Auto Detailing & Fitness Training: Not much different from each other

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Auto Detailing & Fitness Training: Not much different from each other

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After a 'sabbatical' from the fitness training full-time profession I once had, I began doing auto detailing work at a Chevy dealer. I love Chevy's in the first place, so to work for Chevrolet is like 7th Heaven somedays for me. I had this job on a temporary basis, as I was awaiting news to see if I was going to be accepted into a Catholic seminary for a special 1 year discernment program. I got news recently that I wasn't accepted, but on the good side of that, I was offered to keep my current auto detailing job with a higher wage as well. Now, I'm doing auto detailing as my main career, with fitness training as a side hobby.

I recently went to an auto detailing workshop, and learned a lot of similar things it has in common with fitness training, between the 2 business aspects of it.

If an auto detailer is trying to make a sale on a detail job, he can't oversell & under-deliver. You can't say "I can make that car shine as good as it was new, I can get that carpet as fresh as it was from the factory...", and then when you CAN'T make it shine, you can't make stains come out, or you can't remove a smudge with 3 different cleaning agents you tried, you just can't start making excuses with your detail client.

Same thing with fitness training, as a career profession, and for many who take on the services of a trainer: you can't expect magic to happen if you don't do a full assessment of what you're about to undertake.

As an auto detailer, if I have a detail job to do, I should take a look at the damages on the car to get a full estimate of what I can do, and perhaps how long its going to take. If the exterior is all scratched up, filthy, tires are awful-looking in the rims, plus the interior is full of 'various farm stuff' from the fields, its going to take a while.

As a fitness trainer, I'd see many clients who'd expect a 'full detail' and want it done in less time than it would take. People who'd be literally 50 pounds or more over an ideal healthy weight, and want it off in a month or two by seeing me 2-3 times a week, and that would be all they'd do. YIkes, I just can't do that. Just like I can't be expected to get a farm truck, crew-cab style, and turn it into a shining piece of artwork in 3 hours. It just can't happen that quickly (maybe a full day's worth, like 6-8 hours of detail), when the carpets need to be shampooed, scrubbed, and possibly shampooed again, which could take 1 hour on its own.

Ideally, I can make this type of truck look better, but not 'fresh off the factory' new. If the truck's got 90,000 miles of beat-to-hell wear & tear on gravel roads & fields as a majority of those miles, then I'd be lucky to make it shine with minimal scratches. The customer has to know this, and not be expected to get a totally new-looking truck, and end up with something less than expected.

Fitness is the same way: you can't expect to detail your body into a fine, shapely-tuned piece of artwork, carefully crafted to perfection, on a lone program of walking with 2 pound dumbbells.

You gotta detail the program for what you want. You might have to spend extra time cleaning the insides out, cleaning out the vents, the dashboard's dust & clutter, the stuff you'd find underneath & in-between the seats, create your own analogy here....

You can't just buff the outside and leave the inside looking like garbage. Or, you can't just clean the insides out, and not do anything for the outside (like dieting alone and expecting your body to magically build muscle in places you want it to).

So, bottom line, you need to detail things better if you expect a certain outcome. I get some detail jobs where all they want is the insides cleaned out well, and to not worry about the exterior. Our dealer gets cars coming in off from auctions that were previously rentals. Some come back ready to go, just minor preparations, and some need a full detail done, to get it looking a lot better. So, when you look at it, people have different needs & desires, but need to understand that it takes time and the right amount of detail to an entire program for what you want from it.

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