About LCT's The Great Limo Race

LCT will be comparing how five operators with less than two years in the industry build their success, including the challenges, failures, and achievements. Read more

Players

Deborah Talbott

Debbie is a former purchasing director who after 20 years found herself unemployed in a recession. She immediately launched her new business from home starting with a single 120-inch stretch limousine and has since added a Lincoln Town Car Executive L to the fleet. Read more

Ricardo Garza

Ric, as he is known to friends, is 45 years old, married, and a proud parent of two boys and one girl. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science and spent many years working in the Houston Mayor’s Office as a certified conflict mediator and business developer. Read more

Becky Laramee

Along with her brother, John, Becky bought All Points Limousine in 2008. Their mother had spent time in the motorcoach and travel industry and had retired, but wasn’t quite ready for retirement. Needless to say, mother Bonnie is the office manager. Read more

Brad Gregory

Brad bought a 25-year-old limousine service in 2009 from a retiring owner. The company is located between Nashville, Tenn. and Bowling Green, Ky. He had no previous experience in the industry, working for the past decade for an automotive company. Read more

Georgia Berg

In July 2007, at the age of 44, Georgia became a long-distance business partner with her longtime Australian friend, Peter Smith. They met by chance while vacationing in Hawaii in 1993. During a 2003 visit to the U.S., Smith saw a Ford Excursion limousine and vowed to bring the first one to Australia. Read more

Race Referee

Jim Luff

LCT Contributing Editor Jim Luff is an operator from Bakersfield, Calif. After working as a chauffeur in the early 1990s, he joined The Limousine Scene in 1993 as general manager and later became a partner in the business. Read more

BECKY Update 4: Nothing Terrible About Turning 2

We are about to celebrate our second anniversary, which was on June 23. We are having a cookout and inviting all our staff and their families. We have invited our chamber members as well. We are going to make a big deal of it. June is done and I would love to do it again.
 
It was such a sweet and sour month for us. We have had a great surge in business from our corporate partners that we believe will continue. Our wedding business has been out of control; if I am not booked, my affiliates will make sure I am booked. We also had some employee issues that have taught us lessons we would rather have not learned, but we are better for it.
 
We have been booking many long range trips — anywhere from 200-350 miles away. Since these are multiple day trips, we have had to create new policies for the drivers to cover these kinds of trips. I hope the bookings continue because the return is great.
 
We have made some improvements in our internal office structure; we are emailing job orders to our staff and they seem  to like this format.
 
I am part of a group of small business owners who started the Leominster Small Business Association. We are a formal nonprofit group now and I am the treasurer. We just participated in our first big city wide event. We were passing out a loyalty card program to begin helping keep consumer spending locally at our small business locations in the city. I showcased my party van, and the kids loved the balloons and freeze pops we handed out. I booked four pieces of business so far from this one Saturday event. I find that the volunteer work I do is  starting to show a return.
 
I am working on a branding campaign, but I’ll have more to come on that later.   HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!
 
— Becky Laramee, ALL POINTS LIMOUSINE, Leominster, Mass.
Print | posted on Thursday, July 01, 2010 2:04 PM
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