Fifteen years ago, Lafayette, La.’s, Party Central event rental company was born. A dozen years later, sales manager Frank Gerami III noticed a growing trend in requests for restroom trailers. “We were using trailers every once in a while for weddings and corporate events, but we had to rent them from another company, Deluxe Johns.”
Doing some research, he discovered a much larger market than he thought possible. About a year after Party Central started offering trailers, he looked at actual orders and realized it would pay to bring the business in-house.
“We ended up acquiring the assets of Deluxe Johns. We never really intended to get this deep into single portable units, but he wanted to sell us his whole inventory in addition to the trailers.” What Gerami couldn’t know at the time was how that acquisition would change the entire company, including opening up a new channel of business: disaster recovery services.
The acquisition prompted the launch of Event Solutions Sanitation Services as a separate company. That move led to a streamlining of operations through the introduction of electronic asset management technology. Several extreme hurricane seasons in a row prompted unplanned but profitable diversification into disaster recovery work. The result is a diverse but focused pair of companies that thrive on referral business and service efficiencies.
SISTER ACT
“It’s worked out great, complementing our sister company in many ways,” Gerami reports. “We can do more turnkey events like festivals, corporate fundraisers and barbecues. Any event that uses Party Central’s products is often in need of portables and hand-wash sinks. Our customers are really pleased. We can now provide more services, and that’s one less person they have to talk to.”
Customers especially like knowing they have the option of high-end, air-conditioned trailers for weddings and nicer events along the muggy Gulf Coast.
Not surprisingly, Party Central is one of Event Solutions’ biggest clients on the events side, Gerami says. “They already have their foot in the door with the customer, so referrals to us for any portable sanitation need is a no-brainer.” Event Solutions also gains referrals from equipment on location that bears company logos, Web site and phone contact information. Inside the trailers, brochures are displayed, and the company monitors lead generation.
“We keep track of how many brochures get taken so we can anticipate whether there might be a call. When we get a call from a new customer, we ask people how they heard of us. They almost always remember, and that lets us know if our advertising is working.”
