How To Start an Event Company

Section 3

Four Steps Before You Launch

1. Research the market to determine where your opportunity is

What type of event rental business should you start? Where do you want to begin your journey? Do you want to start a party rental business from home, or rent out space to hold your growing inventory? Do your research into the companies that make up the events industry (read the previous section for some helpful tips) so you can decide what’s best for you. Once you’re familiar with what’s available, you then need to ask yourself: what’s my background? What are my passions? What types of events and work am I most drawn to? Finally, what’s in demand in my area?

For instance, Savannah Vintage & Event Rentals in Georgia started their vintage rental business as the first of its kind in Savannah. When planning her own wedding, Rachel Strickland realized there was no rental company dedicated to vintage inventory. So, she and her husband decided to take advantage of this strategic window of opportunity. They doubled the size of their business in the first six months of opening, and have continued to grow since.

Rachel pulled an incredibly smart entrepreneurial move: she did market research in her area to determine where she could best thrive with minimal competition. If you’re entering an area with more competition than Rachel’s experience, you’ll need to understand who the competition is, how your company is different, and why clients should choose you over other similar companies.

2. Choose your niche and determine your unique value proposition (UVP)

Select your niche, and determine what your brand will be. One of the most important things you can do when starting a party rental business is determining your unique value proposition, or UVP. Your UVP is what separates you from competitors and tells your client the value they’ll receive by choosing to work with you. When you know your brand and your value, you can better position yourself in the market to win clients over your competitors. What specific features of your company make you different? The answers to this question are your key selling points that you’ll emphasize in your marketing.

You don’t want to give off “World’s Best Coffee” vibes— potential clients can see right through that. Instead of something generic like “Best event rentals ever,” you’ll want to dig deeper and more specific, with something like, “Worry-free full service rentals for your wedding— serving the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) area.”

Watch our webinar with NACE on how to identify and amplify your UVP.

3. Network with other event professionals and join industry organizations

So many event professionals regret not networking with others or finding a mentor when they started. Your industry peers have a wealth of knowledge to share, and have made mistakes that you can now avoid. Building authentic, meaningful connections with other event entrepreneurs is an important step in building a successful event business. Any true pro knows the meaning of “community over competition.”

4. Get all legal business in place

Now that you know the type of company you’re creating, how you fit in the industry, and how to connect with and learn from other event pros, you need to actually get the business up and running. Get a lawyer to review your branding, insurance, damage waivers, contracts, and more to ensure you’re following all the best practices. Protect yourself, your company, and your clients before disputes come in.

Section 4

How To Develop an Event Rental Business Plan

Before you start an event rental company, it’s crucial that you take the proper steps to outline your business plan (which you can easily streamline with this easy-to-follow checklist). By drafting an outline of your current trajectory and goals, you can foresee any potential issues that could arise. You may be creating a business plan for yourself, or you may be using it to seek funding from investors. Either way, you need to know the ins and outs of your business, the risks associated with it, and how to become— and remain— profitable.

Pro Tip: Create a 30-60-90 day business plan for your event rental business so you can hit the ground running. This is an outline of what you plan to do within your first 90 days of starting. Not only will a 30-60-90 day event rental business plan keep you on track, it will also show any investors or banks that you have an actionable timeline for your plan. Access the 30-60-90 day event business plan template and checklist now to get started.

Four Things Every Business Plan Needs

Company Description and Market Analysis

You understand the importance of defining your niche— now, add this to your business plan to convey the value of your product and service offerings to potential clients. You want to describe:

• What type of company you are and how you fit into the events industry

• Who your target market is: Not just the consumer, but also the event type— brides and grooms for weddings? Company party planners for corporate events? Parents of teens celebrating a mitzvah or sweet 16?

• Your competitive advantage: What sets you apart from competitors, and why is it important to clients?

• The team members you need: Delivery drivers? Salespeople? A web designer?

You want to prove that your business can and will be profitable in your area. Once you determine who your target market is, make sure it aligns with the demand in the area. You may have the perfect idea for a wedding rental business, but if your area has an older demographic with lower statistical odds for getting married, it may not do well— even if your idea is stellar! On the flip side, you may want to start a premier tables and chairs business. If you don’t do a market analysis and examine the competitors in your area, you may end up launching a company that’s drowned out by a sea of long-standing businesses.

Not completing a marketing analysis can mean lots of time and money down the drain— put in the work now to avoid heartache in the future.

Products and Services

In this section, you’ll outline the products and services you offer: Vintage rentals and florals? All-in-one tents and tables? How about services, like standard delivery and pickup, or more specialty services like DJs or casino game dealers? How are you planning on utilizing packages? Do you know what your pricing structure will look like? The products and services section of your event rental business plan should outline all of this information. In addition, you’ll also want to tie this section into your market analysis. What demand are you solving for with specific inventory items or packages?

Financial Information and Startup Costs

If you’re starting a company from the ground up, you should include your operating budget and a break-even analysis. What costs do you plan on incurring, and how will you mitigate these? If you start a party rental business from home, you’ll immediately save in storage costs, but what will the cost of outgrowing your home be? In addition, if you’re seeking funding, you’ll also want to include the amount of cash you need and how you plan to use it over a given amount of time.

Potential Challenges and Obstacles

Finally, you need to account for any potential risks you see as a threat to your success. Is it competitors? Is it inclement weather in your area? Are you trying to break into a tough, well-established market? Think through all the possible challenges you’ll face as a new event company and write them down. Then, include solutions that could solve them, should these obstacles arise. The name of the game is preparation— you want to do everything you can at the beginning to prepare for the worst (and hope for the best).

Where Should You Create Your Business Plan?

We recommend creating your business plan with a digital format because it’s 1) protected and less likely to get lost, 2) instantly accessible, especially if it’s stored on the cloud, and 3) easily shareable, making it a breeze to send to anyone who may need it.

Section 5

Legal Stuff: Event Rental Business Insurance

Your website is your digital showroom, which makes it crucial for event rental company marketing. It should accurately reflect what you have in stock and encourage online shoppers to rent from you.

Just like you organize your storage space, you should also organize your website. Is it easy for the customer to find what they’re looking for? How easy is it for them to request a quote or contact you? Use logical names, add a search bar, and provide photos so your web visitors have the best experience possible.

Types of Insurance

General Liability Insurance

This is the most important type of event rental insurance you need. General liability insurance for party rental companies covers everything from bodily injury and medical payments, to property damage, to legal defense, and more. While you pay to have insurance, the nightmare of having a situation occur when you’re NOT covered is well worth the cost.

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Workers’ compensation, or workers’ comp, protects employees who become injured or sick while working an event for your company. It covers medical care, disability benefits, and more. And, as a business owner, you’re protected if you get sued by an employee or their family.

Commercial Auto Insurance

If you decide to invest in trucks or trailers to transfer your rentals to and from events, you should consider commercial auto insurance. It protects you, your drivers, and anyone who is operating a vehicle being used for business purposes. It covers you in case of any injury or property damage with the vehicle involved.

Section 6

What To Do in Your First Month of Business

Pro Tip: One of the best ways to streamline success from the get-go is to create a 30-60-90 day event rental business plan. Get started easily with our business plan template and checklist.

Create a Website and Social Media Accounts

Cultivating an online presence is crucial for the success of your new event business, since the majority of shoppers explore a brand’s page before doing business with them. Your website is your digital showroom, which gives potential clients a sneak peek into what you offer. Both your site and your social media platforms offer leads a first impression of your business, so you want it to be a good one!

There’s a lot that goes into building a lead-generating online presence. Lots of event professionals have questions like, “Should I hire a developer?”, “What platform should I host my website on?”, and “Which social media platforms should I use?”

For answers to these questions and more, read our ultimate guide for how to build the best website for your event business.

Collect Data on Inventory Demand

This sounds more intimidating than it is! A great pro tip from event rental experts is to get cashflow going by showcasing inventory on your website ASAP — even if you don’t have it in stock yet.

If you know when the inventory you ordered is expected to be delivered, you should:

1) Purchase an inventory management software like Goodshuffle Pro

2) Integrate your website with your software

3) Add a disclaimer to your website for when your items should arrive— for example, “New items renting Fall 2021”

Many events book in advance, so if you wait until your inventory is in stock, it could be another 4-6 months before people start booking! If you get your rentals up on your site right away, then you can start collecting deposits for items well in advance, get cash flowing, and have events on the books right away for when your inventory does arrive.

If you want to go a step further, you can also advertise inventory on your site before you even purchase it, to see if potential clients are interested. This helps you see which items are worth heavy investment. Just don’t forget to add in the item description that the item may not be available for a few weeks— you don’t want to set unrealistic expectations.

Create Standard Operating Procedures

Standard operating procedures, or SOPs, are critical for creating a solid foundation for your event business. They’re meant to outline the best method for completing a process, and are useful for getting all team members on the same page. It also helps you to remember how you do a certain task, since you’re likely working on lots of things all at once.

When you document your processes, you set yourself up for success in your daily business— especially (and unfortunately) when issues arise. We talk more about the types of challenges you’ll avoid when you create SOPs in the next section.

Section 7

Top 5 Event Challenges That Can Be Solved With SOPs

This piece was inspired by industry leader Cam Petty’s fantastic talk on how to create and use SOPs in your event rental company, which she presented at Goodshuffle Pro’s 2021 Annual User Summit. To learn more about Cam and the amazing work she does, check out her companies: Render Events and Render Educate.

A great aspect of SOPs is how they can help you anticipate problems and be prepared when they do inevitably occur. Weather is a frequent challenge for event professionals and really a perfect example of how SOPs can save the day. While weather is something we can mostly predict, sudden weather changes do happen, and having a plan B (and maybe plan C and D, too) in place before things go sideways will go a long way in reducing stress for you and your client.

But weather is just one thing you can plan ahead for with SOPs; any problem you can possibly predict, you can and should create an SOP for. If a problem happens once, it can happen again. So why not create a plan before challenges strike? Let’s get into the 5 event rental obstacles you can avoid when you use SOPs.

Inclement Weather

Weather is the arch nemesis of outdoor events. You can only plan so far in advance with weather, and even then there’s always a change of surprise rain. Ideally, your client or their event planner will have an alternate plan in case the weather changes, but that isn’t always the case. It’s a good idea to create a standard SOP for rain, ice, snow, winds, etc for your company to serve as a jumping off point for planning for your individual events. Because each event is unique, you’ll need to customize your plan per event, but having that general weather SOP will give you a big head start.

Damaged Inventory

It happens. Whether it occurs at an event, in the warehouse, or during loading/unloading, things will break, so you may as well plan for it. Having plans available for replacement items, substitution items, and subrental options in an SOP will make finding a solution that works for your client a much easier process. Working with the Goodshuffle Pro’s inventory management software, you’ll be able to document swaps or substitutions for damaged items easily. Goodshuffle Pro also allows you to make note of damaged items so your inventory availability is reflected accurately.

Non-Responsive Clients

Is a client not responding to emails? Having an SOP available so your team understands how to proceed is essential. Knowing when to send another email or make another phone call can sometimes be tricky, especially for new hires. This SOP should contain information on when to follow up, plus notes on any language that should be included for the different phases of the event planning process.

In the case of a client not responding to communication when payment is due, have a note in the SOP to double check the contract, plus specific instructions for next steps, as communicating about financial issues can be particularly challenging.

Vehicle Problems

Have you ever gone out to start loading the truck only to discover that it has a flat tire? Or the engine won’t start? This can be particularly stressful— and potentially disastrous— on the day of an event. Having multiple plans in place and ready to put into action is key. Including options for a tow/tire replacement service, a local repair shop, and a few local truck rental companies are smart ideas. Also consider checking your vehicles in advance of your events, as you might discover any problems before it’s an emergency. You can also use that time to clean the windshield and top off the gas tank!

Sudden Event Changes

It’s not uncommon for a client to discover something that they must have in their event, which may leave you scrambling to make it happen. Or, there could be a venue change. Regardless of the reason, having a game plan (a.k.a. your SOP) in place for you and your team will take a lot of the headache out of sudden changes. Make a list of the changes you’ve encountered and/or can see your company encountering, and make an SOP for each of those scenarios.

SOPs Are Saving the Day

As you can see, implementing SOPs in your company can really save you from unwanted surprises; while they will still happen, you’ll be able to cut out the “Now what?” step and move right to overcoming the challenge. I might even write some SOPs for my personal life!

Section 8

#1 Secret to Success: Event Rental Technology

When starting out, so many event professionals want to, understandably, save as much money as possible. What many experienced professionals say now is that they wish they’d spent the money on software upfront, to save money down the line. As a new business owner, your time is money. If you’re spending hours upon hours working through tedious activities— chances are, event rental software could be a life-saver.

Do you ever feel like you’re wasting time doing repetitive tasks like building quotes, or copying and pasting between systems? Unsure how to find and win qualified leads online? Consistently chasing clients to get them to pay?

Goodshuffle Pro has everything you need to successfully start an event rental business, including highly effective features such as:

• Photo-driven proposals and quotes you can build in minutes

• A powerful Website Integration to drive online business

• Electronic signatures for speedy payments

• Easy inventory tracking, management, and reporting

• Integrations with QuickBooks Online and Google Calendar to keep your finances in order and your events on schedule

Imagine all the time you’ll save with powerful event rental software. Catch up to the experienced pros quicker when you partner with the right software company. There’s no better time than now to start your journey towards profitability and success.