You figured the client wouldn't check. You had six other cars to get through. You told yourself it was fine.
That’s exactly why you're stuck at $35K a month while the shop across town does $150K with half your square footage.
I know because I watch shop owners do this every single day. Then they spend hours stalking their competitor's Instagram trying to figure out the “secret.”
There is no secret.
The Same Situation, Two Approaches
Last Tuesday I watched two shops handle the same exact situation:
Client wants their Porsche done by Friday for a car show.
First shop says yes immediately. Squeezes it between other jobs. Figures they'll make it work.
Second shop pulls up the weather app. Checks humidity levels. Says no. Explains that rushing the ceramic coating in these conditions means it won't cure properly. Offers to personally deliver it to the next show instead.
One charges $950 for coatings.
The other charges $3,500.
Same product. Same application process. Almost four times the price.
The difference?
One owner would literally lose sleep if that coating didn't bond perfectly. It would eat at him during dinner with his family.
The other owner just wants to get cars done.
Your Market Talks
Your clients with $200K cars talk to each other.
At the country club.
At Cars and Coffee.
In group chats you'll never see.
They don’t share stories about shops that do "decent work."
They share stories about the guy who redid an entire PPF install because of contamination only visible at one specific angle in direct sunlight.
Contamination the client never even noticed.
That client has sent him four Ferraris since.
Obsessive Attention to Detail Pays
Yesterday I visited a shop where the owner was on his hands and knees checking wheel barrels. On a maintenance wash. For a monthly customer.
That owner did $2.3 million last year.
You think that's excessive.
You think it's inefficient.
You think you can't afford to operate that way.
The truth is, you can't afford not to.
Every time “good enough” rolls out of your bay, you’re training your market that you're a “good enough” shop.
Every car with swirls still in the paint.
Every coating with slight high spots.
Every piece of film that's just slightly off.
They’re all walking advertisements that you don’t actually care.
Obsession Sells
I was in a shop last week when a customer asked if the ceramic coating would really last five years.
The owner pulled out his phone.
Showed photos of his personal car with the same coating from three years ago.
Started talking about how he still checks the beading every time it rains.
How it bothers him when the hydrophobic properties drop even 5%.
That customer upgraded to the $4,500 package immediately.
He wasn’t buying a coating.
He was buying the owner’s obsession with making sure it performs.
Look at Your Shop
Look at your schedule next week.
How many cars are you cramming in?
How many times will you say “that’s good enough”?
How many corners will you cut because the client won’t notice?
Now look at your bank account.
That number is the market’s opinion of how much you care.
The owner who would redo an entire job over an imperfection nobody else can see charges ten times what you do for the same service.
Because clients aren’t paying for ceramic coating.
They’re paying for someone who cares about their car more than they do.
The Question for Tomorrow
So what changes tomorrow morning when you walk into your shop?
Or do you keep doing what you did today, next month wondering why nothing’s different?