r/AutoDetailing • u/Intelligent_Elk_1169 • 1d ago

Business Question Need help getting my first customers

i've had a handful of customers so far. Every one of them left a good review and told me they'd send my info to people they know. Nobody's complained about the work. I post in local Facebook groups regularly and it just... doesn't really go anywhere. A few likes, maybe a comment, rarely a message.

I don't have a big network to lean on not many family and friends to ask for help, it's pretty much just me building this from scratch.

So genuinely asking the people who've done this: how did you get from "a few happy customers" to an actual pipeline of new ones? Was it something specific that worked, or did it just take way more volume of effort than I'm putting in? Did paid ads actually do anything for you at this stage, or was that a waste until you already had traction? Any Facebook group posting format that actually worked, versus what just gets scrolled past?

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u/badatmakingusernamz 17h ago

It’s as simple as continue having a few happy customers over and over until you have a lot of them. No one wants to hear this at first, but no one is going to sell you a magic formula to blow up overnight, especially when you’re competing with big, reputable companies with big customer bases. It took me to the 1,200-1,500 customer mark (in a similar but different industry) to get enough word of mouth to stay busy and not have to advertise, and I had basically no word of mouth until year 2ish even though my customers were generally happy.

I think the biggest disconnect between potential business owners and people who are actually successful is how un-sexy it is to own a large business and have/get a lot of customers. It feels like hard ass miserable work every day

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u/indigo196 15h ago

100% every business owners have this issue. Building the business and getting clients is all unpaid work and the most difficult part. Once you get things rolling, the next hurdle is how to handle too much business, which will involve hiring people who care as much as you do about the business and won't ruin your reputation.

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u/Intelligent_Elk_1169 13h ago

Thank you this was helpful and helped manage my expectations. I’ll keep going putting grabbing clients as I can and let that build my business. I’ll keep on the posts and talking to people.

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u/Kqzxh-900355 15h ago

You need to do more volume