It’s finally here – your opening day! Take a well-deserved deep breath and congratulate yourself on the hard work and planning you’ve put into your business so far. You are already way ahead of most of your competition.
Even with your pre-launch checklist and dry-run wash and detailing sessions, your opening day may not go necessarily 100% as planned. Handle any minor bumps in the road with grace and take notes. After you’ve completed several wash and detailing jobs, look over your notes and analyze any consistent areas of difficulty you have encountered.
You shouldn’t expect a bunch of unknown challenges at this stage – after all, that is why you’ve spent all this time planning. But your day-to-day operations and processes will likely require some fine tuning. Don’t get discouraged if you make some mistakes at first. Again, handle these mistakes with grace, try not to call undue attention to them, learn from them and move on.
Some common hiccups you might expect during your first week or two of operations might include. . .
Running out of washing or detailing supplies in the middle of a job
Being late to an appointment because you can’t find an address
Double booking as your learn your scheduling system
Taking longer to complete the job than initially planned
Leaving equipment or supplies at the customer site
While you should always strive for perfection and complete customer satisfaction in your business, you should also give yourself some slack during the first week or two. The last thing we want to see is that you get overly frustrated with yourself over a silly mistake. When this happens, your mind becomes cluttered and you can’t effectively learn from the mistake. Take a deep breath, take some notes, and move on!
