We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alyssa Dickey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alyssa below.
Alyssa, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
It took very long time to find my purpose. I often went to work (at my previous job) wondering what my purpose was and what am I supposed to be doing with. my life. Back in early 2020, my wife and I had recently become over night non-relative caregivers (In April of 2019) to 2 little girls, this in itself was a rollercoaster ride. At this time I was the stay at home guardian. I didn’t realize it until later on but I was very depressed and I wasn’t helping with my girls, or the house.
So, my wife would come home from working 9 hours and have to cook, clean and take care of the littles. It wasn’t until we got into a 3 day long fight that I had to reevaluate my life and my situation. Once I did this, I took the steps to getting better. I lost my mom in 2016 and still hadn’t grieved the loss, it was showing without showing. I get therapy and have an AHA moment, boom depression, gone *Snaps fingers*. Then on to find a job because staying at home was not for me.
I found my previous employer, it paid way more starting than I have ever made in my life, I was doing mobile car wash, details and oil changes. I loved this job. After an injury, leaving and going back and a GM change the job itself started to change. There was no appreciation for anything, it was like everything I did was expected. So, I literally had a thought “If I can do this for you, I can do this for myself”. Thus, Sparkle & Super Shine was born!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Well, I am a Mobile Auto Detailer. Which if you look for one of those, this market is severely saturated, but here is what makes me different. My company is for busy moms and woman in general. I’m not looking to clean those expensive vehicles that are a huge liability. If they come my way, cool. Otherwise, give me the cars that are lived in, the cars where there’s Cheetos on the floor because you had to give you kid a snack or else they won’t stop crying, give me the car where there is broken crayons because your kid was tired of coloring and got mad and broke them out of spite, I want the long trip vehicles. These vehicle tell me there is more important things in life, you enjoy the moments! The owners of these vehicles are much more appreciative as well. When a customer tells me “good luck” it’s like a challenge. Then when I transform their vehicle and I hear the “omg, wow, it looks like it did when I bought or even better” these are the moments and comments that make my time worth it.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Honesty, Passion & Reliable. Being an auto detailer, unfortunately sometimes things happen that were genuinely an accident. Here’s an example: In my earlier days of starting my business, I had a detail and I was just getting the hang of using my electric pressure washer, well if you sit too long. pointing it at the windshield, it can chip it. So I noticed a chip on the windshield. When the customer came out I was honest and I told her about it. She tells me that, that chip had been there and it wasn’t me. Honesty.
If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I’m sure we’ve all heard this saying before. It’s true. If I didn’t have Passion about cleaning cars, they wouldn’t come out as spotless as they do, nor would I be able to spend hours cleaning them. 3 hours goes by in a blink of an eye when I’m cleaning a vehicle, that’s because I love what I do.
If you are going to have a business be it detailing, baking, cleaning, you absolutely MUST be reliable. No one wants to hire someone that doesn’t show up when they say they are going to or shows up late without the courtesy of a phone call or text. I’ve gotten so many customers who have told me they have waited around all day for someone to come and clean their car and they didn’t show up, no call, no text. So, they called me because I show up.
Bonus tip affordability is just as important. I struggled with this for a little while until I knew the median in which my market was okay with. Also with being affordable make sure you are factoring in if it makes sense for you. You don’t want to lose your worth while trying to keep money in someones pocket.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
My wife, Dina. My wife has always been my number one supporter. If I wanted to quit my job, she was for it, if I wanted to travel around the world in 90 days, shed be for it. My wife played a huge role in my deciding factor to leave the comfortably of leaving my previous traditional job. She said “Honey, if you’re not happy, do what makes you happy”. I have really bad anxiety and I tend to think about all the “what -ifs” before I make any decisions. I was very scared to leave my job because it provided so much stability and I was afraid it was going to be hard, it wasn’t going to work, and I would fail. Along side my wife and I we have 3 little girls to care for and I am the sole-provider of my family.
It was really tough in the beginning. It took about 4 months before my business started to really pick up. Everyday I cried, my wife was holding my hand, rubbing my back and telling me that everything was going to be okay. I’m not sure I would have had the courage to step out and become an entrepreneur if it wasn’t for my wife honestly.
She is my rock and I appreciate her everyday because no matter how hard life gets, she’s here telling me “Everything is going to be okay”.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Sparkleandsupershine.com
- Instagram: Handle: Sparkleandsupershine
- Facebook: Sparkleandsupershine
- Youtube: Sparkleandsupershine
Image Credits
Destinee Spruell -Photographer
