lower90xcab

Thanks guys. I didn't realize how much this color popped until I did this one.
Dan. These are fun trucks. I have an 07 silver TBSS and love it. Spent 2 years looking for a Red one, (looked up and down the west coast) Didn't find one, then found a local older couple that had a very low mile Silver one they bought new with exceptional service records and grabbed it up. 
I had bought that plate and forgot I had it until I opened and moved into my shop. I try to put it on every car I take a picture of. But the later pics I took here I was rushing to take because he was on his way to pick it up and I had to have finished pics of this big job.
 
The trio. My silver, a black, and the blue one on the right.

 
As a dealer for Adams I wish you'd offer things like that to dealers first before they get sold out to the public. We dealers need some cool attention grabbing signage for our waiting rooms and sales displays. This is what I've done. I double stick taped the banner to my wall. But a metal sign would look even better.
 

Glaze before or after sealant. We have people on both sides of that fence here. I personally like glaze before sealant.

Everything I used was from Adam's except the sand paper. First I used 800 grit and used the dry sanding method. Then I went to 1500 grit and wet sanded. Then stepped up to 3000 grit and again used water. After that I used a microfiber pad and correction polish. Then went to a white pad with finishing polish. After that I wiped the lights down with alcohol. For protection I used LPS. Here is what I ended up with.
 
 
 

Got a chance to try out the new Trim Coating today. All I can say is WOW.....three easy steps and you can make your weathered plastic and rubber trim look new.
Check out the before and after pic.
Thanks Adam for another GREAT product!!

I do LPS,glaze, Americana. With G&G every few washes to maintain.

Finally had a chance to detail my dd for the coming winter, nice wash, liquid sealant, brilliant glaze and topped it off with Americana. The irony is that the shine loves to show off at night. Wont you agree?        . Tomorrow I'll tackle cleaning and sealing the glass. Ran outta time today unfortunately. 

I can suggest three main points to consider once you've made the leap into small business ownership:
 
Marketing - this is your lifeblood. This is how you convince Joe Public to take a chance and spend some of their hard-earned cash on YOU. You may be the best detailer on the planet, but if your marketing plan fails your business will fail. Know your strengths. Play them up. Never give a quote without inspecting the vehicle first. This is incredibly important. You want to be seen as a professional? BE a professional. A mechanic isn't going to give you a repair estimate without inspecting the vehicle first, and neither should you. Paint correction IS repair. Base your estimate on the amount of time you expect the detail to take. This is not to say you can't offer base rates for things like a wash and wax or interior detail. I call these 'base rates' with the expectation that the vehicle isn't outlandishly filthy or doesn't have gum, tar, and soda on every seat and carpet in the vehicle. Know your audience. ​Tailor your work to your customer's expectations rather than your own. 90% of my customers don't care that I spent 6 hours polishing their paint to a mirror finish. Knowing that the customer values, for instance, spotless windows and black tires rather than perfect paint allows me to effectively use my time to make my customer happy the first time around. So you get the paint to a 'good' state rather than 'perfect', and you make the windows and tires perfect instead. Building a business is difficult. It's fraught with challenges and pitfalls. But it also can pay off BIG. I STRONGLY urge you learn as much about running a business as you learn about the business you're in. Learn your competitors' businesses. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Have fun every day - running a business is as much about selling yourself as it is about selling your product or service. 
 
I wish you the very best of luck and good fortune as you build your business!

I agree with Tim's comments.  
For most of us the real challenge is determining what the customer really wants, and is willing to pay for.  We look at every detail as a chance to hone our skills and make the paint flawless.  When in fact the customer just wants a cleaner car.
 
Most folks are happy with a clean car (a proper 2 bucket wash makes it look shinier already), with clean wheels, dressed tires, and a cleaner interior.  For this type job, I will clean the fuel filler door, the trunk lip/surround, and a light cleaning under the hood.  They are always blown away, but don't notice the clean fuel door a while.  
 
If you are lucky you will get a few customers that will appreciate/understand a true paint correction, and are willing to pay you for that level of service.  
 
 

This is a Maggie boosted GTO a friend of mine had been neglecting the paint as he built everything else to make it an 11 second street car.
Before.


 
During.


 
After.

i just saw the post about odor neutralizer....I passed along changing the cabin filter along with the ozone treatment. Im waiting to here back from the car owner now. Thanks for the tips/advance.

We had a display this year at Holley Fest and plan on attending next year. 
 
Not sure if we would have room in the semi-truck to pack up our Adam's inventory to retail?  I will keep it in mind for 2017!!
 
Great event this year!!  We sponsored the COPO shootout. 

Adam, you are spot on with the Dealer Certification Program.  I use that system with my company, and customers can quickly and conveniently look across the nation who the closest dealer is to them. 
 
The certification program does things for both sides of the fence:
- It allows the customer to find the dealer they are looking for
- It allows the dealer to be more visible to the customer
 
We get leads all the time at our office, and we can quickly turn them over to one of our dealers in the area that sells our products.  The dealer has to go through a process to get certified, but it shows their interest level by going through it.  We also offer our dealers special pricing that the public would not see, so that is another benefit to them.  
 
I highly recommend this idea!

This is a great concept, one we have been kicking around for a bit!  With a referral website, I'm very confident there would be many jobs booked.  
 
You have your garage queen, and you have your mini-van or beater.  As our family grew and got involved in snow sports, the minivan got traded for a Yukon.  It's dang nice, but we work it like a rented mule!
 
Regardless, I don't get nearly as much therapy detailing the Yukon as I do detailing the Jeep SRT, the dually, or the old 911.   Removing all the kid seats is the first thing to do, and that's got to be one of the least enjoyable parts of being a parent.   I love being a Dad, what a blessing, it is so rewarding.  That said, pulling kid seats sucks. 
 
We finished an awesome road trip with my family last night, Boulder, Colorado to Boise and McCall, Idaho, 2,500 miles round-trip after some excursions.    The Yukon is completely trashed.   We may have wiped out entire species of bugs on the front of this thing, it's not even white as the rest of the vehicle.
 
It would have been awesome to have a simple portal to login, and find a local detailer.  Even a detailer rating service, and several tiers of detailer, depending on a host of things, like years in business, services offered, and positive reviews?  
 
As a detailer, I'd also want our system to offer a customer rating system.  I used to have a few consistently impossible to please customers.  Rather let the community know if someone is a miserable hag, regardless of how nice their detail job was! 
 
 
Finding a detailer along the way would be stellar, and I would have gladly paid a few bucks extra if they used good stuff.  Shows they care a bit more than just buying the cheapest stuff available!
 
How about a Detailer Certification program, where we can refer a Platinum, Gold, or Silver certified detailer?  Might be a good plan to get the right detailer for the right job?
 
Other thoughts?

Not buttery for your hot application.
 
I would seal with LPS and add Americana on top of that 2 or 3 times a year if it spends that much time in the sun.

This ford flex came in as just a wash, clay bar and wax. It endup leaving with a full paint correction, bg, paint sealant and coat of americana. It we also did a full interior detail and sealed the windows. This was also the first time using the tire and rubber cleaner. What an awesome product to use....
 
The start......

 
The finished product....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I really need a better camera to show the depth and clarity of the paint.... 
 

It can very from car to car. My paint corrections start at 350 and I usually add 10% for large truck/suvs. A lot of it depends on how bad the paint is...sometimes you can just do a polish and be ok. Other times it requires both stages of polishing and lots of elbow grease.

Guy & gals you are going to absolutely love these new Glass towels.
They are a nice size 14" x 14" with a black satin edging, and are two sided.
If you are looking for streak free glass these are the towels for you.
I guarantee you will love them too.

http://adamspolishes.com/adam-s-glass-cleaner-towel-combo.html

Got the chance to detail a beautiful 2007 Chevy Silverado LBZ Duramax.  The truck was in pretty decent shape, but the paint has some spider webbing/marring.  The owner plans to bring it back sometime this Fall for me to do a paint correction, but in the meantime, he just wanted a good detail and a fresh coat of wax.  Needless to say, he was extremely happy with the end result.  Once again, the Adams line of products did what they do time in and time out. 
 

Quality - Ease of use - Service - Made in USA
 
 
Not necessarily in that order but those are my 4 top answers.

I agree. You can always find cheaper products, but you can always find more expensive as well.  I found that Adam's is nearly right on par with some of the most expensive products on the market as far as performance, but at a much lower price.  But I learned by inexperience that 90% or more of the cheaper products aren't worth their packaging. You can get some decent results from the two big M companies, and even Griots as long as you're not looking for perfection.
What I find with Griots is that they sell some products, but they sell a LOT of other stuff like shelves and junk.  I like that Adam's sticks with detailing products 95%. Yeah, they sell some kitchy stuff like banners or t shirts or air fresheners. But I think that's only because we all ask them for it.  
I'm sticking with Adam's.  I'm real happy with the way my cars look and I get a ton of compliments. 

here's whats under the cover.....my 98 s10 with a ltx383, tko600 and narrowed 12bolt.....
 

 

 

 

 

 
those are after a full paint correction...
 

Working on my niece's truck today. I decided to take some pics of the new stuff in action!
 
Before

During

After

 
Pretty satisfied!

Worked on the CL550 all weekend. I wish my tire and rubber cleaner spray had gotten here, because the tires had some discoloring that I couldn't remove
 
I never worked on a car that needed claybar this bad (and couldn't tell). I have the nanoskin stuff and the fine grade could not cut it. I then tried my adam's (not the imprint one as I have an older one) claybar and thing was turning black. I finally grabbed the medium nanoskin and still had trouble. You could never tell it was this bad! I don't think this car was claybared once since it was delivered to the first owner (i'm the second).
 
I then got to work and tried an AIO and it did not even touch the swirl marks the car had (ok, maybe it touched it, but nowhere near to my satisfaction). so off I went with some compound and brought the paint back to an acceptable level (took forever).
 
At the end, I used my new go to favorite americana wax on the car and trimmed the only black plastic piece in the back with VRT. I used VRT on the engine bay as well along with in and out spray. The engine cover looks a little spotty, so when my tire and rubber cleaner comes in, I might spray and brush that engine cover and re-apply.
 
Well here are the results. I'm pretty satisfied. It took me fri-sat-sun to do, but I wasn't in a big rush and I took breaks after every panel. and It was still PITA. working on a car when the garage is 90 degrees and the outside air is nearing 100 is NOT fun. I don't like doing this stuff during the summer. I need to reserve me polishing to winter time LOL.
 
Sorry, not sure why some pics are sideways 
 
Here are some before of the swirl marks.

 
and today's
 

Amazes me every time how much the metallic comes through on a well corrected clear coat. Love it. Good job.

I used to use Buttery + LPS. No more.
 
My go-to from now on will be Americana + LPS. It's night and day, Emir. Seriously. Try it. You'll never go back!