How To Start A Mobile Oil Change Business

“Bring it to me” service business is rapidly becoming a business of high demand. A business that was once only provided to major fleet owners has now become more mainstream. My wife and I were motivated to start this business in 1999 while working in a manufacturing plant. Myself, as a supervisor on salary (means being paid for 40 hours - worked up to 80) and my wife, an hourly worker where overtime was required. We always had a ton of “to do” items on our list that we couldn‘t find time TO DO. Of course most things just kept getting put off because we simply didn’t have the time. We kept wishing that we could find a way to start our own business that would help others in the same “no time” boat as we were in. We also wanted our business to be home based.

After much searching we heard of one company that offered on site oil change services. We kicked that idea around and mentioned it to various friends, family and co-workers and everyone thought it was an excellent idea! The list of who could benefit from a Mobile Oil Change Service continued to grow, fleet owners, apartment complexes where people aren’t allowed to do their own oil change in the lot, even the average individual who simply didn’t have time or the knowledge to do it themselves, the list was endless!

The start up costs for this type of business are very low. It could be run from home using our own garage for product so there is no added overhead for a “shop”. We were able to fumble our way through getting our trade name, business license, insurance - all the “legal” things. All we needed was a van, some equipment to do the job, our garage, inventory (oil and oil filters) a computer to print brochures, fliers, and price lists. We had some business cards and invoices that we designed made up by a local printer. We used a free site to build a website (low cost to have banners removed) and we were on our way.

The first couple of years were tough, no denying that, we had no idea of how to advertise and no one to turn to for help. With much determination and prayer we learned what worked and what was a waste of time and money. Eventually we found our “niche” and our business became such a success that we added a wider variety of services. From tire rotations, air filter and wiper blade replacement, to bulbs, headlights and serpentine belt replacements also. Our customers love the service and we were glad that we were able to leave our factory jobs and start helping others save valuable time. Word of mouth is the best way to promote this type of business, so we started out by telling family, friends, our insurance agent, dentist and other businesses about our services we now offered. Once we had our foot in the door with some fleet owners word of mouth then spread to other fleet owners also.

Starting our own business was challenging, there was no info out there to tell us what we needed to know so we learned the hard and costly way. We have since had many others sending us emails looking to get started in this type of business. Quite often by the time we finished answering their questions we joked “we should write a book”. After a couple years of that we realized YES we should write a book. That’s when we wrote our “How To Start A Mobile Oil Change Business” Manual.

In our manual we share all of our experience to help others get started and successfully run their own mobile oil change business. We have included samples of our materials used as well as vendor lists so people can start off using the right products at the right prices. We include worksheets to enable the person reading it to be able to figure out their start up costs and break even points so they can determine if this is the right business for them BEFORE investing a lot of time and money. To see the full list of what the manual contains please go to: www.melrics.com

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