ForumsStarting a Business

*How to run a mobile business?? Welcome. Sounds like a good idea.*<br /<br *snipperred has a good answer and If there is a demand for small engine repair you would know.*<br /<br />Where are you located?? like City and State?? Do you have a Business Name??

Try doing some Marketing and Advertising. If you have a truck or a van, put a sign and a phone number on it.

Post and give out fliers. If you are doing a repair on a given block, Put signs or flyers all over the neighborhood.

Discount coupons or some thing FREE (like a FREE inspection or oil change) also helps.

Remember SCORE. SCORE is FREE and can give you great advice.

Good luck, LUCKIEST

Just a thought...but sometimes those storage rental places will let you run a small business from one of the larger say 20 X 20 units. Theres' a guy that does boat repairs at the place where we have a storage unit.

Thanks for the replies. " If there is a demand for small engine repair, I wonder why the position was eliminated during the buy out ". The company that bought them out has franchises that do repair work under there company name. That really helps me out a lot ! We had a huge customer database just in my section of repair. Those customers are finding out that the new company stays a month behind and they dont have technitions that know how to work on a lot of the equipment I can work on. And the fact that they give the customers attitude and act like they dont wont to work on anything helps me out too. Sometimes you can get to big for your britches ya know. I get at least 3 gripe calls a week about how they treat people. One customer called me tuesday and said he will drive 50 miles out of his way from now on just to not have to go near there place. So my previous employer or the new company is not even in the equation. All there doing is helping me out without knowing it.

"Try doing some Marketing and Advertising. If you have a truck or a van, put a sign and a phone number on it". I ordered the signs to go on my truck last monday. There doing it for me for free. Come to find out, they have stuff broke too. Now if I can just figure out how to get free gas ! Hmmmm oh wait ! I figured out how to do half of that this week, nevermind ! This will be a customer service I will profit off of too. " Post and give out fliers. If you are doing a repair on a given block, put signs or flyers all over the neighborhood". First im not into that sort of thing. Second , there are laws around here about flyers all over the place. Me personaly, I think it clutters up the place and makes a mess. About the discount coupons, I will send those to my customers this winter when im starving to death lol. Is'nt SCORE a magazine? I dont know what that is.

" My fear is that your current margin on repairs would'nt be enough to configure and operate a leased building, plus etc etc...." Now that I look at it, I probably would have too much overhead at first. Right now im profiting after gas and overhead around $2000 a week. The building i'm looking at is a 12 month lease for $675 a month, and he said he has equipment he needs worked on too because he keeps his properties up with them. So the $675 is very negotable he said. At my old company, on a bad week I sold around $25000 worth of parts . Those customers basicaly have nowhere to go now and i figured I could pick up where they left off. I have 2 parts suppliers that said they would stock me up on credit because they have been dealing with me for over 10 years and know me. But like you said, I'm missing a lot here.

As for as credit cards, I will probably never deal with them while im mobile. It would be too much of a headach. It was 115 degrees in my truck today. I tried envoicing with a laptop a month ago. It burned up. I will put another laptop in but I have to build a fan base to keep it cool. I'm fine with a invoice book. I accept checks and money orders and I usualy let my customers send it to me in the mail later. I have 2 options if a customer will not pay, which I havent ran into yet. One the small claims court is 5 miles from my house, I know the judge there. Two I dont have to work on there equipment anymore. I would probably do the two since that would hurt them way more than getting my money back.