Limousine and Avaition Business Enterprises Collide.

Their is a saying in the aviation industry that applies to the limousine business which is " If you want to end up with a small fortune start with a massive fortune". My long time friend Paul owned a aviation business in the 90's and we both found it amusing the the new players always thought they could reinvent the wheel so to speak. Rather than learning the ropes of the business their ego would force them to come into the industry with both guns blazing, spending huge sums of money in the learning process. None of these cowboys ever realized until the receivers came in that turnover is not profit . I feel a lot of this has to do with the fact that the money that has come to these people easily from such sources as inheritance, redundancy payouts, injury compensation , rapid escalation in the equity in their assets ie. home or shares, even lotto wins does not have the same value to them as hard earned savings.
I know turnover is not profit from personal experience as a very profitable business i owned in 1985 was chewing through that profit (equity) i had built up previously for "the recession we had to have'' during the next two years .Even with large turnovers if your out goings exceed you incoming funds and reserves , it's not if but when the banks will want their money back in a fire sale.
So these ambitious aliens in a foreign place consider this is their one chance to prove they can make it really big. Gamblers use the now or never approach going for that one big win rather than the boring grind.
Most new to aviation or the limousine business have never before been self employed before so don't have any of the hard earned education of working for yourself. The ones that have worked for themselves are generally trying to escape from some tedious unrelated , unglamorous menial source of income. Not realizing that their new chosen business is only glamorous and interesting to their clients. Their new work is just as an over glorified bus driver and janitor but mainly just waiting around for more important people, like you.

In the main they are well intentioned but they never take into account the cost of doing business especially depreciation, maintenance or advertising, some of which hardly generates its own cost. So after they have been to the accountant for the second year running with another paper loss which may be eating into their home equity, they decide to get serious by cutting prices or buying further equipment. Thus spiraling them back to whence they came while making life harder for those whom have seen it all before.
Recently the economy has slowed somewhat and having been a business broker in the late 80's an old client rang us for advice as the business they had bought recently was not generating as much income as the previous industrious owner. After taking one quick look at the business website it was apparent that the goods available had not been made up to date and as the new owner was from an IT background had no excuses. He was simply told you have to put the same effort in to get the same results. Just buying a plane, limousine or a running business does not mean it is like putting money in the bank and collecting the interest cheques.

I am an owner chauffeur of a custom built tailormade limited edition limousine which was built to my specifications to be comfortable classy and well air conditioned which was mainly for my middle aged clients. The new bogan cowboys in the industry seem to have the taste of a twelve year old gothic attention seeker. I mean ever body to his own but my clients and i have a quiet chuckle at the crass limo's with garish paint and over priced chrome wheels not to mention the circus like interiors that my wife describes as a cartoon that threw up. Now children ,teenagers and adults that refuse to grow up just love these show pony rides but sorry these are the high maintenance passengers which we are ever so politely trying to avoid. Then with a tightening of mums purse strings with food and fuel higher ,this group should be the first to have their allowances curtailed but maybe not . We all need our little luxuries especially when we can spend our ungrateful children' s inheritance, although the grateful ones will have already encourage you to do so.
The novelty of owning a limousine and being praised for it does take a few bad experiences to wear the fun thin (ie. people throwing up, braking glass's, hanging out the window , damaging your winder mechanisms , having rocks and eggs thrown at you and your vehicle)
I have no problems with a driver that after seeing if they like the work buy a new limo or even others that come into the industry with an entry level second hand unit .To pay their dues to the people that have built this industry, as well as the client base and learn the ropes as it were. I do however take exception to naive new comers that are lured by the bling to endow there facile gain to oblivion and mortgage their future because the have not taken the time to do their due diligence.(I would liken it to taking the fish out of a pond after a village had breed the stock) They on the other hand just see it as the competitive nature of business which is true but they should not then expect to parasitically feed off the altruistic for offload work when things go quiet or to be treated with adoration because they have a new toy that those that came before must show polite but unrequited interested in.
Buying the equipment does not mean you have a business, it took us more than three years of loss's to develop a loyal sustainable client list. Now i know everyone can achieve this faster and better than me without any experience because i have seen new groups of them every year for more than eleven years coming to show me. Then i see them go, sadly over the years i have wasted my time helping them get started at their request. Only to find they can't hack it twelve months latter. The new ones say to me "you don't know me or my business partners or our business plan" actually they never mention business plan because if they had one they would see they are the same as last seasons group and that is how i know and recognize them . We all wear a uniform of some sort but you can always recognize the sartorial suit of success or the casually ill-dressed also ran (metaphorically speaking).
I on the matter of presentation find mullets, ponytails, jeans and open neck shirts not appropriate attire and disrespectful to chauffeurs world wide. Statistically speaking ground transport is more dangerous than flight, so you can image the parents anguish with their precious offspring traveling off to their school formal with this hoon lookalike at the wheel. If you saw a pilot dressed like this you would have second thoughts about your safety and probably not fly with or use that company again . I doubt if you would tell them either , less than 10% ever do.

If those that prefer this dress standard which i during my life have ascribed to a times insist on wearing them, then i would recommend they join an Australian Draft Camp or rodeo and stop embarrassing themselves . If as a driver you consider it to be uncomfortable to be in a penguin suit or even call it that, then you are probably well out of your element with a need to reassess your environment ,then migrate back .