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[Scott Helmke]

^^^  +! to the two above posts - add schools to the list of clientele you want.  They hold plays, Halloween parties and fund raiser carnivals and are great to work with.  Over the years I've worked with schools from primary to university and everything in-between.

If you do school plays, budget for regular replacements of wireless headset or lav mics.  They will get damaged. 

[Mike Caldwell]

If you do school plays, budget for regular replacements of wireless headset or lav mics.  They will get damaged.

Import $30 mics work surprisingly well and are perfect for school plays.
If you rent out a $30 or $300 headset mic each can and will get broken just same.

[Brian Jojade]

what is your location?  Being 'rider friendly' doesn't really matter for small SOS systems.  If you're only putting $20k-50K into your equipment, you're not likely to have much variety inventory that big names would be looking for to fill riders. 

How do you plan to market and find your rental customers?  That will tell you what kind of gear you should get.  The reality is that fancy stuff is pretty tough to get a decent ROI on.  It's the dull boring stuff that makes $$.

Cheap SOS speakers pay for themselves pretty quickly.  Pipe and drape is boring, but rents out very easily, although that usually will require including staff to set and strike it.

Stuff WILL get broken.  Be prepared for that.  And yes, stuff will break on customers that may not be their fault, so be prepared with backup gear if they need something ASAP.

Rentals sounds like easy money at first, but when you really start to get into it, it becomes less fun pretty quickly.

[Tim McCulloch]

Kilo for kilo, dollar for dollar - the most profitable gear in our shop are speakers on sticks.

[Andrea Litti]

To the OP: In my 20 years of activity, the best and fastest ROI so far has been a Pioneer dj console with Cdj2000nxs2's and a djm900nxs2 mixer that I bought used earlier this year and already paid itself off due to the incredible demand my very small rental company had this year in the "wedding party with dj" field. If you have access to that market, I'm sure buying a couple of cdj3000's (the newest model) and the djm 900 nxs2 mixer would be a smart move.

Edit / disclaimer: I live in Italy and work with dj's from abroad (mainly the Uk) who ask for a local rental of the console. This may not apply where you live. Oh, and I'm in no way associated with Pioneer.

[Mac Kerr]

Kilo for kilo, dollar for dollar - the most profitable gear in our shop are speakers on sticks.

What, no flip charts and Bretford carts ?

Mac

[Tim McCulloch]

What, no flip charts and Bretford carts ?

Mac

PSAV has a strangle-hold on those...

[John L Nobile]

PSAV has a strangle-hold on those...

Should be a crime for what they charge for a flip chart.

Does PSAV still exist south of the border? Up here they got bought or re-organized or something and are now called Encore. They're our in house AV company.

Now there's an outfit that are experts in "billable items". If you want a small SOS system, you get billed for the speaker and the stand and the cables and the mic. And the labour. Setup and tear down.

[Tim McCulloch]

Should be a crime for what they charge for a flip chart.

Does PSAV still exist south of the border? Up here they got bought or re-organized or something and are now called Encore. They're our in house AV company.

Now there's an outfit that are experts in "billable items". If you want a small SOS system, you get billed for the speaker and the stand and the cables and the mic. And the labour. Setup and tear down.

They're now Encore down here.  Not to disparage their current name, I used PSAV.

As to itemizing, it's really a good idea.  Helps you track equipment usage and profitability, and if you're tied into an inventory management system, will track repairs, depreciation and other expenses related to ownership.

One of the lessons from reading "cost accounting for dummies (not the real name)" was that it was just as important to track how money came in as well as figuring out hidden or unconsidered costs.

[Brian Jojade]

Now there's an outfit that are experts in "billable items". If you want a small SOS system, you get billed for the speaker and the stand and the cables and the mic. And the labour. Setup and tear down.

Yes, in rentals, all of this is very important. It helps track what got rented as well as what came back.  If it's not a line item on the invoice, it's pretty easy to have it disappear on you.  That's a good way to lose money on rentals.

That being said, you don't need to appear as a nickel and dime rental company.  It's perfectly OK to offer SOS packages that INCLUDE everything needed as part of the package.  Most of my rentals go out that way.  An SOS Fender passport kit goes out including a mic, mic cable, a mic stand, speaker stands, speaker cables, power cord and 1/4" aux cord.  Each item is listed on the invoice as a rental cost AND replacement cost should the customer not return it. The rental package price adds up the individual rentals, then discounts for the bundle.  If someone wants to take a piece out of the bundle, then the bundle discount goes away. In other words, if you wanted to rent the fender Passport but not stands, it ends up costing the same or more as the bundle package would be.  Makes it easier to prep rentals that way.

[ProSoundWeb Community]