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KEY TO SUCCESS:

Company: 360 Wraps  

Project: Wraps preparation  

Key to success: Talk over the process with your client. Prepare the picture in their mind as to how the whole project is going to go. Sometimes little things become big after the fact when they could have been more simply addressed and handled beforehand.

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As you can see there is no glare on this trailer due to all the oxidation, which makes the surface feel powdery. This is common on trailers and boats that are left in the sun for extended periods of time. Trailers and box trucks like this that are made out of fiberglass are susceptible to oxidation when left in the sun for long periods of time. A good rule of thumb is if you press firmly against the surface and slide your hand, if it does not squeak then the vinyl will not stick.

I think we have all heard the phrase that failure to prepare is preparing for failure. If you haven’t heard it, well, you have now. There are a few things that I have learned about preparation over the years. When I say learned, it usually means that these are lessons that cost me time and money. Hopefully sharing these will save you some time, money, frustration or all of the above. When we talk about preparation, we could be referring to a lot of different things that have to do with personal or business life, but let’s specifically focus on these three methods of preparation that will help your wraps business:

 

1. Preparing an accurate quote

2. Preparing your client for the process

3. Preparing the vehicle for installation

 

Preparing an accurate quote

Preparing an accurate quote requires you to ask a lot of questions—specifically, questions that might result from the answer of a previous question. 

 

Here’s a completed wrap on an oxidized fiberglass shell trailer. This entire trailer was sanded down and primered, then wet sanded in order to properly prepare it for the wrap to be installed.

For example, when you ask a client if their box truck currently has graphics on it, if they say yes, this would lead to the next question. Is it a wrap or cut vinyl? If they say no, you might want to ask how old the box truck is and is it oxidized. 

 

Sometimes the answer describes an oxidized vehicle with cut lettering, which would require you to ask the next dreaded question of how long has the vinyl been on there? 

 

This single question and answer could be the difference between making money and losing money on a job. I do not like to install a wrap over graphics that are currently on a vehicle because of the way you can see the edges of the old vinyl through the wrap. However, had I known what I know now after a nightmare job that we did on a box truck that had some old cut lettering on it, I might have encouraged the owner to just leave it. I will get into that later. 

 

In the sales process, it is all about preparing the quote as best as you can to fit the load of work that you are going to have to do in order to complete the job right. Remember, when you’re quoting a job that if you think there is a step that is going to need to be done to complete the job right the first time, anyone else that is going to do the job will probably have to do that step as well. It is important to inform your potential client about this for two reasons. If you spend the time with the client to educate them on these different issues with their project and explain the steps and price for the way that you are going to approach it, you will build trust with them. Your client will not only begin to feel like you are doing what is in their best interest, but they will also begin to question why the other shops that they received quotes from did not tell them the things that you’re telling them. 

 

Once the sales process is done, it’s time to prep your client for the wrap.

 

Preparing your client for the wrap usually comes after the sales process, but sometimes it is integrated into the sales process. 

 

This step here is like the phrase, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” We have found that by talking over the process with our client, we are preparing the picture in their mind as to how the whole project is going to go. Sometimes little things become big after the fact when they could have been more simply addressed and handled beforehand. 

 

For example, let’s say your client drops off their vehicle and is expecting the black plastic door handles to be wrapped as part of the job. This is an item that more often than not we will leave bare. When your client comes to pick up their vehicle, they might love the vehicle but just cannot get over the fact that the door handles were not wrapped. This is just one example of too many to list; however, it is one that I have seen happen. The most frustrating thing about this scenario is that no matter what you say at this point, in their mind it is wrong and they want you to “fix it,” even though it is not broken. 

 

Here is how to avoid this situation with just a little preparation with the client. Tell your client you do wraps like this all the time and have found that sometimes when you wrap on the plastic handles like theirs, the vinyl will begin to come off and start to look bad much sooner than the rest of the wrap. Also tell them you have noticed that when you remove the wrap from the plastic handles that the black plastic has often discolored to a white or gray because of a reaction to the adhesive. Then let them know that regardless if they decide to go with us or someone else, make sure they consider what we said when deciding to wrap the handles or not. This will reassure them that you’re just looking out for their best interest. 

 

After that, nine times out of 10 the client will say that’s cool and move forward without wrapping the handles. Then we reassure them that we will be designing around the handles to ensure that nothing critical gets cut out where the handle goes. Our templates reflect this in the design process as well, allowing the customer to see the results in the mockups.

 

Preparing the vehicle for installation 

This part of the production phase should rank pretty high in your shop. Lack of preparation here is one of those things that may not bite you immediately, but it will bite you. 

 

Prepping the vehicle usually includes three steps. The first step is to remove items on the vehicle that will allow you to install the vinyl easier and create a seamless look. Sometimes it is more efficient to remove door handles, mirrors, head and tail lights, and other times it is not. You need to ask yourself how much install time is it going to save to take these items off the car. Each vehicle is a different scenario, so you will just have to judge that for yourself. 

 

The second step is to remove old graphics from the vehicle. When removing the old graphics from the vehicle, you should be careful as to not scratch the finish. Most graphics will come off with the use of some heat and a plastic scraping utensil that you can buy at any wrap tool supplier. The biggest question we get is what do you use to remove the glue after you get the graphics off. There are a whole bunch of products that claim to do the same thing, but the one product that I have found that is above the rest for this is called ZEP.

 

You can spray on ZEP—or the product of your choice—and after 15 minutes use a rivet brush to break loose the adhesive, and then spray it again. After 15 more minutes, it will wash off with a pressure washer at the car wash. 

 

We recently had a box truck in the shop that had about 40 percent coverage of cut vinyl that had been on the truck for probably 10 years. When the job was quoted, we failed to do a physical inspection on the graphics that were on it. We realized we had made a big mistake when the truck arrived at the shop for install. 

 

When we heated the graphics up to remove them, they peeled the paint off the truck. We tried to just remove the vinyl without heat then clean the glue off, but everything we tried to use on the glue was softening the paint because it was so old. On top of this, the truck had major oxidation. When the surface is white and chalky, nothing will stick to it. We ended up having to strip the whole side of the box truck down to bare aluminum. This created 60 additional hours of labor for this wrap. So when we finally finished this job, we returned it to the client and we were so proud that we had done all that work extra to provide a good service for him. 

 

Wouldn’t you know it that the railing on the back of the box truck that we did not wrap had chips in the paint, and the client could not look past that to see how great of a job that we did on the rest of it. We had done so much work already on this truck and lost money that we decided not to paint those rails. They were not included in the price of the job, but since we didn’t clearly prepare the client for what was going to and not going to be done, he had in his mind that it should be. We followed the old saying about the client always being right and went ahead and did it because for just a little more work, we made him happy. We now have a very happy client who owns the local ACE Hardware store and will probably refer a lot of business to us. 

 

The third step in preparation is cleaning. 

 

Poor cleaning before a vehicle wrap might not show up the day of the wrap, but the material may fail to stay on the vehicle and cause you problems down the road. Most people focus on the areas of the surface that are big and visible like the sides of the doors and the main portion of the hood. While these areas also need to be cleaned thoroughly, they are not nearly as important as cleaning the edges of the doors, hood, fenders and such. A good rule of thumb is that wherever the edge of the vinyl is going to meet the paint, you want to make sure it is extra clean. These areas are usually the dirtiest areas on the vehicle because they are the areas that the car wash cannot get to.