How Much More Could We Achieve Together?

By Dennis O'Shaughnessy

I'm the owner and operator of two exterior carwashes and six self-serve bays. I'm in my twenty-sixth year as owner.

When I was 22 years old I was given the opportunity to buy my first carwash when I basically had no money to my name. All I had to do was make monthly mortgage payments for the next 15 years. Working within my budget, which was zero, meant that I had to do everything. That's when I realized that I needed some friends in the carwash business.

I went around town on rainy days, introducing myself to other operators, hopefully while they were repairing, or doing maintenance to their equipment. I would watch so that I would learn how to repair my own equipment. I became friends with a few local operators. Being friends allowed us to help each other out, or loan a part or piece of equipment to a fellow operator when they were in need.

I joined the New York State Car Wash Association, which enabled me to meet many carwash workers and owners. Yearly or bi-yearly meetings were held which consisted of mostly round table discussions, picking everyone's brain for as much information as possible. Some of my new carwash friends talked about starting a local carwash association. It took a few years, but we finally formed the "Capital District Car Wash Professionals." We paid dues and had meetings three or four times a year. We spent our dues on group advertising. Every one I met years ago is still in business, maybe with some thanks to our meetings of the minds in our local and state carwash groups.

Today I'm proud to be a member of our national association, ICA, and our state association, N.Y.S.C.W.A. Meetings are still No. 1 to me--it's where you go to learn more and more about your business. I feel the more you learn, the more you grow and prosper.

I've noticed that at these meetings, local or national, when you look around the audience you always see the same old faces. Now and then a few new ones appear, but you still hear the comment that the ones that need the most help are the ones that don't come.

In many states today, including my own, New York, a big carwash issue is sales tax...or should I say double taxation. We pay sales tax on machinery and soaps when we buy them, and then we pay sales tax on every wash we sell. Where I do business, that's 8 percent of my gross income going out the window. Our New York association is fighting the state to stop the double taxation. The fight is a lengthy and expensive battle. We've hired a professional lobbyist, Connie Crane, to help in this battle. Connie is a knowledgeable person who's fought this battle before--and won--for the self serve industry of New York. The 8 percent money we now save in the self-serve industry, and the money we will save in the automatics will go on and on longer than the Energizer Bunny.

One of the most difficult parts of this battle is not fighting the New York State Tax Department, but trying to get OUR OWN fellow carwashers to contribute money to this cause. Without money, we cannot equip ourselves to go to battle. In 1999, less than 20 percent of New York carwash owners helped in this cause. Many of the carwash owners say they're too busy to get involved or don't have the time or money, but they find the time and money to pay their quarterly sales tax. If they helped now, they would save forever.

As a carwash owner I, too, find myself too busy to spend as much time in my office researching future projects or gathering information that is needed to grow in this business. Instead, by joining associations, I get monthly newsletters telling me the most up-to-date carwash information possible, surveys, news bulletins concerning possible carwash problems, and the latest techniques available, all year long, all for a few hundred dollars. What a deal! I always wondered if they would raise our dues a couple of hundred dollars more, how much more professional information and knowledge we would receive--or should I say, how much more successful we would become?

There's an old saying that there's power in numbers, and if all the car wash owners joined together, we could do so much more.

Dennis O'Shaughnessy owns carwashes in Glenmont and Delmar, NY.

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