Starting up any marquees for sale business is a big step and can be quite daunting, marquee hire is no different. Something we encourage is to do a lot of local research beforehand.
Use all of the usual search methods (google, bing, yellow pages, local magazines) and see how much competition is out there. If your local area is already saturated with marquee companies then it may be difficult to start up in competition.
See what party tents for sale marquees other companies are offering and how large an operation they are. The company that bought my old marquee hire business stated they didn’t want to do any job less than £2,000 (!), there is a very very good living to be made solely doing marquees under £2,000 I can assure you. Several of our existing customers work very successfully with a larger marquee hire company nearby, they pass on any larger jobs to the nearby company and in turn any job that’s too small for the large company passes it on to our customer.
At this point it’s also worth looking at where everyone advertises and if you can see any gaps. We found local parish magazines to be a useful supply of business; the advertising cost is so small that it pays for itself very quickly.