How Software Can Help Rental Companies Fuel Growth

Billy is a mechanic who enjoys taking apart an excavator to diagnose a pump failure as much as he does his Harley Fatboy to rebuild the engine. One day, he saves enough money to buy his own backhoe to do some work on his property.

When the backhoe is not being used, he rents it out for a few days and realizes he can make an extra side income. With additional cash flow, he attends the local equipment auction and buys another machine. Soon, he has a small fleet of equipment. Eventually, he hires his brother as a mechanic, his son as a counter operator and his wife as a bookkeeper, and a rental company is born – BillyRentz.

Launching a New Rental Business

Although the characters in this story are fictional, I have witnessed countless tales like this one of the American dream unfolding in many small businesses, especially in the rental industry. Unfortunately, these businesses are often short-lived. In the first five years from incorporation, 50% of businesses fail. In construction related businesses, approximately 60% do not survive in the same period. What Billy may not realize yet at this stage is that to be successful in operating and growing his rental company, it requires him to lay three critical foundations early on to develop a sustainable, long term business:

1. The right equipment to maximize equipment utilization;
2. The right people to operate the business; and
3. The right software to maximize productivity.

The first foundation requires an intimate understanding of the market and customers as well as generating sales. The second is about the ability to convince people to join a team, properly train them, and maintain an ambitious yet cooperative culture. The third foundation, however, is often overlooked because many starting rental business owners have never searched for rental management software before and don’t really understand the benefits that software provides.

Using Software To Build Your Successful Business

To effectively manage his rentals and maximize productivity, Billy needs a system that can handle the rental essentials. Using software like Texada Core, his team can instantly create contracts, invoice customers, and process payments, all in one system.

With Core, when a customer calls or walks in to order a rental, the counter operator can quickly track inventory before taking the reservation. The back office can confirm exact invoices and automate cycle billing. The team can review crucial data about customers and the business which informs them of the right type of equipment to purchase, the optimal time to sell equipment, and which customers you need to re-engage to generate more sales. Furthermore, all of this data can be accessed anywhere there is an internet connection because the information is securely stored in the cloud.

Find Solutions That Will Scale With Your Business

Continuing Billy’s story, as BillyRentz generates more revenue, Billy expands his business by buying more equipment, hiring more employees and opening new branches. At this stage, it becomes crucial that he has deep insight into the health of his business while supercharging his employees with tools to be effective on the job. He will need to upgrade to a more powerful system like Texada SRM (Systematic Rental Management) to manage his accounting, work orders, pickup and delivery, and sales commission reports. Luckily, the transition from Core to SRM will be seamless and you can instantly access the data in SRM.

If we can look 5 years ahead into Billy’s future, I’d like to believe that his company will have expanded to at least 5 branches in two states, employed over 75 people, and generated more than $20 million in annual revenue. Yet, that is not the end of the story; the American dream lives on. So can you, with the right software to empower employees, automate key functions of your operations, and drive insights into your business to maximize profits. Let Texada Software help you unlock your potential and launch your business into a success story.