Developing the skills of an elite detailer takes time, effort, and the willingness to chase unobtainable perfection. Shane Mayfield has owned and operated Perfection Plus Auto Salon for the past 14 years, but his pursuit of automotive excellence goes back even further.
A lifelong automotive enthusiast, Mayfield started as an auto body and paint technician in the reconditioning industry. While he enjoyed the skills and dedication necessary to produce a head-turning car, his career path was not destined to begin and end in the paint booth.
“When I first started painting, I worked at a custom paint shop doing high-end hot rods and stuff,” Mayfield says. “Those things must be as close to perfect as you can get them. When I transitioned into the insurance space of automotive painting it was more of a ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am,’ type of atmosphere. That just didn’t fit well with my personality.”
After souring on the auto body and paint industries, Mayfield decided to strike out on his own, leveraging his paint correction talents in the automotive detailing sector. While he was skilled with a polisher thanks to his years in the auto body field, his interior detailing skills had to picked up along the way.
“Like any other detailer that goes from an employee to a business owner, I was a good technician but I needed to learn a lot of the other aspects of running a business,” he says. “Employee management, payroll, human resources, marketing, sales generate, branding, all that kind of stuff that you don’t really think of when you’re just an employee.”
Like all ambitious detailers, Mayfield learned what he could from trial and error, instructional videos, and conversations with fellow detailers at industry events and networking sessions. But it wasn’t until he took his first class with Renny Doyle at Detailing Success in 2017 that his skills began to reach master level.
“Training with the Detail Mafia was a big help to me,” Mayfield says. “Not only did I learn detailing skills, but also marketing, financing, and self-improvement. It changed my outlook on detailing, business operations, and life.”
Not only is Mayfield a member of the Detail Mafia, but he is also its president and serves on the board. “I got involved because I came to a point in my business where I didn’t really know how to grow it anymore. I was about seven years into my business at that point, I was very successful, had full-time employees, but I still had this urge to expand it. And I didn’t really understand how to do it because I had dominated my market. I took Renny’s training to learn how to expand.”
Perfection Plus Auto Salon is a labor of love for Mayfield. Since its inception back in 2009 Mayfield has run as many as four separate Perfection shops simultaneously. Currently, he owns and operates two fixed sites that are across the street from each other and perform distinct functions.
Each shop is 5,000 square feet. One is referred to as the film shop and performs all protection films, window tinting, ceramic coatings, and vehicle sanding. The second shop is a traditional detailing shop that handles all the dirty work, including washing, claying, polishing, waxing, and interior detailing.
Mayfield has instituted a top-down military operational structure at his business with him in the top position to keep things organized and running like a well-oiled machine at his two shops. Perfection Plus employs eight full-time detailers, including management staff that take direction from Mayfield.
Mayfield relies on his shop manager Riley Frank and office manager, Brock Guthrie to handle the shop’s day-to-day operations while he focuses on growing the business. Frank oversees employee management, staff training, and assigning daily tasks to the
workforce. While Guthrie handles all customer communication inclu-ding phone calls, emails, and texting. In addition, he manages scheduling, payroll, and other assorted business-related tasks.
“Riley and Brock are vital to the success of the business,” Mayfield says. “Having them allows me to oversee everything and implement things to make the shop more efficient, productive, and easier for everyone.”
While Perfection Plus has a full appointment book, Mayfield is always looking for ways to expand his business and connect with the Redmond, OR community. One way he does this is with his twice-annual detailing workshops.
Perfection Plus opens its doors to the public and invites local car enthusiasts to the shop to learn the ins and outs of automotive detailing. Typically, between 20 to 50 people bring their cars to the open house, and the team chooses two or three cars to detail during the workshop.
“The workshops are a great way to introduce the public to the thorough process of detailing,” Mayfield says. “Many people assume that we’re like glorified car washers, but once we get them in here and show them how tedious and long detailing can be, most of the time, they don’t want to do it. They would rather pay a professional. It’s a great way to build the business and show the customers how much work is involved in detailing.”
at one of the local car shows he helps produce.
Another critical way the team at Perfection Plus keeps its dance card full is through its maintenance programs. The shop offers two quarterly and yearly maintenance programs, accounting for a staggering 40 percent of its business. The quarterly, or seasonal maintenance program, has customers come into the shop once every three months to remove any build-up on the vehicle’s surface and prepare for the season to come.
“As the seasons change, we need to keep the protection on the vehicle fresh so that it doesn’t get damaged from all these different elements its going to run into,” Mayfield says. “It’s always great to have a fresh coat of SiO2 spray or ceramic sealer on the exterior just to freshen it up.”
Perfection Plus recommends quarterly maintenance visits for all its clients, but for those that pass on seasonal visits, a yearly maintenance detail is highly encouraged, especially for ceramic coating clients. “It is important to come in at least once a year to keep the ceramic coatings warranty active,” Mayfield says. “We offer a lifetime in-house performance guarantee on all of our ceramic coatings as long as you come in for yearly maintenance. That’s a great way to keep long-term clients.”
Whether they are working on a daily driver that has spent the last 10 years baking in the sun or a vintage collectible, Mayfield and his crew will always get the vehicle as close to perfect as possible. It is that pursuit of perfection that sets the team apart and has helped it dominate its market.