Not long ago, I was presented with an interesting problem by an onsite auto detailing entrepreneur. The mobile auto detailing entrepreneur had contracted with a very large property management company to have the exclusive rights to do car cleaning on their properties. One of the properties was quite huge indeed, and the company had put forth a space for them to do the washing, but made it mandatory that all cleaning had to be done in that specific area. This is quite common, but it is also a huge challenge. Okay so let's talk shall we?
First, because of this it means that you have to move the vehicles, and you are then doing valet type parking, or going and getting the keys in the office building, and coming back and moving the cars to the cleaning area, then moving the cars back, and running the keys back up. If you are in the care, custody, and control of the vehicle, that you need "Garage Keeper's Liability Insurance" and it isn't cheap.
A property manager may want you to have $3 million liability insurance aggregate for completed operations, garage keeper's liability, and $1 million per occurrence. They will also wish to be additionally insured, which means you don't have the opportunity of showing them a certificate of insurance and then duly forgetting about the policy after that.
Now then, with all this known should you take such an account guaranteeing you a monopoly on the building and complete exclusivity? Well, there is a HUGE cost of time too if you have to move the cars around, it totally screws with your momentum and increases your insurance rates; the whole care, custody, and control of the vehicles on the liability insurance side, and you will have accidents as parking lots and structures have more accidents by far than even the busy city streets. Then there is the issue with driver's licenses, look I've seen the available labor around downtown areas in the United States and it can be at times a little less than desirable.
Property managers of high rise office buildings always want to stick the washing and detailing crews in the dungeon and then only give them a little space to work from as it is a premium. Still the moving of cars around just completely destroys any sort of Six Sigma production efficiency. Sometimes you can put a service writer or valet salesman at the entrance to the parking lot to take orders and valet cars to the wash and detailing areas.
We did this while working with the amities services with Standard Parking, and you might wish to also pitch ancillary services too, perhaps with other auto service vendors for a fee or commission for your service writers or "rain-makers" aka; sales people. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Additional Reference:
The Los Angeles Times had a rather alarming article published recently titled; "L.A. Looks to Curb Unruly Valet Parking," by Martha Groves on November 16, 2012 which stated in the teaser; "Fly-by-night valet parking operations and lack of responsibility for damage and theft prompt Los Angeles to consider regulating the business."
Lance Winslow has launched a new series of eBooks on the Mobile Auto Services Business. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a The Oil Change Guys, a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank;http://www.worldthinktank.net
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