Mobile Oil Change Business Advice

You want to start a mobile oil change business. You have not bought anything yet. The van, the equipment, the oil, the filters, nothing. Stop right there in your tracks. Do you have what it takes to make this work. I know it sounds like a good idea, I know you think the whole mobile oil change concept sounds nice but do you know whats involved. I wish someone else would have made this blog when I first got into business. It would have a)stopped me from doing it or most likely b)made me successful a lot sooner.

Besides going after the wrong type of business most mobile oil change operators just don't have the type of personality you need to make this work. You are not going to be able to sit by the phone and wait for your customers to call you. You are going to have to go out and get them. This is the the only reason why I am in business and most other mobile oil change businesses are not. Most operators are introverts to say the least. This is not to say they are dumb but I have found that a lot of people who start this type of business are not "sales oriented." What do I mean by that??

Let me tell you back in 2005 how I got a huge fleet. I will even say the name of this one. Its a company called Corporate Express. They got bought out by Staples last year in the summer. Anyway I was doing an oil change at an office complex. That was back in time when I was still doing the individuals or "onsies twosies" as my partner likes to say. I had just gotten done with an oil change that, by itself took 25 minutes but if you add going up the fifth floor and getting the keys then repositioning the car in an area in the parking garage that had more room and then after the oil chage is done going back up to the fifth floor to hand back the keys and recieve payment only to find out that she wants to pay with a credit card but did not tell you beforehand so you run back down and ride the elevator back up and hand her bach her keys and swipe the credit card, ends up taking over an hour. I noticed a Workhorse truck parked outside the front of the building. I do not even think about it. I quickly run up to the truck as the guy is bringing some packages in the building. I look at his oil change sticker. Surprise, surprise, the truck is 6,000 overdue on its oil change. Thats money! When the guy comes out, his name was Jason by the way, I ask him who is in charge of the fleet maintinace for his company. He is a little bit shocked and surprised but tells me anyway. I then go on to tell him that I own a mobile oil change business and that I noticed his truck was overdue. Of course he did not care, if fact could care less. But I had gotten the crucial information I needed. I found out the fleet managers name. That is the most crucial pieces of information you can find out. Once you find out who can tell you "yes" or "no" you have solved half the equation. Oh yes, I also was able to get from him how many vehicles they had. It turned out they had 15-20 vehicles. Again, that money. This is a fleet that has something worked out but its obviously not working or the truck would not be 6,000 miles overdue. It also tells me that the air filters, coolant, fuel filters, are most likely going to have to be changed since the vehicles are not being serviced like they should. Again, thats money. And I know what they have fifteen trucks and if I could net at least $30 per oil change I would make $450 just off oil changes if I could seal the deal with the fleet manager. And if you account for add ons or if I could talk them into going with syntheic oil, which I did, I could make $800 net minimum per oil change interval. And that is just what I did. I talked with the fleet manager. We worked out a deal. I told him I could come after hours, which was his main concern and showed him my 1,000,000 liability policy which was no concern to him but impressed him nevertheless, and I got the fleet. And when he left a month later one of his top drivers took over and I got him to swtich his whole fleet to syntheic oil and we did the coolant flushes for all of them.

The point is you have to be ready to talk to anyone at all times. At no time I am waiting by the phone. I hate the phone. You have to be ready to go up to fleet managers, fleet workers, business owners, and just start talking. You are going to mess up but if you want your mobile oil change business to work you will make yourself get good at it. I have only meet a few guys who understand this.

You have to talk to people. You have to be ready at all times. You are going to have to do cold calls. I have done 100s of cold calls and got hung up on so many times. I have just steeped into office building and acted like I knew people there when I did not. I do not care. I cared about my mobile oil change company working. I have actually gotten lazier over the past two years. I do not do what I used to do. I have really toned it down. I still do some crazy tactics here and there but I just do not have to any longer. I don't have the desire. But the first two years I was like a fireball. I was ADD. It was always the next deal. The next deal. We just got a brand new fleet, who cares, next deal. That is why I have a viable company now.

So now you know two componets to having a profitable and successful mobile oil change business. You have to be comfortable talking with people, be bold, be corageous, not care about anything, and know that you have to go after medium to large fleets bypassing the individual to make having a mobile oil change business succeed. If not I hope you live with your parents or your girlfriend has a good job because I am sorry you just will not make any money at all. I live in the coldest state in the country, I get paid more for ONE OIL CHANGE that you do for three, and I swear if when I did the individuals even alot of them I was not making any money. And I will continue to emphasize this on every post. Your mobile oil change company needs to be a business to business company and nothing more. Do not waste your time. Please! I want to see more people suceed in this business b/c it can make you alot of money. But noboby knows how to do it right.

Mobile Oil Change

If you want to make money in your mobile oil change business you need to listen to me.

Most of the people doing mobile oil changes are not making any money at all. Most of you all are going out of business or will go out of business soon. I know this to be a fact. You thought that this was a great idea. Your friends said that it was a good idea. How could something like this fail? Everyone needs to have an oil change anyway. Usually they have to go to JiffyLube or something like that. Why not bring the service to them. They can get an oil change at their home or at their office.

Most of you all need to throw out what you have been taught or what you think because it is wrong. The mobile oil change business is not easy, quite the opposite, and it will stay hard unless you do it right. You think you are going to make money making $15 bucks off an oil change. Think about it! Its foolish. The going cost for a typical oil change in this country is $30.00. But the price of oil is going to cost you $10.00 at least and the oil filter another $2.00. Then add three more dollars for fluids or and your fuel to get there. You are going to make fifteen dollars if you are lucky. Complete bullshit. I live in Alaska and I make way more than anyone else doing this business off a regular oil change and even making that I still don't make enough money so don't tell me you can too. Even if you had a couple add ons you fall behind. Go and get a job. Don't waste your time and money if you are even thinking about running your mobile oil change business that way.

Let me tell you first how JiffyLube makes their money. I am going to get into how you can make money in the mobile oil change arena but before I do I will tell you how an average quick lube makes money and you will see why I am telling you this later in the post. And JiffyLube had the best oil change system around so what they do is industry standard.

The JiffyLubes that make money are in busy corridors with a lot of traffic. Not just any traffic but shopping traffic. This is important. The JiffyLubes by Costco, Sams Clubs, shopping malls, outlet stores are making money. People are in a buying mode and while they are doing that they get an oil change real quick. They barely think about it. Nobody plans for an oil change but while you are out shopping or running errands you look at your sticker, see you need an oil change, get it, and forget about it. Okay, because the quick lubes need to be right by BUSY SHOPPING CENTERS with tons of traffic they are going to have to pay outregeous rents. And they have employees. Minimum wage employees but lots of them. And a lot of overhead. And they do not make a dime off oil changes. Oil Changes may barely pay for the free coffee in the lobby. For them to make money they need volume and they have to.....add on like hell. Wipers, batteries, belts, transmission flushes, power steering flushes, air filters, fuel filters, nitrogen, cabin filters, coolant flushes, lights, youth....you name it. Many of these services are valid but alot of time they have to push them even when you don't need them. And even with add ons they have to do A LOT and I mean A LOT of oil changes to make money. In fact your typical quick lube operator, with all the work involved, with all the hours involved, rarely is able to put more than $50-60K per year in his pocket even if his store does very well. Thats not a lot considering the costs involved in start up, the hours, the risk, ect. In most cases a quick lube that looks good and is in a decent spot will cost half a million. And you mean to tell me that the operator may be able to put 60K in his pocket. Exactly. If he is lucky then in twenty years when he pays everything off he might make a little more. But at the end of the day the key to making money in the oil change business is owning multiple quick lubes. If you own several of them and each make minimum 40K then you can make a decent income. But I would say that more than half of the oil change operators are just glorified employees who "own their job." The overhead needed and involved to even get the business is just so big and those places are almost forced to be dishonest if they want to stay in business. The whole model is flawed. Especially when I see advertisements for $19.99 oil changes and the cost and material is at least $13 and the labor is costing another $10.00. Most oil change business are loosing money off the actual oil change in hopes of getting something else. Some operators who have their quick lube business in a place that support higher costs, bought and paid for their place when prices were low, and everything else goes right make money. They make a lot of money. But I they are in the extreme minority.

So you have a mobile oil change business or thinking of starting a mobile lube business and you think you can make money when most fixed locations cannot. Most of you all try to undercut the competition. If the going standard rate is $35 you try to do $25. But I am going to tell you this fact...you are not going to have the volume. I know your overhead is going to be WAY less than fixed locations but you still have overhead, you still have your personal overhead, and you will need tons of volume not JiffyLube volume but tons of volume to make money. You need twenty per day to support your mobile oil change business but first thats hard to get and second its physicaly impossible for one or even two guys to do that many and third there is not enough time in the day to service twenty vehilces unless they were all in the same place. And that is one of the keys to owning a mobile oil change business. I just told you the secret. The main secret. There are others but this is number 1. Your mobile oil change business must do multiple vehicles at ONE LOCATION to make money. That is the only way it will work. First I want to tell the majority of you all that even saying that most of you all will fail, this business is tough, find another good idea, or get a job. But if you are intent on starting a mobile oil change company or want to make yours work, forget about doing individuals. They are an absolute waste of time. I will say that again. Doing vehilces at multiple locations are a waste of time and money and will lead to you going out of business. Your goal is to get as many vehicles at one location as humanly possible. This means focusing in on fleets.

Your mobile oil change business should be business to business only. Maybe you can do your grandma's car but thats it. I get calls all the time from the phone book "I want to set up a oil change" and I quickly say "sorry, we only service fleets and businesses". I do not want them. The mobile oil change business is not for individuals. Its for businesses. Even if you make $15 per car but you do 20 of them, thats $300 bucks net. You will learn later thats nothing but you could live and grow your business of that. Later I will show you how to make that in one hour, sometimes in thirty minutes, but right now I want to get you off going to multiple destinations trying to make money. Good luck with that. Make your mobile oil change company only do business with other companies. No exceptions. I have gone to the hopitals, I have serviced vehicles for doctors and lawyers and businesses at offices and I made very little. It looked great but I made very little. Never again. I did that for 2 1/2 years. I got corporate campuses and hospitals and this and that and it was hell. I looked good, the appearance was good, we even were voted most valuable company for a major hospital because everyone loved our company but our mobile oil change set up made nothing. It paid the bills. Every month I took a $300 draw. Great.................

I was given terrible advice. We were a franchise of oil extreme and we thought we had something. I was so pumped. I was 19 years old when I started this company. My uncle gave me the money to do it. He put over 50K on the line for me and we went with a franchise that screwed us. They gave us a great looking van with a great but impractical setup nice uniforms but terrible advice. Extremely terrible advice. If I continued to follow their advice at Jet Set Life Technologies I would be out of business. The owner knew nothing about starting a mobile oil change business. He has charisma charm and was a great motivational speaker but knew nothing about starting a profitable mobile oil change company that actually made money. I will tell you how to do that. Please, listen to me.