We all knew that bad weather cycles are a part of this business, and always have been, long before global warming became a topic of regular conversation. The focus shouldn’t be on what to do when the weather is bad, but rather, how to strengthen your market position when things are good. Having operated washes in multiple states through too much snow, too little snow, too much rain, forced drought closures, and the occasional catastrophic hurricane, I realize how tempting it is to relax a little bit when things are good. Ironically, it’s when your business is doing well that it is most critical to put in the extra hours to bring it to the next level. When things are going well is when you have the capital to implement change, and in my opinion there is only one place to start; refining the execution and marketing of your distinct competitive advantage.

I am assuming your house is in order. Your place is clean and inviting. Staff is in uniform, trained, and knowledgeable. The wash has a reliable process to deliver clean, dry, shiny cars in a respectable and consistent time. In fact, you should consider yourself the best wash in the area in your niche. I didn’t say the biggest, I said the best. Whether you’re the best full serve, or best exterior, or best self serve, or best in-bay – if you don’t genuinely believe you deliver the best product in your niche, then you have some serious work to do. If you don’t think you’re the best, just imagine what prospective customers are saying about you.

Before moving into refining your distinct competitive advantage, have you done all the obvious stuff? Is yours the business that every local school turns to first when they need to raise money? Are you the guy marketing to all the large companies in the area with advertisements put into the pay checks of all those employees? Do you already sell prepaid monthly wash subscriptions to reduce your dependency on the weather and have a regular income stream on the first of each month? I’m sure you can add another ten items to the list of low-cost, effective marketing activities; but how many are you doing consistently? It seems when business is good there is never enough time to focus on these items. Then we get a bad stretch of weather and panic.

So now what’s next? You’re house is in order, you’re executing on all the obvious marketing activities, and you find yourself saying, “Business is okay – could be better but the weather.” Here is where refining the execution and marketing of your distinct competitive advantage can really pay off. Chances are you’re already doing it in some form. Most entrepreneurs originally opened their business to fill some need that they identified and created a competitive advantage to differentiate themselves from the competition. Are they the right ones? Don’t guess. Ask your customers. Take surveys. Record and tally their responses. Larger car wash chains may decide to solicit the services of a market research firm. Smaller locations may simply type out a list of the top 10 attributes they believe customers look for in a car wash and randomly ask customers to rank them, put their response in a ballot box, and possibly receive a coupon for a free wash. Others may simply talk with customers and gauge their responses. The most important thing is to ask your customers what they truly value.

List the top four things that you discover in order. Think about what you can do to own the top two items in the list. When I say own, I mean that whenever someone in your market thinks about that attribute in a car wash, your location is first in their mind. So for example, let’s pretend your research showed that the first attribute your customers looked for was a fast service time and the second was to get the interior vacuumed. You would create marketing collateral that uses verbiage and graphics to reinforce your ownership of the first and possibly second of those qualities. Maybe incorporate a tag line of “Clean cars in and out – in 15 minutes or it’s free!” Possibly uses a graphic of two babies pointing to each others’ belly buttons with a tag line of “Inny – Outy clean – in 15 minutes or less”. All right, it might be better to hire a local advertising agency, but hopefully you get the idea of creating verbiage and graphics to take ownership of the attributes your customers value. It should also go without saying that whatever you promote must be true. It may require some investment and work to create the reality you want to feature. Don’t cut corners. Your competition will make sure every potential customer knows if you overstate even the slightest detail.

Once you’ve fine tuned the marketing of your competitive advantage make sure to include it on everything that existing and potential customers may come in contact with. It should be on every advertisement, sign, and business card, just to name a few places. After all, you’re really in the business of making sure every perspective customer knows that you are the best at delivering what they truly want.