Because I relate to that journey. And I think that that, I mean, you should always, always, always tell that story. Because that story connects with people.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

No, that's a great point. Like you, because like Adam King and like you have heard like say, like, oh, I have respect. I love seeing the hustle. Uh, especially nowadays, apparently it's not that common. But it's not common anymore, man. People aren't willing to do it. And that's why they do it, they don't grow. And I feel like it is more common, at least to me, because I'm around people.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:19

Yeah, you're in it now.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:20

Yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah. But I would say also just like not letting anything like stop you. Like, I work from the hottest temperatures to I mean, work here in Utah, like I've done details when it's snowing. Like, don't let any limitation stop you. Um, because also like that helps you grow a ton. Like, I wouldn't have never wanted a detail in the snow, right? But it's possible for those who think it's not possible. But doing the things that you don't totally want to do will help you grow and like learn and adapt to become the person that you need to become. Yes. But yeah, I think it's it's been a ton of help starting from I guess ground zero to getting to where I'm at, and I'm far from where I want to be at. But no, I think I'm grateful for every step of the way.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:09

Okay, let's talk about uh, you know, you mentioned hiring somebody, you should have done it sooner. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. It was either the first uh coaching session we had or the second. It was one of the first two. Early on, yeah. Where I was like, holy smokes, Cody, you just gotta hire somebody. Uh let's talk about that for a minute because that's an obstacle for a lot of people. And and you relate and you can you can talk about it now from experience. It's scary to hire your first person. Big time. Because and and I I know you went through this, so I want to hear it from your perspective, but a lot of people feel like they have to let go of quality control. They have to let go, uh, they have to, it's hard to trust. It's their baby. You've built this company by yourself, and now you've got to let somebody else in. And that means you necessarily lose some control. Tell us what that process was like for you. And actually, let me preface this too with when you approached me about it, you told me you're doing a hundred cars a month, averaging two to three hours a car by yourself. Yeah. I'm like, you're working 300 hours a month. I'm like, okay, most people 40-hour work week, they're going uh, you know, 160 hours a month. You're doubling that. You're capped out, you can't make more money. Yeah. So I'm like, dude, there's an obvious limitation here that we have to get around to grow you and your business. But then you also have to overcome all of the obstacles with hiring somebody, the fear and and all that. So tell me a little bit about that process. What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What was it like? And then what's the payoff once you actually hire somebody and got them trained and now what the business can do as a result?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:46

Yeah. And I'm, I mean, I'm not perfect in this. I'm still learning. Um, but no, it's, I mean, just grinding every day, like you get to the point where you don't want to do that forever, and you need to hire and grow and expand, especially if you want your business to grow. But I uh I mean, I remember when you were telling me for early on, and I was just so scared because I was like, yeah, if I do that, I'm gonna take a big pay cut with the little amount I was making, and I wasn't too ready to do that, even though I knew like I I knew like back, like if I did it, then it would work on the like long-term things, but I wasn't totally ready to like just jump into it, very hesitant, very um stubborn, um, which I still am, still trying to learn. I feel like most people are, but um, yeah, I just hired my brother and he works with me full-time. Um, it just has secreted the point where we can do a lot more jobs, which then allows more revenue because we're doing more jobs, also not working as long of days. We still work, don't get me wrong, very long days, and I still work pretty much every every day, Saturdays and Sundays. Um, but I don't know, I feel like it once you start to like trust the process and it starts to work better. Like, if I'm being honest, like I'm today's is the first day that my brother's running a route by himself because I'm here, and it's hard to like just trust that things will go well, even though I know that he can do it, just not just letting him go and do it. But yeah, it's just been him and me working side by side, um, busting out jobs, and I'm grateful for him. Um, I'm sure he probably has gets tired tired and resentment towards me sometimes because I we work so much and I push, push, push to like do more. Um, also I'm a people pleaser. Like, if someone's like, hey, can you also do this? I'm like, in my head, I'm like, all right, cool, more revenue. We're helping this customer out. Yeah, sure. We can add it. And I know my brother does it, probably doesn't want to do it every single time, but I'm grateful for him. But I do believe it's definitely part of the process to just grow. It's just jumping into it, letting someone into the business that you can trust. And I do believe it has to be someone that you trust, especially at the beginning. If you just pick anyone, things could go south. Um, I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with hiring lots of people. I've only hired my brother so far, but I feel like I've picked a good person to hire and trust. I've worked with my brother in tons of other jobs prior. So I know that he was someone I could trust. And I think that's been a big help towards me and this business to grow and to also keep that quality and just eventually start to expand, give him more responsibilities. Let's talk about this real quick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:50

Um, three things that I want to get into. Sorry, I gotta rewrite down my note before I forget it. You talked about the revenue shift. At the time, you're looking to hire somebody, build your team, you're nervous about, okay, this is gonna hurt my immediate income.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:09

Right. Uh I'm I'm thinking, you know, we, I think when I told you we need to hire somebody, maybe, maybe this if I didn't do it at the that session when we were coaching together, I definitely did it on the next session. We mathematically broke down, okay, if you can give up this amount of work to this person, that allows you to take on, even if just 50% of the clients that you gave to your brother or to your employee, uh, you would make X amount of more money. Right. And we kind of played around with those numbers a little bit and said, well, if you give up this much work to them and you take on this many new clients as a result of that, then you can have X amount of dollars played. Um, and one of those scenarios was like, I remember we had written it down, broke it out. It's like, dude, if you just give up, you know, I can't remember off the top of my head, but 40 cars a month to him, and that lets you take on an additional 25, 30 cars because and you still so you're still working less, but you now have 30 cars more of monthly workload. I'm like, you make an extra 40 grand. And that's not 40 grand to him. That was 40 grand like your take home. And then I'm like, dude, that look at the mortgage payment that you get. Now you've got a dream house, now you've got your your car that you want to have. Like, there's a financial equation that that I would recommend people look at when it comes to hiring. And it's, okay, if I give up X amount of work, that allows you as the entrepreneur to do more money-making activities, whether that's uh attract new clients, whether that's uh actually like you already had a wait list because your network was so good and strong. Like I think at the time you told me you're like, yeah, there's we're booked out for six weeks or something like that. Like we're just we're slam, like, okay, well, if you can take those two weeks and now put them into a month, you can now do six weeks worth of cars in four weeks. That's huge. That's big revenue generation. So you have to look at what activities you get to do now that also generate more revenue to the company. And then you subtract what you're gonna pay the employee from the total revenue generated now from your added activities. And then you can look at, okay, what's the actual net to you to the business? And if it's positive, you should do it. Like if it's if it's you get to make another, you know, 10 grand a year or something like that, why wouldn't you do it? It's 10 grand a year. Like 10 grand a year is a nice car payment. Like true. So there's there's a uh an equation there that I think people should consider. That's just the logic side of me. The emotional side of me is the trust piece is hard, right? Um you talked about having to lead with trust and and give up some of that. Something that you mentioned was the hiring aspect. And and I I think this is really important for people to understand. I always recommend hiring based on trust. We can teach someone how to do a skill, we can teach someone how to do the work. I can't teach someone to be a highly trustworthy individual. Like that's just way harder. So I always, always, always prioritize trust and culture fit in the organization over the hiring the best person at whatever the skill is. Like, I don't want a slimy salesman. Yeah. I want a high trustworthy person that I can teach how to do sales. And then this is the beauty of entrepreneurship now. You're not just developing as a car detailer. Now you're developing as a leader. Now you have somebody who is looking to you for the guidance, the vision of the company, all that stuff, right? So you're developing in that sense. You're also now developing as a coach and a trainer. You're teaching someone else how to do everything. But all of like I say this often entrepreneurship is the best method for self development because now you're growing in so many different areas that you wouldn't have been. Growing if you didn't one, start the business, two, develop the business, three, hire an employee, four, teach an employee. It's cool, man. True that, yeah. And and for me now, I'm all about the journey of self-actualization, right? You're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is the top level. And that is, in short, the pursuit of becoming the best possible version of yourself. Now I don't think it's actually possible to achieve that. You're always, there's always a way to get better, incrementally better, improve, right? Humans are never going to be perfect. But if you can focus on becoming the best version of yourself, you become more valuable. And if you become more valuable, you earn more. And if you earn more, you have a higher quality of life. And if you have a higher quality of life, your family, your network, your community also all has a higher quality of life. There's a ripple effect because now you can influence more. You can give back more. You can donate to the charities that supported you and your family. You can volunteer to coach, you know, your kids' soccer team or whatever. But the world gets better as you pursue the better version of you. And I think entrepreneurship is the best vehicle to achieve that. Totally agree. Oh yeah. Okay, we've already kind of dove into strategy a little bit. But let's talk about the strategy. Okay. How are you growing right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:28

It's probably not the smartest. I mean, paid ads, I've seen tons of my um, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:34

Dude, if you don't need them, don't use them.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:36

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:38

But how's the growth? I guess let's let's talk about that. Because if you're maybe capping out on the networking side of things, then maybe you want to look at a different, you know, an alternate path to growth.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:48

Yeah. Um, yeah, I think right now we're growing pretty uh sustainable. Um, nothing too crazy though. Um, I mean, I do want to eventually, I mean, the goal is to hire on another person at the end of the year um and get maybe a Ford Maverick or something. But uh I do plan on probably going to the next level um with doing paid ads. But I would say right now networking's been great. We get referrals every week. Um, we get people that just jump on the schedule from the website or social media DMs. Um, but I would say right now we're continuously growing. So sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:32

I would I would just keep going all in on the uh organic side. I mean, you're already you're already there. You're already cheaper side too. It's the cheaper side. You've got great content. I mean, like you go do a detail, take the pictures, the videos. I need to be better at that. People love to see that. You do need to be better at that. Yeah. And also get the video testimonials and when you get them, post them, share them.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:51

True.

unknown 1:52:52

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:53

Videos is definitely the way I um I need to go.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:56

And well, recognize this. If somebody doesn't know you, they don't trust you. Yeah, if they don't trust you, they're not gonna buy from you. But what do they trust? If they don't have a relationship with you, it's the herd mentality. So they want to see other people trust you. And if other people are vouching for you, trusting you, then they can it's an easier sell, an easier gap for them to bridge.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:17

Which has probably been the way that's been working the most, because I don't really post my face or anything. I don't talk. I do want to, and I should, but um, most of our content is just pictures. Um, just because it's easier and quicker, because videos, I'm unless I'm doing it wrong, takes a while to film while I'm just trying to bust out the job to get to the next one, to the next, to the next. Yeah. So that's typically why I do just pictures.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:41

Well, keep in mind, you're not uh you're not a videographer or anything like that. That's too, yeah. If it's me and I'm in your position, what I'm doing is I'm just pulling out my phone and I'm just, hey, we're finishing up this detail on this SF90, dude. Check out the interior on this. Look at how clean that is whatever, you know, and it's a 30-second story. That's true, yeah. Right, you're still posting the the pictures, but it's just a quick, a quick video. People connect with that.

SPEAKER_09 1:54:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:07

You can stand in front of it selfie mode. We're just wrapping up this uh the detail here. If you need a detail, you got a uh supercar, hypercar, you wanted to make sure it's in good hands, you know, give us a call.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:19

I mean, that's definitely something I can easily do, and I definitely should and you're doing it.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:23

I'd recognize or I'd recommend um just use a simple hook story offer format for those. The hook doesn't always have to be spoken. The hook is visual too. Somebody sees you standing in front of a freaking S SVJ, people are gonna pay attention. Right? When when when you're when you see the SVJ, you stop and you look, right? So so you can leverage the cars as a hook as well. Um make a funny face, look at the car. Just finished up that detail on this uh beautiful S SVJ. Show them the value add. You know, one of the things that my customers say about me all the time is that when they get into their vehicle, it's clean, it's fresh, they feel refreshed. They have more mental bandwidth. You know, their mindset isn't uh focused on you know the little things anymore because they can sit back and be rejuvenated by their vehicle. If you want to feel like that, give me a call. Simple call to action. Not a hard sell, not a hard push. But you just do that repetitively. And people see you, they see your face, and they associate your face with hypercars and supercars and awesome work, and they see the carpet lines, they're sold. That's what gets them. That and the video testimonials. Very true, yeah. Well, Cody, you've provided a ton of value to the audience today. We got into some great topics. Yeah, it's been it's been fun. Is there anything that I can do for you and for your audience?

SPEAKER_00 1:55:54

Uh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:55

I mean, dude, you've been a ton of help, especially from the beginning. Um, I've anyone's debating on like if you should or shouldn't work with Parker, I think you definitely should. Um, he's got a lot of value. Uh, he's been a ton of help to me. And um look forward to learning more and more every day.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:13

I want to see you making $10 million a year with your detailing empire.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:18

Hey, that's the goal, right? What's your favorite car? My favorite car. Yeah, I'm a big Porsche guy. Okay. Um, yeah, I love the Carrera GT, um, but hell yeah. I would say if I can, I mean, my goal is to get to a point where I can buy a GT 3 RS. Uh, I know it's pretty common for people to say, but the 991, I think it's just you you actually had a 991. Yeah. Um, this first supercar, right? It was my first supercar. That's like my ideal dream car. If you see me driving that, I I'm I'm going in the right direction.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:51

I want going in the right direction. Cody, in the next 12 months, I want to see you in a 991.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:57

Yeah, I'm working towards it. So say, just say hell yeah. Hell yeah. Guys will look at this and they'll say, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:04

Hell yeah. All right, dude. As a as a thank you, man, I want to give you a signed copy of my book. We'll stand up, we'll shake hands. Oh, wait, stop before we stand up. Look at that camera and tell them where they can find you. How do they follow you on social media? How do they connect if they want to get a detail?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:19

Yeah, dude, uh, hit me up, Slick Detailing Company on Instagram, Facebook, um, or you can just text me at 702 271 3081. Sweet.

SPEAKER_13 1:57:31

We're gonna stand in front of this camera, maybe. We're gonna shake hands, lean in. Awesome show. Tons of value.