October, 2000

In 1986, Paul started Onyx Construction, which builds custom homes and does earth work. The construction company built the nine-hole Wyndon Links Golf Course, which includes the family’s Cactus Star restaurant. 

“In 1998 my dad was getting into golf and wanted something to do,” he says. “He can’t sit still. He’s 72 years old and he’s here every day. He wanted to build a golf course,” says his son Jeff Yelinek. 

In the beginning, the restaurant served hamburgers, hot dogs and sandwiches. “Golf was the main subject and the restaurant was secondary,” says Jeff. “The food was better than our golf course, so we ended up making it into a fine dining restaurant. The golf course probably does 20 percent of what the restaurant does.”   In 1997, a banquet room that seats 200 people was added to the restaurant to accommodate its catering business and larger parties. 

Then one of the rental stores in town went out of business and Jeff had to make a decision. 

“At that point, we were looking at people for weddings that wanted 300, 350 people and we only had a 200-person capacity,” says Jeff. “We were renting a lot of tables and chairs, we were renting tents, various items, everything for our restaurant/golf course/banquet room combination.”

He had to either contract with a new rental store or start his own. So he began researching franchises on the Internet. Grand Rental Station was his choice.

“In the early part of 1998 we started looking at it, and January of 1999 I flew to Las Vegas to the TruServ convention,” says Jeff. “Within two months we had [our building] completely torn out and remodeled and we were up on April 1. We completely gutted it, remodeled it and got into rental.”

Why a franchise vs. an independent rental store? “The main advantage was it was a nice, easy start-up,” says Jeff. “They had an inventory list of things needed to get the store up and going quickly in the beginning.”

However, Jeff says there are downsides.

“I think they’re [TruServ] too big,” he says. “We went to their shows. A couple linen companies would be there, maybe a chair company, but they didn’t have your fog machines, your bubble machines, your theatrical lighting. They didn’t have the wild crazy stuff — the stuff that really sets you apart.

“Fake trees in the tent business, at least in my business, are very important,” says Jeff. “You sell the tent, then you rent everything else inside of it and if you can rent 30 trees inside of that tent, 8 foot high, that’s a lot of extra money and it makes it look a hundred times nicer.
“Then if you can rent 30 pots that the trees sit in, you know right there you have just upped your rental. Then you go ahead and light the trees. Before it’s all said and done, you have a $55 tree sitting there and you have 30 of them now which you never would have had before.

“TruServ has their vendors that are preferred vendors and I agree with 95 percent of all the preferred vendors,” he says. “But one week a year, I’m the customer. This is what I want. This is what I’m looking for and, you know, I want service. I feel some of them think that, ‘Hey, I’m the preferred vendor,’ so I have to buy from them. Basically you walk up to the booth and they don’t have flyers and pamphlets, they have order sheets. 

“And the guy that was in charge 

of construction [at TruServ] was also in charge of party. So it’s two different ball games. I mean it’s totally different. Dealing with the ladies at the linen companies and the guy at Bobcat is two different lingos,” Jeff says.

Jeff believes being involved in other businesses has helped him prepare for the rental business.

“With the garbage business we had 50 trucks that had to be there no matter what the weather was or day of the week,” Jeff says. “They all had to be dispatched out each day to make sure all pickups were done and on time. In the rental business, I use this daily.
“The golf course helped me with the lawn-care end of what you needed to make something grow and maintain it. It also helped me with tents on locations and with site preparations.
“Our construction company built homes, did concrete work and earth work, plumbing, electric, carpet, tile, insulation, etc., in all areas of construction. This helps me out in a big part of my rental.

“The restaurant works best with the parties,” he says. “It made me see what a caterer needs. It also helps me when I talk to people and let them know what questions to ask other caterers when they meet with them. This is something that might help them make a better choice.”

Because Jeff grew up as the son of a business owner, he knows the keys to a successful, thriving business are quality, customer service and competition.

Jeff believes in making the customer feel that he or she is always right.

“You never, never win,” says Jeff. “It’s just the same as anything at the restaurant or golf course or whatever. Ninety-nine percent of the time they could be wrong, but you’ve got make them feel they’re right. Give them what they want, make it work, get the situation done and over with and go on to your next customer. Who knows what the potential of that one person is?

“You wonder, ‘Are they testing me or are they trying to work with me?’ This weekend — it was 10 o’clock at night — this lady called up and wanted more chair covers. It’s Friday night and I’m running down at 10 o’clock for chair covers. She didn’t use them and I didn’t charge her for them.”

While some businesses develop a “circle the wagons” attitude when it comes to competition, Jeff believes a healthy dose of competition benefits everyone.

“If you’re hunting for a new car and you see a commercial, you’re not necessarily going to buy the one you saw on TV,” says Jeff. “They got your interest. You’re going to look around. You might buy a Honda, but that Toyota commercial made you aware.

“There is a competitive edge out there and if there isn’t, then something is wrong,” he says. “I definitely feel that if someone doesn’t know what you’re doing or you don’t know what they’re doing, something is wrong. Your competitors are going all the time. I’m not going to let my guard down. You always have to be working full force all the time, knowing what everyone else is going to do.

“If they want to rent at the same price, that’s fine. If they advertise more strong on one market, I advertise more strong on one market. There’s going to be 15-20 percent that turn around and become a new customer of mine or theirs. I don’t want to say 

you want to overflow the market. I don’t want to have 20 of them in my neighborhood, but it doesn’t hurt to have competitors — actually it’s great.

“I love the whole idea of going up against people and bidding, but if they advertise $20,000, I advertise $20,000 to the same people. They’re getting hit with $40,000 — it’s their choice who they’re going to pick and I don’t feel bad because I know what my customer service is and how I treat people. So I actually got $40,000 worth of advertising for $20,000. Granted it’s not my name on the other $20,000, but the word rental is on the other $20,000.”

The rental company’s business mix is 60 percent party, 20 percent homeowner and 20 percent contractor. 

“We have bulldozers because we have the construction company,” Jeff says. “We have excavators, we have big graders, a lot of large equipment. We have big Ditch Witches [trenchers] and things like that. I’ve rented all of them, but people are not knocking on my door to rent my little [mini-excavator], asking me to deliver it every week. I think it will grow to the point that I could start doing that but as of right now it’s more or less small. Scaffolding, little air compressors, jackhammers, Bobcats, things like that. 

“My main goal is not to be the biggest, but be up there in quality and service,” he says.

He says the biggest challenge isn’t knowing the equipment or knowing how to manage the office, although “We need to know a lot more on rental itself on what to charge for, how much and how long to keep inventory,” says Jeff. The biggest challenge is retaining good employees — a common problem for rental store owners.

Jeff has used the A.R.A. as a resource to help him get his rental business up and running.

He attended this year’s A.R.A. convention in Anaheim. “I bought all kinds of lighting,” he says. “The A.R.A. [show] is very nice. Everything was there. Since April 1999, the Yelinek family’s rental business has grown about 600 percent. “No doubt, we’ll definitely double in size this year over last year,” Jeff says. “Last year the local park’s pavilion burned down. They rented a 40 by 80 for six months. I had a tent up for six months so at the end of that time, it was paid for.

“Actually one [customer] ended up buying a 60-by-90 tent when their country club burned down. They put their whole place in a tent. My construction company went up there and poured a 60-by-90 concrete pad.”

Jeff has more than quadrupled his tent inventory. “We have more than 45 tents now and I started out with 10.

“Linen-wise we’re buying. We don’t subrent. If someone comes in and wants a gray overlay, I’ll buy 20 of them because I know we will rent them again. I’ll get the money out of it in the first rental, then I’ll own it. I’m not going to subrent it. I don’t know if people will say that’s going crazy, but I foresee that if you have it, you’ll rent it. If you don’t have it, you aren’t going to rent it.”

“In the month of December we have 15 of the first 25 days of the month booked already for Christmas parties,” Jeff says.

The rental business has opened doors of opportunity for the Yelineks.

“A few weeks ago, a customer was having an event for 350 people so we put a 60-by-90 tent up, sidewalled it, we put a complete stage in, sound system and catered it — the whole nine yards,” says Jeff. “They would never fit in our banquet room. The following night we set up a tent for 490 people for a NASCAR event. So there are things that our restaurant was never able to do before. Now we can. Before you would have to go rent 400 chairs, you have to rent how many banquet tables, but now we have it all and it just makes life a lot easier.”

Opening a rental center to subsidize a catering business may be risky, but Jeff has made it work. A percentage of profits comes from rentals back to the catering company, but a greater percentage comes from outside. “When we first opened up, it was probably 30 percent we gave back in [to our own business],” Jeff says. “Now that number has fallen dramatically because we’re getting more and more people renting from us and I’d probably say it’s about 10 percent right now.

“Because they go hand-in-hand we’ve had about seven or eight weddings this year that tied up the tent and my restaurant got the catering,” he says. “So either they pay for catering and found out about our tent or they came for the tent and found out about [our] catering. It’s a one-stop shop.”

Jeff is new to the rental business in his area. But that doesn’t limit him. He’s trying to get new business all the time, especially from key corporate accounts including Sony. He believes a salesperson may be the way to get those clients.

“I think that’s the quickest way for me to grow because it’s hard to get hold of the corporate people by Yellow Pages,” says Jeff. “I really don’t foresee a guy at Sony pulling out his phone book to look to see who’s going to do his next $20,000 tent rental. He’s going to mail someone or call someone else. You’ve got to have people knocking on your doors day in and day out.” 

It’s a family business

Grand Rental Station, Wyndon Links, Onyx Construction and the Cactus Star are family-owned and operated businesses. Jeff Yelinek’s parents Paul and Helen Yelinek are involved in each of the businesses. Paul is president and Helen is secretary.  Jeff manages the rental center and oversees all the businesses. Jeff’s sister Nancy Pushkis manages the restaurant and the catering business. Another sister Barb works part-time in the restaurant.  Brother Jimmy works in the restaurant at night and runs the golf course during the day. Two other brothers are not involved in the businesses.  

Jeff’s wife, Cari, works  at the Cactus Star. “She has been in the kitchen ever since the day it opened,”   says Jeff.  They have a 12-year-old son, Jeffery, and 9-year-old twins, Cavell and Tyler. The younger children aren’t too involved in the business yet, but Jeff hopes they will “come around.”   Jeffery, on the other hand, has taken quite an interest in the family’s rental store. He comes down on Saturdays and Sundays to help out and clean equipment. He also goes on site inspections with his father.  Jeff hopes that some day Jeffery will be able to run the family businesses.   “Jeffery goes with me everywhere. He will work with me at the restaurant and the rental store. I am trying to teach him about all of the companies. If you don’t know how to do [something], then you don’t know how to tell somebody how to do it,” says Jeff.   “Jeffery loads most of the tent rentals. He knows a great deal about tents and how they work and what they need to go up. He is a very important part of the business.” RM

February 2001