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 ...
