Why is it that business people often spend so much money on image only to lose all that wonderful first impression on the fact their car looks terrible? Boy it sure seems like a lot of wasted effort to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a professional website, colorful brochures, hairstyles, attire and a gold Rolex only to ruin it all by driving up in a dirty car. In fact if this scenario were not so common, I seriously doubt I would bother to mention it at all. But it is a fact and indeed I have seen it. How so you ask?

Well, for 27 years I ran a company that franchised mobile car wash units and auto detailing rigs and marketed so many cities. We would constantly see this from our business customers. Their cars looked like crap, of course we saw the people who noticed this problem and did something about it, namely paid us to clean up their messy cars.

Yet by the same token as a Franchisor Founder, we noticed sales people, potential vendors and even business partners attempt to do business with us and they parked their dirty cars in our parking lot. Silly really, as they were selling to a company specializing in cleaning cars.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that your car and its cleanliness will be judged and your automobile is very much a part of your business presentation. So, consider all this in 2006.