Electric heaters..any good? Personally I don’t think they are very good (which is why we don’t sell them) but I have to respect the fact that there are people in the industry who do use them.

Drilling in to tarmac A thread that educated me, I always thought drilling in to tarmac is fine but in some circumstances it’s not a good idea.

Mould in pvc A must read, this discusses how to get out marks in PVC as well as explaining why you shouldn’t fold walls/windows repeatedly using the same fold lines.

Worse than a gym membership A warning against advertising with one of the marquee directories

There’s also a lot of other useful information on there and as it’s the only dedicated marquee forum around (to my knowledge) it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Thanks for reading

Spencer

Research
Find out who your local competitors are, what marquees they offer and how much they charge for the sort of marquees you’re likely to offer.
If there are hardly any competitors or the local companies all offer much larger marquees then this is a good thing. There’s space in the market for you to exploit.
If there are a lot of companies in your local area that offer similar size marquees to ours/yours then you might need to think twice about starting up. It’s not impossible but it is much harder to get going in a saturated market.

Stock:
The most popular marquees for hiring are 6x12m, 6x6m and 4x8m. If you’re based in a city then it’s more likely to be the smaller, 4m wide marquees that are popular.

What marquees should I buy?
I would recommend starting on a smaller scale initially. All of our marquees are designed along a similar, easy to erect style. If you’ve put one up then you won’t have a problem erecting a different size without practice.
Because of the large stock we carry and swift delivery you can just buy more marquees when you have the bookings for them – to me that makes good business sense, you only buy further marquees when you know you’re getting a return on your investment.

Insurance and misc
If you’re hiring out marquees then you should be covered for public liability insurance. When you buy a DIY Marquee we pass on 3 companies details who specialise in marquee hire cover. We also pass on a copy of the terms and conditions of hire we used to use as a hire company and we can provide some photos to get your website and advertising started.

We always enjoy helping people start up their own marquee hire businesses and will happily chat through any ideas you may have. The above is just a collection of ideas to start you off.

Thanks for reading

Spencer

Several of our customers have recommended marqueehireguide.co.uk as a good place to obtain useful leads. They also offer (currently) a 3 month free trial so there’s nothing to lose. There are a few directories offering this service but this is the only one I’ve been consistently recommended. I should point out that I am in no way connected with this website, indeed I think it’s actually run by a fellow marquee supplier but I’m just giving an honest recommendation.

Lastly, want to know how to erect a 9x12m marquee in under 30 minutes? Try this marquee.

Thanks for reading.

Spencer

One solution is to buy some ‘stock photos’ (I can’t recommend one particular site so just google it to see what I mean).

If you’ve been in business for a while and suddenly a new business pops up who look as if they’ve already done wedding marquees similar to the Beckhams then this is probably the answer, they just bought some stock photos.

Saying this, you do have to be a little careful here.

• The photos look good. That’s why you bought them after all but..
• Chances are the photos aren’t of your style of marquee. What if someone comes along as says – I want one of those!

You also have to be careful of misleading customers (even Burger King are at it). My personal view is by all means use them but be very very selective on the photos you buy. Choose ones that show people having a good time at a wedding/party for example rather than one that shows an unknown marquee in detail.

Thanks for reading

Spencer

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.

Thanks for reading

Spencer

It will probably change as you grow, expand and find your market but you should have an idea of what it is right now.

If you’re starting up a marquee hire business or thinking of it and worried how you’re going to appeal to customers then don’t worry.  These factors are in your favour and so you should promote these as often as possible:

• Brand new equipment. If you’re just starting out then all of your stock is new.  You should be using phrases like ‘all of our stock is less than 6 months old’. Try and avoid saying it’s never been used before as that might just worry people that you don’t know what you’re doing
• The cheapest. When you start a marquee hire business you should be among the cheapest in the area.

As you grow as a business these will obviously change – for a start your stock will be older and your prices will probably have gone up! To give you an idea before I had to sell our marquee hire company I would promote the following about us:

• Wedding specialists. We had done a LOT of weddings by the end but always tried to make sure each customer felt special and individual. We’d offer them advice and choices even though 90% of people ended up having the same thing!
• Reliable and trustworthy – this is just something you build up over a long time by reputation. It can swiftly be lost which is why I was careful who we sold it to and made sure they’d carry on in the same vein.

So if you’re thinking of starting up a marquee hire venture then play on the ‘new stock’ and ‘cheapest’ angles to get you business.

If you’re an established company make sure you know your USP and where you’re currently at. If you don’t know then take time out and think about it, if you’re confused about what your angle is then how do you think customers are going to feel?

Thanks for reading

Spencer

PS -advance warning, next week’s post will be all about our 9m wide kit as the pre-order deadline is coming up soon.

By using google I don’t mean using their search engine, I mean using their extra tools. You have to register and set it up but it doesn’t take long.

What tools are available?

Google’s local business center: when it looks like you’re searching for a local business, the first few results appear on a map – these are results from google’s local business center. Registering for this is a MUST.

Webmaster tools: This helps you find out if there’s any problems with your marquee website. If the person who looks after your website is on the ball you don’t need this. For those of us who look after our own websites it’s very handy.

Adwords: You know the ads that appear on the right hand side (and sometimes above) the normal search results? They’re paid-for ads, that’s how google makes money. In my experience they’re very useful and well worth the small amount of money required, -note when you first start out have a good search round as often there’s vouchers out there for free £20/£30 for adwords.

Google analytics: With adwords comes another incredibly useful program called analytics, by installing a small piece of code on to your website you can keep track of number of visitors, where they go, what they searched for to find your site and 101 other things. If you’re technically minded and/or do your own website this is incredibly useful.

Google alerts: you put a search term in and every time google finds something new with that search term it’ll email you (once a day,week or month). How is this of use? Well if you put your name in here you can keep track of anyone online anywhere who mentions you. If you put “marquee hire” and your local area then you’ll keep track of who else is around you. This is not to be underestimated, it’s very very useful.

There’s other tools on there but these are the main ones that I think most people would be interested in who run marquee hire businesses.

Sorry for the delayed entry this week, my daughters birthday yesterday meant I was at the Zoo

Thanks for reading.

Spencer.

The key paragraphs are on pages 3 and 4.

Page 3 “ These guidelines have been developed primarily for our internal event organisers and those contracted or otherwise closely involved in delivering London 2012 corporate and public events: eg venue managers, suppliers, licensees, commercial partners and media organisations.

The types of events that these Guidelines are intended for include:

·         Conferences and seminars

·         Workshops

·         Road shows

·         Cultural events

·         Promotional launches

·         Open days”

Page 4 “ We expect the companies and organisations we work with to follow this process with us, to have in place a sustainability policy, to comply with all applicable legal requirements AND AT LEAST BE WORKING TOWARDS IMPLEMENTATION OF BS 8901 IN THEIR OWN RIGHT.”

Why am I bringing this to your attention? Well it’s useful to know in preparation for the Olympics, I’d expect a lot of marquee hire companies in the London area to be heavily involved so it’s something to look into as soon as possible.

For those interested in attending a BS 8901 workshop please contact our friends at TESA.

Back to my favourite subject – us

We’re putting up a show marquee up on Tuesday 31st March as long as the weather’s not too bad (like my golf I’m now a fair weather only marquee erector!). We’ll be putting up a 6m x 12m DIY Marquee in the morning then carpetting, lining and lighting it in the afternoon. If anyone wants to come along and witness my creaking bones in action you’re more than welcome (please phone beforehand to book your place in the bandstand). I’m not sure experienced people will learn much other than a few alternative swear words as my back celebrates it’s return to manual labour for the day!

The marquee will be up for the whole of April so if anyone wants to view before buying please make an appointment (it’s 10-15mins away from our factory).

Thanks for reading.

Spencer

It means houses nearby are also likely to have gardens large enough for marquees. Not only that but chances are some of the local people will probably go to the event you’re doing a marquee for! So why not target them?

Every time you do a marquee it’s worth going up a down the road a little way posting flyers – just get something very simple made up saying another xyz marquee going up near here call 01234567890 to hire a marquee for your next event etc.

It seems a bit of a pain to do and after you’ve put a marquee up spending another 15mins going up and down the street might not be that appealing but think about it – this is advertising focused on exactly your target market. This type of advertising should give you the highest return on outlay you can possibly get.

Remember all this when it’s raining and all you want to do is jump straight back in the van and get off home!

You can guarantee when my posts are short it means we’re either very busy or my daughter’s not sleeping well – today was both

Thanks for reading

Spencer

We have the solution! (warning, sales pitch coming..)

We can now personalise our DIY Marquees with your website details.

We’re launching several branding options at The Showmans Show, I’m not totally certain how much it will be yet (one of many things I need to sort out tomorrow) but we’ll try to keep it as low as possible as I really think this will help hire businesses.

I’ll also sort out prices for extra signs so that people can customise their existing stock.
We can of course still supply the marquee unbranded as we’ve always done.
Sorry for the mixed up fonts recently, depending on where I am sometimes I write in word or notepad rather than direct and it doesn’t always copy across well.

Thanks for reading, I’m genuinely grateful/shocked that people read my ramblings on here. Please pop in and say hello at The Showmans Show -stand 235 Avenue E next to Prima flooring who are giving away free burgers this year:)

Spencer