Lincoln Alexander of Event Resource Center

Business Name: Event Resource Center

Your Name: Lincoln Alexander

Business Website? http://www.eventresourcecenter.com

What Year Did You Start Your Business?
2007

Tell us a bit about your background. How did you come to create your business?
I use to host events weekly and would use rental companies for different equipment, eventually, I started to just by the event equipment because I needed them so often and thought that would be a great investment that would save me money over time. One item I purchased was a photo booth, I quickly noticed I could rent it out to other event organizers and created a service around it call photo booth season. Photo Booth Season quickly took off and was booked every weekend enough to where I decided to purchase a second photo booth. I was booked for so many events I noticed that I could rent out my other equipment and invest in new equipment allowing the business to grow. In 2018 I decided to change the name of Photo Booth Season to Event Resource Center. Along with this, I added a bartending service and catering service where we manage the chefs and bartenders to help be a complete service for event organizers.

Who was your very first customer and how did you find them?
Customers were already pouring in from our Photo Booth Season efforts we just would upscale each customer," we also rent chairs and tents for your event" we let everyone know and soon a person would call in for a photo booth and would hire us to handle their entire wedding rental list and hire all needed staff from DJ to food trucks.

What has been the biggest surprise so far after starting your own business?
When a lady hires us to handle her entire wedding from all rentals, running the bar and hiring all your other vendors from Dj to caters. That same week we planned a 2-year anniversary for Amazon warehouse in Denver where we provided 2 food trucks all day, photo booth of course along with other rentals they needed for that day. The profit range was 10 times larger than only offering a photo booth.

When did you know your business was going to work out?
When a lady hires us to handle her entire wedding from all rentals, running the bar and hiring all your other vendors from Dj to caters. That same week we planned a 2-year anniversary for Amazon warehouse in Denver where we provided 2 food trucks all day, photo booth of course along with other rentals they needed for that day. The profit range was 10 times larger than only offering a photo booth.

What has been your biggest lesson learned in pricing?
It's important that we don't place our prices two low and are always knowing and understanding our cost of goods sold. There have been a few times where my pricing was too low, for example, we normally rent table cloths at $18 which is $4-$6 lower than most of our competitors. We did a long special on these cloths for $12 which was two low because after cost to clean them and have them folded back we only made a few dollars.

What does a typical day look like for you from morning until evening?
I start that day out taking the kids to school. After I head to the office and make a task list for the day then pick out the most important task and knock them out.

If you could go back in time, what’s the one thing you would do differently when you were starting your business?
I would make sure I was an S-Corporation and not an LLC from the start.