Thinking About Getting Certified to do Car Wraps

[CFL-Luis]

Hello everyone,

 

I am seriously considering taking a 5-day car wrapping course, and getting 3M certification in the process. This—as many as you already know—would be a considerable investment since I have to travel to another city and get a hotel while I'm there, plus meals and all that.

 

Anyway, my questions are:

 

1. How much can I expect to be paid if I get a job as an installer?

 

2. Is it better to freelance and go to different shops?

 

3. How much can I earn as a freelancer doing say 3 or 4 jobs a week.

 

I live in Central Florida and there are lots of sign shops, and most offer car wraps among other services, so it seems the industry is doing well, especially when you drive around town and see so many vehicles with either partial or full wraps.

 

Thanks in advance for any information you can share with a newbie.

[Midtown Houston]

Do you already have experience?

[CFL-Luis]

Do you already have experience?

 

None.

[Supreme]

_{This topic might be an interesting read for you - http://www.tintdude.com/forum/index.php/topic/81748-how-long-to-wrap-a-car/}

 

_{I think a lot of the questions have so many variables that I don't think there are exact numbers people can give.}

 

_{1. It will depend on how much the shop pays which I would imagine varies, sign shops and specialised wrap shops/installers would have different skills and pay. When I first started and went to spend some time at a shop to learn they were paying their staff a % of what they wrap. Gives them an incentive to get as much done as possible and to step up to more difficult parts that cost more to wrap e.g bumper vs bonnet. If you need to redo an area due to quality issue then they could either take the extra materials out of your pay or you don't get paid as much due to still only wrapping one area that day.}

 

_{2. Both have their pro's and cons, if you can find a good shop with good quality and they pay well then that's good, no dealing with customers, quotes, money etc. You go in, do your job and go home. Running a business takes a lot of work. On the flip side you cant control the quality if its not your own, you could work for a 'she'll be right' business, but at the end of the day that's not your worry if its not your own.}

 

_{3. No one can really answer this, depends on the jobs you do. For us something like two bonnets in one day would net us the same as slogging it out with a  full wrap for that day. The bonnets would also not take all day so, we would earn just as much and have the arvo off. Bottom line is you win some and lose some, its not an exact science. How much you charge for work will come down to your quality, your market and your competition. People say the competition shouldn't matter but it does, you want to charge for your quality which is higher than your competition but you need to find a happy medium with this until you have built that reputation and are getting a good flow of customers. No good having a high price and getting a job every now and then.}

 

_{You need to work out whether you want to specialise in colour change wrapping/styling or sign shop type wrapping. They are most of the time very different, our area has a sign shop on every corner but they do not specialise in colour change wraps. They also don't want to specialise in it. It does take some more patience and time which they don't want to get into (and they don't need to). For instance in the sign world they are used to wrapping the whole side of a car at once and then trim the gaps and tuck. In colour change you wrap panel by panel individually. The amount of jobs we have fixed for sign shops trying colour change is crazy, fixed one the other day where they just left the wrap ontop of the windshield seal instead of tucking.} We also get referrals from sign shops as again most of tehm don't want to get into it.

 

_{We still charge lower than high quality wrap shops across the country, why? because the market is still growing and not as established as other areas. By the sounds of it your area is booming, check out those wraps you see and see if there is any lifting, bubbling, wrinkly corners, unnecessary joins etc and that will help you work out if that area deserves better}  

[CFL-Luis]

Thanks so much Supreme for taking the time to reply to my question with such detail. 

 

I've visited a couple of sign shops in my area and also talked on the phone with the owner of a shop in Daytona. Super nice guy who gave me a ton of info.

 

His advice was to really find an area I like and enjoy (wrapping cars, motorcycles, or whatever) and become the top guy in that segment. He says then you can get the most money when you're specialized, which makes sense.

 

Another thing I am learning is that a lot of the charges are based on square footage and the type of material. Again, he mentioned that—in his opinion—3M and Avery are the easiest to work with, whereas other brands may need more time and practice, so learning how to price jobs is crucial.

 

I also mentioned the 5-day course that I will be taking, and he said that it is quite intense and that they will make sure I can apply wrap properly before they turn me loose, so that's encouraging to hear. And I was told the same by the person I spoke with when I called them to ask for information about the course.

 

Anyway, like with most professions, there's a ton to be learned and ultimately practice makes perfect. Or rather perfect practice makes perfect!

 

Thanks again for all the valuable information.

[Vinylspec]

roll price should be a factor in your pricing, but don't forget to pay yourself as well.

[WearTheFoxHat]

Supreme's advice is well............... Supreme.!! 

 

Good on you for taking the course first!

Poking around here you will find threads with DIY guys that had a good understanding of expectations and others that had poor comprehension skills when "watching YT vids"

 

Cheers

 

Being 3M Certified gets you documented right on their site so be sure to keep your info up to date.

This gives people looking for a guy in their area your number. !!

[CFL-Luis]

roll price should be a factor in your pricing, but don't forget to pay yourself as well.

 

 

Supreme's advice is well............... Supreme.!! 

 

Good on you for taking the course first!

Poking around here you will find threads with DIY guys that had a good understanding of expectations and others that had poor comprehension skills when "watching YT vids"

 

Cheers

 

Being 3M Certified gets you documented right on their site so be sure to keep your info up to date.

This gives people looking for a guy in their area your number. !!

 

 

Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.

 

Also received a reply to an email I sent to a shop in Daytona, and the owner says I can expect anywhere from $14 to $15 to start as an installer with very little experience, to $20 after about a year. So that gives me a better understanding of what to expect if I go the employment route.

 

Looking forward to taking the course. I think I will enjoy it.

[Supreme]

Thanks Fox.

 

Vinylspec is right and im sure there are a fair few other factors I didn't mention either. Roll price or how much material you use is part of your pricing and then also work out an p/h install cost that your happy with and this price needs to include all your overhead percentages. Tax, % put away for marketing, % for tools, % for insurance etc.

 

A square foot charge doesn't really work when it comes to colour change wraps. How long the job is expected to take is the way to go. For example, your small fiddly areas don't use much material but at times can take as long, if not longer than easier areas like bonnets. They can be a perfect example of why vinyl wasn't created to be a cheap paint job as for them to be hung in a booth and sprayed could be cheaper than wrapping fiddly areas. Motorbikes are another perfect example of this and why you don't tend to see too many wrapped. lots of channels, joins and fiddling needed in most road bikes. This means the labour rate can be quite high for what they are.

 

My advice would be to stick to a type of wrapping, signage or colour change as both usually take a different path. Setting yourself up as a sign shop may lead to other signage installs. Setting yourself up as a colour change wrap shop means you don't tend to get calls about installing signs but you still get calls about digital wraps. We still do digital wraps but do them differently to most sign shops, we still wont do them quick e.g , we will take off door handles instead of trim round them. We outsource design to some awesome designers in the US and Europe, We also outsource printing. It means no overheads on that front and we just do what we are good at and that's install.  

 

By the sounds of it, like my area, you are flooded with sign shops so taking a different direction might be best for you.

 

Oh and good on the guy in your area for giving you advice   Usually they don't want anything to do with it as you are potential competition. At least that's how it was in my area when I wanted to learn

[CFL-Luis]

<---SNIP--->

My advice would be to stick to a type of wrapping, signage or colour change as both usually take a different path. Setting yourself up as a sign shop may lead to other signage installs. Setting yourself up as a colour change wrap shop means you don't tend to get calls about installing signs but you still get calls about digital wraps. We still do digital wraps but do them differently to most sign shops, we still wont do them quick e.g , we will take off door handles instead of trim round them. We outsource design to some awesome designers in the US and Europe, We also outsource printing. It means no overheads on that front and we just do what we are good at and that's install.  

 

By the sounds of it, like my area, you are flooded with sign shops so taking a different direction might be best for you.

<---SNIP--->

 

Thanks again for all the valuable info Supreme, especially for the quoted portion of your last post.

 

I think that setting up shop to do car wraps would be the ultimate goal for me, as I'd really enjoy that part. However, the thing that kept me on the fence was not being a designer or able to make the investment required in order to purchase or lease equipment to do my own printing and—I must admit—that it never occurred to me that some of those tasks could be outsourced, so thanks for bringing that up. Sometimes I am not as smart as I like to think I am. lol.

 

The shop owner in Daytona said something very similar about specializing, and he mentioned that he's sticking to doing boats since that what he enjoys and excels at. So it makes perfect sense.

 

The one thing I will do first is get good at this, and either try to land a job with a sign shop or do freelance work in order to gain experience for the first year or so. At that point I will decide if setting up shop is the right thing to do. 

 

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to share good advice and ideas with a complete newbie. They are sincerely appreciated.