Surviving the tough times in the Rental Business

Bouncing N Cash

Presents

Blame it on the RAIN!

Even on my worst days in the party rental business I still wouldn't rather do anything else. I've had some of the roughest days imaginable, days so difficult that many of my colleagues quit the business when face with the same circumstances. I can even remember the summer of 2003, it rained every single day.

What was so heart breaking was to watch a $5,000 weekend, after weekend simply get washed away. And it never failed, I would have 15 deliveries schedule for that day and all would cancel except two. Now you might think that something is better than nothing, but in the party rental world it’s actually better if they all just simply cancel.

Here is the reason salvaging two bookings on a rainy day is still considered bad news. The customer will blame you because it rained! That's right it's your fault her kids did not get the opportunity to jump in the Princes Castle, and now she wants to know how much of her money your going to refund. If there was ever a time I got into an argument with a customer it was regarding them excepting a delivery on a rainy day, then getting angry with me because it rained all day.

Rain is apart of the business, as rental operators we have to take the good with the bad. Rain is really our only competition as an industry, other then that there is nothing really hindering you during the warmer months.

I began to realize just how much these rainy day confrontations was hurting my reputation, so I decided to make the rainy days work for me rather than against me.

So I came up with a rainy day policy that said that if it started to rain after we delivered your unit then simply call us to pick it up, and we will give your child another party on us.

This policy was only valid if the customer called us before 2 pm, which place the ball in their court if they wanted to continue with their plans. Notice I never refunded the money, because I still had cost associated with this delivery, but it did give the customer something for their money. It also allowed me to promote the policy which completely separated us from our competition.

Another great solution I discovered that off set all of the loss associated with washed out weekends was www.rainprotection.net . Now I am not an affiliate with this company, but I really need to be just based on the amount of people that I have referred to them. They will allow you to insure your reservations against rain related cancellations. Yes you heard me right the first time, you can now purchase an insurance policy just for the weekends. This one simple investment will help you survive the tough times that are associated with being in an out door events business.