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Posted on: June 4th, 2012

Branding

What are you looking for? Equally important, what are your customers looking for? What separates you from your competition? What makes you unique, different, and innovative? It’s you! It’s your identity! It’s your “brand”!

Watching the University of Oregon play the University of California in football, the announcer stated that Oregon’s “brand” had been developed so successfully that top high school football players from all over the country wanted to come play for Oregon. This makes recruitment much easier when they come to you, rather than you chasing after them. Oregon’s “brand” has been built on several levels: their look (uniforms), their success (winning seasons), and their continued drive to create and set themselves apart from their competition.

What are you doing to set yourself apart from the rest of your competitors? What are you doing to build your “brand” so customers want to come to you, allowing you to spend less time “recruiting” them? There are two options: 1) stay with the crowd doing the same thing your competitors are doing, or 2) rise above the crowd and make your “brand” something people want and want to know. Is your “brand” true to your business, and, more importantly, are you true to your “brand”?

“Branding” is the way to keep your customers associating your name with the service you are providing. Unfortunately, in the car wash business, many owners have strayed away from their “brand.” They are promoting brands of national companies looking to sell national products.

Case in point: an owner and I were having lunch next to his car wash. I had supplied the equipment to this particular car wash, and the owner said he was buying a national brand of wax because he thought his customers knew that brand and what it did. Our waitress washed her car at his wash every week and said she purchased the most expensive package (which included the wax) every time. When I inquired what she thought of the wax, she stopped and thought for a moment, then replied, “Oh, I thought it was referring to windshield wipers.” It turns out, she had connected the name with an ad she had seen on television but the name on the sign meant nothing to her.

What are you looking for and what are your customers looking for? At FOCUSED CARWASH SOLUTIONS, our products and signs are designed for your uniqueness, your identity, your “brand.” YOUR name, YOUR brand, not ours!