If you own a mobile car washing or mobile auto detailing business then may I suggest to you finding new clientele in the car rental agency business? Why do I recommend this? Well personally having been in the fleet car and truck washing business for almost 3 decades it has served me well cleaning for rental car agencies. Many small auto detailers and mobile car wash operators have not tapped into this niche because they do not really understand it. To get started I recommend looking thru the phone book and seeing which car rental agencies exist in your area of service or city. You will also need to get a quick education in how car rental agencies work and the history behind the industry. Lets take Hertz Rent-a-Car for instance and talk about doing business with Hertz Rent-A-Car. You see, Hertz is the oldest car rental company in the world and each car rental corporation has a unique history which you should study before going in to make the sales call. Believe it or not it was started in 1918 by a guy named Walter Jacobs who had 12 Model Ts. He was only 22 at the time. He sold his business to John Hertz also President of Yellow Cab and Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing. In 1967 Hertz became a subsidiary of RCA Corp. Hertz later was sold to UAL and then was sold to Ford Motor Companys newly formed Park Ridge Corp. Volvo joined in with funds later in 1988. Hertz was transferred to Ford Motor Company from its subsidiary Park Ridge in 1993. Hertz has also made friends with AAA Club, is recommended by them and gives cardholders up to 15% off. American Express Car Holders also get the same satisfaction. If you are a small business, your Chamber of Commerce also has incentives. Hertz has come along way since 1918. Today Hertz is a powerhouse with 377 Hertz Equipment Rental Offices (largest in the world), represented in 140 countries with 7000 worldwide rental car offices, 4600 rental offices in the US and Canada, 300 used car sales locations and 488 truck rental locations. Hertz has been able to put their locations in high-end car repair facilities prototypes such as AAA Car Care Center in Sacramento CA and JoeAutos prototype facility in West Houston TX. They have put locations in BART train stations in San Francisco and in many large car dealerships that sell Ford Products. They have pick up and delivery service in over 600 locations in answer to Enterprise Rent-A-Cars market share advances. Hertz has opened what they call Superette car sales offices in many large cities to handle all of their sales in metro areas. Instead of Enterprises or Budgets strategy of smaller 60-100 car facilities spread around the town. I have been to a Superette Facility in Houston. Hertz Car Sales offices boast of being able to offer hassle free car sales, complete online records of maintenance, huge inventories (the Superette we toured had over 350 cars), factory warranties from manufacturers on most cars, limited 12,000 mile/1 year warranty on all others, competitive financing through FMC. They are serious about selling their cars for a high price and delivering high levels of service, so a mobile car wash company makes a great fit on their organization. Hertz has an excellent fleet program for companies who wish to buy one year old Ford cars or trucks for their business all backed with Ford Motor Credit Loans or Smart leases by Ford. This program also has a claims service to go with it and a small business insurance package with low rates. You as a mobile car wash company might be interested in this as a way to expand your fleet if you like using Ford products. This program may change in the future if Ford divests itself from such non-core business models. Their truck rental business is similar to Penske, Ryder, U-Haul and Budgets truck rental services with packaging materials available or just a truck to use for a day for business purposes or deliveries. We have seen Hertz, Enterprise, Penske and Ryder Trucks at Fed Ex offices during Christmas Holidays to help service demand. And we have even washed them, since Fed Ex refuses to show up in a dirty vehicle to deliver packages. Fed Ex and other small package delivery services are a target for such truck rental companies, since they often rent the trucks for as long as a month at a time. For locations of Hertz Equipment go to their web site at:
http://www.hertzequip.com For locations of Hertz Truck Rentals:
https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/byr/index.jsp?
targetPage=browseLocationView.jsp&leftNavUserSelection=globNav_3_1 For Hertz Rental Offices and Car Sales Locations to market to go to:
https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/index.jsp?
targetPage=reservationOnHomepage.jsp The wonderful thing about working with Hertz is you can detail their used cars for sale, wash the sales lots, clean their rental cars, wash their heavy equipment, clean the concrete at their shops or wash the trucks they rent to customers. So when expanding your clientele and commercial accounts, I recommend rental agencies and of course Hertz is as good a place to start as any. So perhaps you will consider all this in 2006. |
