Mobile Car Wash Business Customers And Fleet Clientele Discussed

Writen by Lance Winslow

If you own a mobile car wash business, no doubt you have tapped into the washing of vehicles that office complexes. But have you considered washing fleets of vehicles? For instance have you consider washing for large Rent-A-Car corporations? If you haven't and you wish to expand your customer base and fleet clientele it would be wise to do so.

Now then, let's discuss a large corporation that handles Rent-A-Cars and study their history. It is important to study their history of large companies before you go in and make the sales call because you will want to have the power of information behind you. Let's take a look at doing business with Avis Rent-A-Car. You see, Avis Rent-A-Car has been around since 1946 started by Warren Avis.

Avis had been bought and sold and spun off a half a dozen times but always keeping the brand name out where travelers could remember it. It was sold in 1954 to a wealthy Bostonian who kept building it up and then he sold it to an investment banking firm in 1962 who made up the slogan 'We try harder', a technique still taught in business schools across the country.

In 1965 the investment firm sold it to ITT for 54 million and they in turn sold it in 1977 to Norton Simon, who was bought in 1983 by Esmark after Norton Simon signed a marketing agreement to buy and rent only GM cars. Esmark was glad to have Avis as part of its Norton Simon acquisition, but Esmark was then acquired by Beatrice and now Beatrice owned them. They were at this point still buying all GM cars.

GM was very pleased. Beatrice was then sold to the investment firm of Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts and Company and Beatrice sold its Avis division to Wesray Capital Corp. They had separated out Avis Europe, which was then its own entity and was traded on the London Stock Exchange. GM fearful of losing its juicy customer, which was worth now over 260 million in 1986 dollars, GM decided to buy up Avis stock and become a minority shareholder.

The Avis Company then was purchased by its employees in an ESOP for 750 million. HFS Inc. then purchased Avis to go with its holdings of resorts, hotels and other businesses. In May of 2001, Cendant Corp bought all of Avis for 937 million and still owns it this month. Cendant has over 50,000 employees nationwide. They still have some ownership from GM and still buy their cars. Most of Avis cars are Buick's, Pontiacs and Cadillac's. GM discontinued Oldsmobile and previously they had lots of those. Now most of these type cars are either sold or waiting to be sold. Avis is expanding into Used Car Sales lots. They have started a prototype in NJ:

http://www.avisnj.com/more_info.html if you would like to see their progress

If you own a mobile car washing company you may wish to contact them to see if you can do all their washing. Their used cars come with 30 day bumper to bumper and 12,000 Avis backed warranties. Also they offer 12 month leases on new or used cars. The new cars would be similar to the Enterprise Lease Deal and the used car lease is basically a 12 month rental or a rental car run out; a new twist on an old theme. If it works we expect other car rental agencies to try that too.

Avis has 931 agency outlets, 213 at airports and 445 at off airport lots in the USA. Worldwide about 3,120; their fleet hovers around 200,000 cars plus or minus. Their HQ is now in Parsippany NJ. Their CEO was once with Budget Group and Continental Airlines. Their President was also from another competitor. Avis has 275 licensees, which should be our primary targets for service. Many do their own cars, but others can never seem to get them all done. Many other locations need a mobile car washing service urgently due to lack of all the labor to wash the cars and the volume of course that they rent. To find an Avis nearest you go the this web site:

http://www.avis.com/AvisWeb/profile/AvisHome

Then type in zip codes. Hint - leave off the last two digits of the zip code to find all the rental offices in your area. The reason I recommend Rent-A-Car companies to expand your clientele of your mobile car wash business is because for some three decades our company was in the business of mobile car washing before my retirement and we always felt it easy to sign up Rent-A-Cars to increase our company's monthly income. I hope you will consider this in expanding your company in 2006.

Lance Winslow

It Specialists Are Nonprofits A Viable Market

Writen by Joshua Feinberg

Yes, non-profits are viable. But there are certainly more financially rewarding sectors for IT specialists. Let's first take a look at the pros of non-profits.

o It's easy to reach non-profits because they belong to trade groups and you can get your hands on the publicly available directories.

o You can get a lot of tremendous emotional satisfaction and gratification knowing you're helping a particular cause.

The two biggest downsides of non-profit:

o Thin profit margins
o Bidding wars

Bid situations reduce your firm to a commodity. Additionally, when you bid against someone else's specs, your competitor may be shortcutting. Thus lowering the bid price and keeping you from quoting a more realistic solution.

Non Profits and Government Bids Are Tricky for IT Specialists

For most IT specialists, selling to private sector small businesses is going to be a lot easier than trying to navigate the waters of non-profit and government bids. The unfortunate part is, in most cases, non-profits and government agencies are legally bound to take the quoted price.

The Downside of Bidding Wars for IT Specialists

When you're getting into a bidding situation, you really don't have the luxury of the trust, personality, and credibility factors helping you all that much. It really usually boils down to who can post the bond, who can follow the rules, and who can get the bid in on time.

Then, on top of everything else, bidding requires you to do a ton of non-billable upfront work that you can normally bill for in the private sector. This non-billable work consists of researching, developing configurations, and bringing it all together. And the reality is this: getting the contract may be a real long shot.

Bidding Wisely

If you are going to try a competitive bid, don't bet your whole company on it. Make sure that your bid chasing time is no more than 20% of your business development efforts. Unless your company is 100% focused on selling to non-profits or government agencies, you're usually better off concentrating on the traditional private sector small businesses.

If a government agency is looking to outsource support services, and it's a well thought out request for proposal (RFP), it becomes a more interesting proposition. If the agency however is just looking to buy hardware and some one-shot deal installation services, you're going to run into a lot of profitability challenges.

The Bottom Line on Non Profits for IT Specialists

Non-profit and government are still better niche options for IT specialists than just going down the retail path. But non-profit and government are anywhere near as attractive as the sweet spot of small business computer consulting.

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Joshua Feinberg has helped thousands of computer consultants around the World get more steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too get more steady, high-paying clients. Sign-up now for Joshua's free Computer Consultants Secrets audio training.

Small Business Failure Nuts

Writen by Robert A. Kelly

Pardon my enthusiasm, but a large part of your small business' success is somewhere else. Namely, out among the company's important external audiences.

How they perceive you, and what they believe about you and your business, directly affect your chances of success. And that's because those perceptions usually lead to predictable behaviors, good or bad. So they're pretty important!

Now, here comes the public relations professional who tests the opinion waters, then decides whether, on your behalf, s/he needs to create, change or reinforce that opinion about you and your company. This is important because it will affect the message content you prepare aimed at those perceptions.

Next, s/he'll attempt to reach, persuade and move-to-actions- YOU-desire those very people whose behaviors affect your operation the most. And we're talking about actions like neutralizing a rumor, clarifying incorrect perceptions of your service quality, or reinforcing awareness of your organization's contributions to the local and regional community.

Now, of course, you and your PR counsel agreed up front, at the beginning of the program, on the behavioral changes you would like to see occur. So, it's a simple task to review together just how successfully the public relations effort on behalf of your small business is, or is not going.

As you may suspect, I do not give up easily when it comes to how public relations can help a small business succeed.

So, who does what to get us to this point?

First, you list those two or three groups of people, i.e., key external audiences, like your prime prospects, or certain segments of area residents, or influential community leaders, and others if appropriate to your product and service offerings.

You need a basis from which to evaluate opinions about you and your small business. So you need to take the time to interact with members of these key audiences to find out how they perceive you, especially any areas of potential trouble. This is the information gathering phase of the program.

Only then can you and your PR person decide just what opinions need to be recreated, or changed, or simply reinforced. This becomes the PR objective to be achieved in a realistic, mutually agreed upon time frame.

Now, we prepare messages most likely to persuade both those harboring misconceptions, or no perceptions at all about you, and bring them around to your way of thinking.

Remember that bad perceptions can lead to bad behaviors and, fortunately, vice versa!

At this point, you need to select the communications tactics - "beasts of burden," I call them - that will carry your carefully crafted messages to the eyes and ears of each target audience. In other words, how will you reach these important people?

You and your PR counsel have a wide choice of tactics. Everything from personal meetings with members of each target audience, your periodic speeches, emails, newspaper and radio interviews to promotional events, awards ceremonies, news releases, and many others.

As time passes, you must continue to speak with members of your target audiences watching and listening carefully for signs of awareness of your business and its role in the marketplace and in the community. Stay alert as well for a growing receptiveness to your messages by prospective customers.

These are indications that reflect local feelings about your organization. As your public relations counsel will tell you, progress in this regard will be directly proportionate to how much effort and attention you personally give to the outreach program.

The good news is that when public relations modifies behaviors among groups of people important to your organization, the effort may be pronounced successful when those altered behaviors help you reach your managerial objectives.

Which is why the title of this article remains, "Small Business Failure? Nuts!"

Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net.

Robert A. Kelly © 2005.

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University, major in public relations.

Visit: http://www.prcommentary.com; bobkelly@TNI.net