An eye for the finer points of making cars look showroom-smart is ensuring Clive Ford’s business is thriving, even during a pandemic, writes Alex Burns
The last year or so has been difficult to cope with for even the most established businesses. But for Clive Ford, who started his first ever solo business venture just six months before the first lockdown began, it has been nothing short of a baptism of fire.
“I could hardly have picked a worse time to start a business,” he laughs, “but I’ve actually been shocked at how many people have come and supported me and given me their custom.”
Clive’s Stirling-based business, The Detailer, involves giving cars a range of aesthetic treatments to improve their appearance and longevity. This car ‘detailing’ is a relatively new phenomenon, but Clive has been involved in the car industry since the 1980s when he did an apprenticeship at a Ford garage (an unintentional coincidence, given his surname).
After getting the “bug” for car washing, Clive cleaned cars at the weekends while working in the catering industry, before being asked to come onboard at a well-known valeting and detailing firm in Stirling.
“I had been working for them for about ten years,” Clive explains,
“and I realised that I had always been an employee, always making everybody else money and making everybody else happy. I decided that I wanted something that was mine.
“Starting a business at the age of 48 was probably very late in the grand scheme of things, but I worked really hard to save a load of money, working weekends and doing taxi work to get enough money together.
“The place I worked previously was a big, flashy place, while mine is just a small, tidy workspace. But a lot of people prefer that. It means that the person they speak to is the same person who is actually working on their car. It’s a very personalised service, I’m the one who oversees it all from start to finish.”
Customers come to The Detailer for a variety of services that range from a valet right up to applying paint protection film (PPF), which can cost several thousand pounds.
“You know when you see cars sitting outside showrooms that just look amazing and super shiny? That’s basically what I do. The paint protection film is a clear film that you wrap the front of the car in (predominately the front, although you can do the whole car if you want), which stops all the stone chipping and signs of wear.
“Usually it is the higher end of the market that will opt for that, because it is quite expensive, but it means that when they hand it back to the garage it will increase the value of the car, because it doesn’t have any damage, it is the original paintwork.
“I can also apply a ceramic coating, a hardened silicone coating that protects the paint and slows down the wear, making it easier to remove the dirt without harming the paint. If you have a second-hand car, I will remove the existing damage by machine-polishing the paint, taking away the very top layer of the lacquer to remove the scratches and exposing a brand-new surface underneath. Then I can add the ceramic coating or a wax on top, depending on what the customer wants to pay for.”
As well as helping to maintain the resale value of a vehicle, detailing has an undeniable appeal among those who show off pictures of their car on social media: something which is only set to grow as the smartphone-obsessed ‘Generation Z’ come of age and pass their driving tests.
Social media has also been an incredibly valuable tool for Clive when it comes to attracting new customers.
“95% of my business comes from Facebook, people saying they’ve seen me online. All my advertising is done through social media, which works superbly because it is costing me nothing, other than my time to sit down at night and put a post online. I try and make my posts quite personal, the bigger companies make their social media content look like adverts and I think that people just scroll past that. Making it a little more personal makes people more likely to look at it.
“Word of mouth helps a lot as well. I try to give everyone the best experience I can possibly give them, the best value for money, then things will grow from there. What you tend to find is that once someone comes once, if they like the service they will come back.
“People who knew me from the last place, they’ve been knocking on the door and wanting to bring their business to me and follow me over to my new venture. It reminds me of a hairdresser, the way that if hairdressers change shop people will follow them because they don’t want to use anyone else. It’s the same for me.”
With business continuing to grow, Clive admits that he won’t be able to stay as a one-man band for much longer.
“I’ve only ever been an employee and I’ve never had to employ someone, so I will need to take advice at that point. I think I will take on someone with zero experience and teach them way I want it to be done.
“I struggle with people who don’t do it a particular way, especially when my customers are paying good money for the service. Regardless of whether they are paying £170 for a valet or £3000 to get their car detailed, there is a big responsibility there and I want them to be completely happy. I treat everything like it was my money, how would I feel if I was the one spending that much on a car detail.”
As a first-time entrepreneur, Clive credits the team at Covault for finding him a flexible workspace that suited his needs and giving much-needed support in the early days of his business.
“Covault for me was an absolute godsend. They came in, knew exactly what I wanted and got me a unit that I could get the cars in and out of, but wasn’t any bigger than I needed. They did exactly what I wanted them to do. Every question that I asked was answered.”
This article appears as part of The Herald's Entrepreneur campaign, in association with Covault.
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