The Friday Sessions are a monthly event giving you a free learning opportunity. We wanted to create a small session of 10-20 people in the room, sometimes hosted by ourselves, sometimes joined by special guests, to deliver some interesting topics that detailers can use to further themselves and their businesses.
The days are primarily open to professionals, though enthusiasts can apply. Successful applicants will be notified the following week that their place is confirmed, with unsuccessful applicants able to sign up for a reserve list to fill any spots which become available.
Friday Sessions are completely free to attend, signup opens on the 1st of each month at 9.00 am.
Sign up here to receive an alert when new dates can be booked:
Upcoming sessions include*:
29/11/2024 – Chemical Knowledge 101 (sign up opens 01/11/2024 – Add to Google Calendar)
Do you know your acids from your alkalis and what pH means? Your surfactants from your solvents? What links most cleaning chemicals you use? Join us for a fascinating talk on the chemicals used daily in the detailing industry and learn more about what you use and why it works. This will help you make decisions about which product to use in a situation, why a product might not be working, and how to work safer with the substances used in daily detailing.
20/12/2024 – Guest Talk – Customer resolution (sign up opens 01/12/2024 – Add to Google Calendar)
Nobody likes an unhappy customer, but it happens. It could be your fault, theirs, or a simple misunderstanding, but knowing how to professionally address conflict related to your business reputation, and resolve dilemmas before they become disputes will help your business grow, retain customers and anticipate potential issues in future. The morning talk is jointly delivered by UKDA and David Reed – Owner of PVD trade association, and IDA Board member, known to many and highly experienced at delivering resolutions and customer interaction behaviour you can learn from.
24/01/2025 – Professional Pricing (sign up opens 01/01/2025 – Add to Google Calendar)
How do you price a job? Or work out an hourly rate? Perhaps you ask on Facebook, look at what everyone else is charging, or just ask yourself how much you would be happy to pay? The trouble is – that’s not sustainable and is probably the primary reason many new businesses fail in their first couple of years. Your prices must reflect your costs, and learning how to accurately calculate these, find adjustments, and translate them into a price your customers pay is core to this Friday Session. Join us to get you on the right track.
28/02/2025 – Guest talk – Rupes (sign up opens 01/02/2025 – Add to Google Calendar)
Join us for a morning discussing polisher technology, the fundamentals of dual action, and the technique that goes hand in hand with it, delivered by Rupes. Learn more about the technology within your tools, how to get the best out of it and what you can do to improve your polishing results, with live demonstrations, a technical talk, and hands-on sessions.
28/03/2025 – Help with tax – what are you claiming? (sign up opens 01/03/2025)
Tax is rarely a relief, but when filling out your return there are several boxes you can use to put down expenses – money paid out of your own pocket for legitimate business purposes. But are you claiming everything you should? This isn’t tax advice as such, it’s giving you the questions to query with your accountant. In this Friday Session we run through the expenses that you can, can’t, and might be able to claim when filling out your return – some may surprise you, and even save you some serious cash on your tax bill!
25/04/2025 – Guest Talk – Coatings tech (sign up opens 01/04/2025)
Coatings can be a minefield of buzzword bingo information supplied by marketing departments instead of manufacturers. Join us with a special guest speaker for the morning to learn about the technical side of coatings, what can be achieved and what’s next for the industry, troubleshooting problem coatings and the science that holds it all together.
*agendas subject to change