Expanding We Will Go

Take a walk with me, won't you. To a time when life was good. When we all had a little $$ in our pockets and the shit hadn't hit the fan yet. That's right I'm talking about early 2008. Our airport service side of the biz was turning out to be the foundation to our biz. So we needed a car that looked like it belonged at the airport . As much as we liked our white and tan sedan it had to go. We still didn't have any extra cash because we were still rolling it all back into the biz. It just so happens that at the same time we were trying to find a way to buy a sedan, my father in law, Marlo's Father sent us our wedding gift in the form of a check ! I Love that man !! So you could say my wife's father bought us the newer black sedan we so desperately needed and we still have that car today. The only thing worse than having a black car with lots of chrome is having this car and a wife with O.C.D. Black cars are a pain in the ass to keep clean. Marlo's favorite saying ( No DNA on the car !! ) This means finger prints ect...

We also decided it was time to get another limo but we wanted a car that looked newer. We were still considered a start up company and the banks wouldn't even give us 9 cents with 10 cents down. The guy we bought Betsy from was selling his 1999 Lincoln 120" This was just the Limo we needed ! We really do owe the fact that our biz even exists to Joshua. He said he would personally finance the limo to us as long as we could come up with a $5,000 Deposit and do $500 a month. Well when I heard this I called my wife right away and told her to put my motorcycle on EBay

. I did mention that you will have to sacrifice everything right... Still want to have a Limousine Biz ??  Ok fine keep reading then.

So turns out bikes sell fast. It was gone in 2 hours. SOLD !!
That weekend we headed back to Ga were we bought our first limo and we drove home our new to us updated Limo. I don't think I stopped smiling the whole way home. We now officialy had a FLEET. 2 120's and a black sedan.

Here are some pictures of our newer 120"

Time to Get Down To Business !!

It's been a long time since I posted. So forgive me for leaving everyone hanging. By this point we were in with both feet. I remember being so busy that we were running non stop. I would be out with the Limo till 3 am on Sat night and my wife would meet me at the end of the driveway with the vacuum and clean glasses so she could go to Port Canaveral for an 8am pickup. We were doing well but still had not hired any help. I'm not sure it was because we thought we couldn't afford it or we just didn't want anyone else running our biz. My wife hated doing early morning airport runs. She has a tough time staying awake at 4am. So I did most of the Early runs. I would have a bag in the trunk with my work boots and mechanics clothes so I could go straight to my real job after the run.

I also spent many nights home alone while my wife did the night runs. Keep in mind if you are thinking of starting a Limousine biz it takes total dedication. Oh and you can kiss your personal life goodbye !! If you want to have a life you have to plan it around the biz. We are so dedicated to our business that we have learned to live with these facts. It was funny at first . We would do most nights out in the limo together. This way we could work and still spend time together. If we were gonna be gone long we would also bring our little doggy with us ( Captain ) Our regular clients would refer to us as ( The Fam Damly Limo Company ) LOL !!

All of the money we made was being put back into the biz. For things like vehicle maintenance, advertising, insurance ect. Ya lets talk about advertising costs. We wasted a lot of money on useless advertising. Radio, News print, Coupons Ect... Don't waste your $$$  The Internet is where it's at. Some one isn't gonna see your ad or hear is on the radio and say ( Hey I want a Limo ) It just doesn't happen it's not like advertising a cheese burger. If someone wants a Limo they will look online. So you better be there and as close to #1 as possible.

We finally decided to hire someone. Thank god !! This wasn't planned and probably not the best way to find good help. My wife was at the local gas station and the guy behind the counter asked if we were hiring. We decided to meet with him and give him a shot. I know what your thinking, some kid or a looser working at 7-11 right. No he was an older man working part time for some extra cash. He turned out to be a big help in the beginning. I think he stayed with us for just about 1 yr. Then he decided to go back into retirement. This gave us time to focus more on the biz itself and less on driving. Don't get me wrong we still drive just not like we use to. Remember I told you about our nice little website that our friend did for us. Well he moved to CA. You know what that meant for us? Time to learn how to do our own. If you have just a little computer experience you can make yourself a nice website at an affordable price. I think we pay like $150 a year and now I do all of our Internet stuff. The nice thing about doing your own site is you can add or edit specials or change of season ads. Trust me this saves us a ton of $$ Ok time for a shameless plug. Check out our site and see for yourself. I did everything you see with Intuit site Builder and Photo shop. http://www.palmcoastlimos.info/

This is a picture of our first sedan, Betsy and the black sedan was bought to replace the white one.

Money Starts Rolling In !!

We needed to find a way to get the phones ringing. We had a nice Limo and a nice website but the phone was a little dusty. Then we discovered Limos.com. We read all the information on the home page about how their system works and all the testimonials from other owners sounded promising. This seemed like a low cost way to get some leads. After our first week with LDC we were slammed with runs. Every weekend our 1 limo was booking out Fri, Sat and trips to Port Canaveral on  Sundays. We even booked it for AP runs during the week.

With such a low overhead and both of us still working our full time jobs life was great. We had extra money to play with. But we didn't know we were really setting ourselves up for a disaster. Since we were new business owners with no experience in the Limo industry, we were not prepared for the change of season ( slow season ) or the fact we were pissing off the competition with our way too low rates. Oops...
Yes we were the new guy in town running at $50 an hour. And not putting any money away for slow times, business expenses ect.. When the summer of 2007 hit. So did reality. The phone stopped ringing and someone cut down the money tree.

We started doing more research about our business and what we were doing wrong. I know a smart person would have done this first, not 1 yr in to it. We reached out to other local companies and started to make friends and asked as many questions as we could. At this point we were willing in listen to anyone that was willing to help a start up.

Now it was time to make some changes. Starting first with adding a sedan to our fleet. Ok we didn't really have a fleet yet but it sounded good. Now we needed to find a nice TC Sedan for AP runs. We have been sending the 120 for all AP runs for the first yr. I started looking online for a nice TC. We did find one in S Florida for a good price. It wasn't exactly an L series but it was nice. A white 97 that would do the job. We also raised our rates to a price that was right for our market.


2007 would prove to be 100% better than our first yr. With our heads on straight now we knew this way going to be different that the previous year. The problem now was we weren't making enough money to hire a driver yet. So we continued to do all the runs ourselves and with my wife answering the phones 24-7 this was starting to become a problem. The reason she had the phone all day and not me is she worked in a nursing home with a relaxed atmosphere. Compared to my work at the garage where it is loud and a little crazy at times. There is no way I could handle the phones. Now was the time for us as a couple to decide if we were gonna go forward and do what it would take to make this dream of ours a success.

More Up Dates Coming Soon ...