North Carolina // Raleigh area/ Are cars needed?

[Marc C.]

Is it at all possible to create a new limo business and be successful by contracting the work out?

[Steve W.]

Depends on your definition of what "successful" is?

Of course you can make money at it after all you woud have very little to no overhead, no employees, few expences. The more you can charge the better and the more you can knock down your vendors price the more margin you make. The real question then becomes in a price competative envoirment (eventhough we like to say we serve the rich who do not care about money) where price is a major deciding facor for many folks making the buying decision what would differenciate you from limo companies with cars?

I can tell you one thing that might defferenciate you, if you answer your phone regularly with a live, informed person. If you can pull that off and still keep your cost low you can attract many corporate clients who could care less if you own a single car or not as long as one is there on time and there are no problems, and even if there is a problem they want to talk to someone right now about it. But preferable you should already know about the problem before they even call.

This is the best model I have seen and companies like these ususlly specialize in one type of niche market and really become the number one choice for transportation in that sector. They eventually command higher prices for their tailored service model and then get us schmucks who pay for all the maintinance on these cars to do the work at our regular rate, we are happy to as they are usually a source of repeat business.

Things you will have to be good at:
Sales
Vendor management
Sales
follow up and anticiating problems
Sales
Patience when things go wrong and you have no controll over the people screwing up.

Oh yea and sales.

[Blue Diamond]

It's the internet age. Anything is possible if you want to put the time in.

Good Luck!