Point 3: “Resist diversifying too early” is an appropriate one. Don’t try and take on every job of every size initially. Specifically don’t spend a lot of your time quoting for jobs that have 500-1000 guests if you don’t have the equipment to do it. By all means sub-hire it to someone else if that’s what you want to do but make sure you concentrate your energies on your target market.
Point 18: ‘Agonise over minutiae’ In my job I see this time and time again, people going over so many minor points with if this happened or if that happens, there comes a point when you’ve just got to take the plunge and go for it. You’ll always find a reason not to do something.
Point 21 is very interesting as it’s basically contrary to what I’ve written on price. It’s saying you shouldn’t beat your competition on price, you should offer better service and a more personal touch than the competition. This is certainly one approach and it’s perfectly valid, I know several people who have targeted the higher end more personalised marquee weddings and are doing very well. My argument is it’s higher risk. If you know you can undercut larger companies due to your lower costs then you can pretty much guarantee work. If you offer better personalised service then you’ll soon find you can increase your prices and still keep the work coming in as your reputation grows.
Point 27: Also leads on to some advice Mal at Premier Party Tent offered the other day. Get a good accountant on board, they’re well worth the money. Be a little careful, some accountants believe they’re Gods gift to business (I should know, enough of my mates became accountants and preach to me about what I should be doing). Just remember this – if accountants were so good at running their own business why aren’t they doing it themselves? A bit like my articles on here -listen to the advice and pick and choose what you want . Accountants are also mentioned in points 33 & 34.
The best quote I remember is ‘if you want to be a self-made man don’t leave out the working parts’. By all means some businesses fail and it’s not your fault but don’t let it be as a result of lack of effort, drive or hard work.
If you’re starting up a marquee hire business you need to do your research.
The first thing to research is the competition. If your local area is swamped with small-medium marquee companies then you might need to think twice about your venture. If there’s hardly any firms or (just as good) only large companies then it’s worth setting up.
When you first start up in any business you have no reputation, the safest way to make people come to you is to undercut the competition so you need to find out their prices. This is where you’ll see if it’s worth starting up ot not, can you make a living hiring out a 6mx12m marquee (for example) for 15% less than the lowest current supplier? Remember if they’re VAT registered and you’re not then you’ll automatically be 17.5% lower than them anyway
Go through the yellow pages, thompson local and trawl online for all your local marquee hirers then sit on the phone and find out their hire charges for a particular weekend during the summer (winter will be cheaper and harder to compare like for like). I’ve mentioned before that it would be worth getting a couple of companies round pretending to be a prospective hirer to hear their sales pitch but I know a lot of people aren’t keen on this idea. When you’re successful this will happen to you (I know from experience) so my view is you might as well while you can!
The other thing to research is obviously the marquees themselves. Obviously I’m going to say all you need is available from DIY Marquees but go out and have a good luck round at what’s out there. Then when you learn that we’re better and cheaper come back to us
If you’re hiring out electrical marquee equipment (anything with a plug on -including extension leads) then it should be PAT (portable appliance test) tested at least every year. It doesn’t cost much, an electrician would normally charge around £3-6 per item (which can add up if you’ve got a lot of equipment). They then label it up as tested and a retest date in a year (or less if recommended).
For all those small businesses out there that struggle a bit during the winter, why not take a PAT testing course (£160-£250), buy a PAT tester and set yourself up a sideline for the winter?
It’s very easy work, once you get a contract with a company you can normally rely on going back the following year and doing it again so it’s just building up a list of contracts. You can target fellow marquee companies but remember – every company should be doing this every year but most don’t. Just target your local companies pointing out that this is a requirement if they didn’t already know and away you go, a nice winter sideline. You don’t need to be a fully qualified electrician to do this just take the 1 or 2 day course.
As a marquee erector our dream is to put marquees up on bowling greens that you can park your vehicle next to.
You then come across a customer who’s dream is for you to convert their three-tiered sloped and bumpy garden in to a surface fit for a banquet.
So what do you do?
First off for those who are thinking about starting up in the marquee hire trade don’t worry, most gardens are reasonable level and you don’t come across the bumby scenario very often. You may have customers who are concerned about their flat but sloped garden and whether it’s suitable to have tables and chairs put on it -just ask them if they’re happy using their garden furniture on it, generally they will so you’re fine. DON’T chock up table legs to make them level, the seat height of chairs is standard so someone could end up eating around the ears! Just let the tables follow the lay of the land.
So, if it’s got some small bumps or holes in you can get round it, just fill the holes up and lay your floor over the top. We used to use bark as you can then sprinkle it over the customers garden with no harm done but this is a little spongy underfoot. Sand or even old newspapers are often used. Whatever it is you use put some plastic underneath it first so you can easily clear it away afterwards.
There does come a point when simply filling in some small holes won’t do, at this point unless you’ve got an integrated wooden floor system (available on large aluminium frame marquees) then it’s time to walk away and say you just can’t help. It’s upsetting but there are some cases when that’s simply how it is. We’re marquee erectors, not magicians.
One final point on flooring over uneven surfaces, if you’re laying flooring and you find a hole in the lawn make sure you fill it before finishing the floor, if you cover it over without filling it you’re leaving a hazard for someone to trip in.
We used to limit ourselves to putting up marquees within an hours drive of our yard with a few exceptions – one was a wedding in St Albans (about 3 hours drive) which the bride insisted we do as we did such a good job for her sister local to us the previous year.
Imagine our absolute joy when we came to erect the marquee and found we were one vital part missing (an apex knuckle -10 years later I still remember it was an apex knuckle..).
Even if you’re doing a job 15 mins away if you forget something then it screws everything up, you have lads waiting round unable to get on and it can make the day drag on and on.
The solution? Loading lists. Write up exactly what you need for each size marquee and include things like: steps, sledgehammer, anything else you need on every job. Laminate it. Tick off every item with a whiteboard marker every time you have to load up. This also allows more than one person to load up without confusion over who should be loading what.
It may sound surprising but a website really is one of the first things you should get organised when starting up a marquee hire firm.
Google (and other search engines) take a while to find a new website and even longer to position it anywhere near the top of the search rankings (think 3-12 months).
But this is a 2 stage process. Google finds a new website but then leaves it a month or two before having it appear anywhere in the search rankings. As someone starting up this system actually buys us some time – simply set up the website with an ‘under construction’ page so google finds it and design the marquee website at your leisure (as long as it’s done in a month or so).
Thanks for reading – I hope you had a good New Year.
It may not be the first thing on your list but it’s one of the more interesting: -choosing a name for your new start up marquee business.
There’s lots of general information about registering your name here.
If you read about marketing you’ll hear a lot about ‘promoting your brand’ and similar ‘brand awareness’ stuff. To me that’s not too relevant to a marquee hire company but if you want to apply it go ahead.
My main focus is choosing a name, you can either go for a descriptive name (Dorking marquee hire, Sussex marquees etc), a funny/clever name (in-tents, undercover, impressive erections!) or just a name you like the sound of.
Personally I’d go for a descriptive name every time, this is purely to help you in the internet searches. Someone isn’t going to search for ‘Spencers tents’ or ‘Spencers got you covered’. They could well search for ‘Dorking marquee hire’ or ‘marquees in Surrey’ though. That could make the difference between you succeeding or failing in your new venture.
I’m very conscious of the fact that I describe this blog as helping people set up a marquee hire business but for most visitors it’s like coming along half way through a conversation -most articles are written assuming you’re already in business.
So what I plan to do is to write a guide on what I’d do if I was starting up a marquee hire business now, maybe split in to two angles – full-time or part-time start ups.
I’ll try to post the guide in a step by step process here then at the end I’ll put it together in a down-loadable guide.
If any experienced marquee erectors out there have suggestions of what to put in drop me a line, all suggestions welcome
Merry Xmas & Happy New Year to all of our customers, thank you for your business and I hope we can continue helping you to be successful in 2010.
It doesn’t matter what business you’re in it helps being the first entry in the yellow pages. As it’s alphabetical this leads to lots of A1/Abacas/Aardvark marquees but you don’t have to rename your company, there is a way round it:
Here is an example. When booking yellow pages advertising I would book it under the name AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADIY Marquees. This would then appear as the first marquee company in yellow pages. To book it you just need a letterhead with your new name on (easily done on Word) -the A’s don’t need to be as large or obvious as my ones, it’s just an example.
If you want to see good examples of this in practice look at a really competitive listing like plumbing – the a’s go all round their adverts!
This isn’t necessary for yell.com as they choose their listings to appear randomly.
Heather Christine King was born last Wednesday – everyone’s well if lacking a little sleep. I’ll try to get the blog back to normal next week and spend a few days back at work but it really depends how well behaved our new arrival is!
I'm Spencer King, a former marquee erector. This blog is for those who run a marquee hire business or are thinking of starting one. I don't claim to know everything, I'm just trying to help people avoid the mistakes I made :)
I'm human, I make mistakes. All advice offered on this site is to the best of my knowledge and written in goodwill. If you find anything factually incorrect, offensive or generally disagreeable please contact me and it will be removed immediately.
I disclaim any liability incurred in connection to information supplied in this blog.
Here is an example. When booking yellow pages advertising I would book it under the name AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADIY Marquees. This would then appear as the first marquee company in yellow pages. To book it you just need a letterhead with your new name on (easily done on Word) -the A’s don’t need to be as large or obvious as my ones, it’s just an example.