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 Profile in Success - May 2007  |
Thorough Prep Delivers Results
Want into the car wash business? Get some business experience, do lots of research on the industry, take some training that covers all aspects of the business, try working in it, and have reasonable capital of your own to invest. Richard Sasso has met all those requirements, and it looks like his preparation is paying off. His Mr. Squeaky Car Wash in Pompano Beach, FL, opened a week before last Christmas, and was paying its own way in just two and one-half months. Its yellow-and-blue colors beckon to the 65,000 cars that pass by daily on West Atlantic Boulevard. An adjoining RaceTrac gas station adds convenience for motorists who want to gas, wash, and go. The wash is a $3 million state-of-the-art express-exterior tunnel setup. Detail bays provide interior cleaning and other plus services. Free vacuums enable drivers to quickly remove dust and sand from inside their vehicles. Sasso, a long-time car enthusiast, is no fan of the $3 exterior wash for which volume is the principal criterion. Mr. Squeaky charges $8, $10 or $12 for a three-minute exterior treatment, depending on whether the driver wants extras including triple-foam wax, body protectant, and tire shine. Full-service wash packages start at $21 and go up to $49 for a full-service wash and hand wax. By the second month, the average per-car revenue had reached nearly $14. “The pricing was set around the core belief that customers are willing to pay a few dollars more for great service and a great car wash,” Sasso explains. Given the high prices of commercial property in South Florida, “It didn’t make sense for us to charge less than $8 for any car wash. Typical in-bay automatics at gas stations in the area charge $7 or more for a simple wash,” Sasso says. “We give our customers a show in the tunnel, and they immediately see a huge difference in wash quality.” Plus they get free use of the 18 vacuums. For his first week or so of operations, Sasso offered a $5 exterior wash, but went to the $8 level on January 1 this year. His grand opening in early March offered the $5 wash as a means of reaching out to the community, and he offered a coupon good for that pricing in a couple of local papers in late February. “Folks came in, coupon in hand, but I don’t want to grow my business by couponing,” Sasso says.
In his planning, Sasso’s goal was to have one out of five customers select the full-service option, and in his first two months he hit that number right on target. “This allows us to give white glove service to the customers who desire the very best,” he says. One key to customer satisfaction is personal attention. Drivers entering and leaving Mr. Squeaky are warmly greeted, often by Sasso —who is on the scene 12 hours a day, seven days a week — or his wife, Lynn. She is a practicing attorney and office manager at her firm, and comes in on weekends to assist with greeting and cashiering. On busy weekend days or at rush times, Sasso pitches in with his six employees to work on cars. Like his employees, Sasso wears the company yellow T-shirts and hats bearing the company logo, carrying out a yellow-and-blue color scheme reflected everywhere at Mr. Squeaky’s. Even the wraps are yellow and blue. Such blue-collar work seems a far cry from his early professional work life. He and his wife are both University of Miami law graduates, and he practiced law for several years. While in law school, he passed by a busy car wash every day going to and from school. “I always had a love for cars, and the business kind of intrigued me. “Cars are a sexy thing, I felt they should be clean, and that kind of led me to the industry,” he says. He wasn’t getting much personal satisfaction from the confrontational nature of practicing law, and decided he wanted to work for himself.
He traveled the country visiting and photographing hundreds of car washes, and also earned Master Certification at the CarWash College outside Fort Lauderdale, FL. He was one of the first two students to complete all three courses — maintenance, repair, and management — the college offers. At the invitation of Jack Barrett, who owns a car wash in Port Orange (near Daytona Beach), Sasso worked at his wash on and off for a month. “Jack showed me how to load cars, how to change or repair equipment, everything involved. Two days into it I was counting money with the managers there. That (experience) was the first confirmation I was doing the right thing.” Sasso and his wife had liquid assets to bring into the business, proceeds from investment properties and a business they had sold at the peak of the South Florida real estate boom. Sasso says the two lived conservatively and “squirreled away as much as we could.” He and Lynn couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw a nearly 1.5-acre commercial property for sale on West Atlantic Boulevard. They sized up its traffic exposure, and recognized valuable neighbors including the RaceTrac station and a Taco Bell restaurant. Sasso was unstinting in site investment beyond the cost of the land. Mr. Squeaky employs Sonny’s equipment in a 135-foot tunnel including soft-cloth wraps, high-pressure rinses, computer calibration, chemicals and dryers to make each vehicle clean, shiny, and dry.
Armor All and Rain-X products are applied both in the car wash tunnel and the hand-finishing express-detail area, and Simoniz Tire Shiner is applied in the tunnel. About 10 percent of customers upgrade to tire shine or Rain-X. The setting and structure of Mr. Squeaky fits right in with the upscale nature of the wash services. Sasso hired professional landscape designers to frame the wash with palm and other trees and flowering bushes, committing almost $100,000 to his concept of both customer service and curb appeal. The landscaping is professionally maintained. The attractive building that houses Mr. Squeaky is stucco coated over solid masonry block, with a standing-seam metal roof, all built to current hurricane-resistant standards. Large letters on the building proclaim it “Car Wash,” and a 20-foot street-side sign emphasizes “car wash” more than the Mr. Squeaky name. That sign has a changeable reader board on the bottom portion which can be used to advertise daily specials, but the prevailing message simply promotes the three-minute $8 wash. Sasso’s hiring of staff seems as thorough as his preparation for getting into the car wash business. While the wash was under construction, he put up signs with his phone number facing traffic on West Atlantic Boulevard, and ran a couple of ads in local papers. Between 2,500 and 3,000 applicants responded. Sasso interviewed each, “some for a minute on the phone, some for half an hour in person,” with follow-ups on many.
His criteria were tough. He wanted people willing to work long, hard hours. “I tried to find people who were happy to have the job, rather than feeling the job was beneath them.” A friendly attitude was essential. From the thousands, “I whittled down to the best six people. “Before I opened, my biggest fear was employee turnover and related problems. From the other business I ran, I learned that finding good people to staff it was by far the biggest challenge.” Other operators warned Sasso that he’d be lucky to have any of his starting crew still with him by the end of the first three or four weeks. Perhaps due to his thorough screening, he still had all his original crew after two and one-half months. Those employees are treated well. They are paid time-and-one-half for time over 40 hours, and share equally in tips, which average between $3 and $4 per car. Sasso gave them a Christmas bonus, even though Mr. Squeaky had been open just one week. He never asks them to clock out on rainy or slow days, but puts them to work on upkeep and maintenance chores. He buys them lunch on Sundays, and often invites some of them to join him for an evening snack or meal. “I want to have a place that feels like home.” Sasso is the only manager during these early months of Mr. Squeaky’s operation. He’s on the scene from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, and may eventually share some management time with relatives so he can “take a breather” and have some time to reflect on the present business and how to grow it.
The appearance of the wash and its brilliant results on cars has brought in some fleet business without any effort on Sasso’s part. “A couple of limo accounts have come to me asking to set up an account,” he says, “and I’m working on a city department that will involve something north of 100 cars. A BMW dealership wants to work with me, and that’s all been with zero effort on my part approaching them.” Repeat customers are a growing factor in Mr. Squeaky’s volume, and the wash offers prepaid cards in any denomination above $20 that give drivers a 20 percent bonus. A $100 card purchase, for example, is good for $120 in services. When we visited in early March, Sasso was working out a link with RaceTrac’s computerized registers so that gas customers can purchase Mr. Squeaky services at a discount (such as an $8 wash for $7). Pump toppers will promote wash purchases. The car wash shares a driveway with the station, and drivers can move from station to wash, or wash to station, without getting back on the street. Sasso would like to open another wash or two on his own and also sell franchises. His web site (www.mrsqueakycarwash.com) now offers car wash equipment and also invites interested persons to contact him regarding a franchise. The polished nature of Mr. Squeaky operations has already prompted some customers to ask if it is a franchise operation. Sasso designed Mr. Squeaky as a franchise-ready concept, and has already had some investor inquiries. The solid preparation and hard work that Richard and Lynn Sasso committed to Mr. Squeaky has created a professional car wash that puts its priorities on quality car cleaning and a high degree of customer satisfaction. In growing numbers, South Florida drivers are giving the new enterprise a warm welcome. Jim and Elaine Norland are regular contributors to Auto Laundry News. |
