Small Businesses In Limbo As They Await Financial Help
Industry leader and California operator Maurice Brewster contributes insights to a Wall Street Journal article.
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WHAT HE DID BEFORE: Raj Nagi was originally trained as an electrician, but had some part-time chauffeuring experience at his brother-in-law’s nearby operation to earn money as a student. After graduating, he did two years of electrical work until he was laid off in 2010. He came back to the limo industry and restarted many of the connections he made as a chauffeur. A friend offered him a job managing a limo company, which Nagi did with success. He opened his own company last year.
HOW HE GOT STARTED: “The main key for me starting my own company was my network,” Nagi says. “You’ve got to get out talking to the people, and make some cold calls to clients. When I started out in the industry, I used to work for a company that had the airport contract, and they had about 40 to 50 cars in their fleet. So when I was there, I made a lot of friends. As time went on and people started buying their own cars and starting businesses, they became partners.”
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BIGGEST CHALLENGE/MISTAKE: The biggest challenge for Nagi has been tempering his desire to grow with the capabilities of his operatIon. “One lesson I learned was trying to expand too soon. The biggest mistake would be as an individual, as a human being, you always want more or always want the best. But you really have to go at your own pace and you can’t go too fast. I started receiving a lot of paperwork and falling behind, so I learned that you have to go at a pace where you can keep up with everything.”
BEST MARKETING STRATEGY: Nagi first advertised on Google, saying that people began to call in soon after his postings. “Well it was pretty sudden results,” Nagi says. “For people who are going out and needing a transportation or limo service, the Yellow Pages aren’t really the best place to advertise to them nowadays — everyone is online.”
HIS BIGGEST SUCCESS: “My biggest success was this past April when one of my affiliates had a huge contract to do the transportation for the Times of India Film Awards. It was the first annual event and they held it in Vancouver. It was quite large, with a lot of celebrities from Bollywood in India coming out. My affiliate handled one hotel and contracted me to handle transportation for another hotel, providing them with 30 to 40 cars daily over a one week period. I subcontracted my network, so [I called] all my friends that I knew, and we did a really good job. It couldn’t have gone smoother.”
ADVICE TO OPERATORS: “The biggest advice I would have is to not burn your bridges with your competition, but make your competition your friend and become their affiliate and have a good network. That is where a lot of your revenue is going to come from.”
WHAT YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT THIS BUSINESS: “What I love is the fact that this business can be so flexible in a way and that you can really work around things. A lot of people in this business get really greedy, and they want to do every single job and don’t want to farm out. But the thing with me is if I already have plans for something and a job comes up, I simply farm it out to my affiliate. It keeps me from getting stressed out and running around like a chicken with his head cut off.”
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE: “I’m not really looking to expand at this moment. I’m just looking to keep a fresh clean fleet. That is my biggest purpose.”
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FASTFACTS
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Gunter
| about 7 years agoHow come this company founded in 2012 that is such a going concern is only now, Jan. 2014 applying for an operating authority ? What authority was he operating under till now ? Did he even have operating authority ?