Dawn: Hello, and welcome to the Mobile Bev Pros podcast. I'm Dawn Christian, COO and Chief Alchemist of Mobile Bev. Pros. I'm here today with Sarah Murphy, our CEO and founder to talk about why people feel like they need a rig and some of the pitfalls that people fall into when they get too attached to this idea that their business is actually their rig.
Can you open that up for me and tell me a little bit about why a rig is not necessary for people to achieve multiple six figures, even seven figures in this industry?
Sarah: Yeah, this is one of my big frustrations with this industry, so if I get a little passionate, that's why. We get people that decide they wanna start a mobile bar and they go out and they commission a rig, or they start building a rig, or they buy a rig.
Honestly, when you buy a completed rig, that's probably the best-case scenario because then you have it. But the reality is, is that there aren't a whole lot of rigs on the market that are in good shape when you buy them. A lot of them have been DIY’d. So when you purchase 'em, there needs to be some updates or some changes made and then it becomes the cycle of finding a good contractor or finding someone who's capable of doing the work, then having them actually do the work, which sometimes is a challenge.
I can't tell you how many times I've had people drop into my inbox saying that they've been trying to get their rig done for six months, but it's just sitting in the yard of the person who's doing the work.
In short, people who decide to start a mobile bar company and then hinge everything on their rig, give excuse after excuse, after excuse as to why they can't start their business. “We haven't finished the build-out yet.” “It's not done being painted.” “I haven't registered it yet.” “I can't find insurance for it.”
There are always excuses hinged to the rig and I don't understand it. We hear a lot, well, the rig is my business. No, it's not. The rig is not your business because if it's your business and you're driving down the road and someone t-bones you, you are out of business.
And so we can't tie our mobile bar business to the rig, which means you need to be already out the gate and started being in business before your rig even gets done. It's very frustrating for me.
Dawn: It's really interesting the number of people who feel like their rig is their business and they'll say things like, “no, for me, it's unique.” “It really is the rig.” “My rig is unlike anyone else's and I wouldn't even have a business if it wasn't for this rig.”
And it just makes me think from a mindset perspective, what's really holding you back? Why are you so attached to this rig? Is it because you are fearful that you might not be able to make it?Is it something else? So what's really holding you back, because you are not your rig and your business is not your rig, but some people are really hell-bent on that.
Sarah: I can give a little bit of insight here because again, I’ve talked to so many mobile bar owners. One, they get into the business thinking, “well, there's already a ton of mobile bars or a ton of bartending companies in events. I'm going to differentiate myself from everyone else by having a rig, an ape, a Piaggio, a camper, a horse trailer, an Airstream, or whatever.” That's gonna be my differentiator.
Is it expensive? Absolutely. Any of these investments are a huge cash flow outlay. Most places won't lend for these types of rigs. You can't even get a car loan or a vehicle loan because it's been altered to such a point that it's no longer considered a standard vehicle.
There might be exceptions to this, but it's not very common. So you're taking 10, 15, 20, up to $35,000 of cash flow and putting it into a rig. That's a lot of outlay for something that has no immediate ability to make you money because you still haven't done the work of becoming a brand that has notoriety or a network.
So the most successful mobile bar owners that I know of, and I'm talking multimillion-dollar mobile bar companies, either don't have a rig or purchased a rig decade after they started. And those that do have rigs, the mobile bars that have been in this industry since around 2016, which is when the trend really came over from the UK and Australia, the mobile bars that are still around from that era that have rigs, they use the rig 10-15% of the time. These are some of the most successful companies in the industry.
The people who start in this industry and have the requirement that their rig be a part of the event, meaning they don't do events unless the rig is involved, almost all of them within one year of launching will change that requirement because they'll have been told so many times that, “oh, I'd love to hire you and this looks great, but it doesn't fit at our venue”. “It is too expensive outside of our budget:” “It isn't really conducive to the style of the event”, et cetera.
Dawn: And it's really worth it to mention that a lot of times people are investing in these rigs it's a huge cash outlay like you've mentioned, and then they're unable to invest in the tools to help them actually grow a business, to grow their mobile bar business, and actually get their brand in front of the right people who are ready to pay them.
So many times we have people who are waiting on their rig to come in. They've spent tens of thousands of dollars and they're like, “I can't afford to get into The Mobile Bar Academy because all my money is tied up into this rig. But once I start booking events, then I can get into The Academy.”
But, the truth is that you need The Academy way before you need the rig. And this isn't meant to be a sales pitch. But The Academy is going to help you get booked. Whether you have a dresser that you purchased from a thrift store and flipped for 50 bucks, or you have a champagne wall or you've done something creative, you've got a couple of satellite bars, The Academy's gonna help you get booked and then your business can actually pay for the rig, right?
Sarah: Yeah, a hundred percent. And, to your point, this episode isn't a sales shpeal for The Academy, but the whole purpose of The Academy was to shorten the timeframe from deciding that you're going to get into the mobile bar industry and starting to profit. And there's everything you need to know is in there.
Whether it's knowledge about the licensing or the liquor laws, how to price your services, how to establish who you wanna be to the market, your messaging, your website, everything is in there because our goal is to get people to profitability as quickly as possible.
Because if you don't, you will sell your business prematurely and at a loss, and it's my personal mission to break that cycle that we see time and time again where people get really excited, they buy their rig, they decide to build it, they get into business, but then it takes them so long and they run out of cash flow because they've invested heavily in the equipment of the mobile bar. They get frustrated because the rig itself is only capable of being utilized at certain events, not all events, and so they're losing out on potential leads.
Ultimately. It's just we see over and over that it’s really frustrating because there's a better way, and it doesn't seem to matter how many times I stand on the pulpit. It is a concept that is hard for people to get behind because having the rig is such an exciting piece of this business. It's like a badge of honor. People love their rigs, they're proud of their rigs.
They're excited about showing 'em off to their friends, family, and potential clients. They love the look of it. And pictures, I mean, a hundred percent honesty rigs on Instagram, like that content is gold and, and it's a great billboard advertisement for the business. A hundred percent. But the money is made in this business in the unsexy pieces.
It's made in availability, it's made in messaging, it's made in connecting with your ideal clients by providing them what it is they seek most. And while there is a subset of people who are out there for the Instagramable moment, there's a larger subset of people out there who just want good cocktails, friendly service, reliable staff, transparency in pricing, professional and reliable bartenders, and mobile bar owners.
This particular industry is fraught with hobbyists who tended bar at the local Chili's and got invited to do their cousin Cindy's wedding, realized it was really great money and it wasn't all that difficult, and then they just start doing this on the weekends as a hobby, but they don't have structure.
They don't have insurance, they don't have good contracts, and they don't have professional staff. So the opportunity in this industry to set themselves apart really is showing up as a Pro, not in having the fancy shiny rig. So we always teach that if you start with a good solid business model, as a mobile bar company, you could always buy the rig later when the business itself can pay to buy the rig.
But starting off with that huge monetary investment and then hoping that's all you need in order to get booked is this pretty rig, it fails. Almost every time. There might be someone out there who's like, “no, I just do events with my rig and I started booking right away”.
But that's not the stories that we hear and we hear lots of stories, hundreds of conversations, just in the last year between meeting people at our annual convention, in our group programs in The Academy, when we do the monthly check-ins and the 15-minute masterminds. We're constantly having conversations with people and we hear all the trials, the tribulations, the struggles, as well as the successes that people have, and all of that gets, you know, fed back into The Academy.
We want to share all the things that work and then the things that don't work, we wanna help people avoid. But when it comes to the rig, if you have decided that you want one, you've invested in one that's being built, it's in process. It is not an excuse to wait for that rig to be finished, to start your business.
Your business is not your rig, and you can and should already be out there telling the world who you are, what you do, and how you serve. Without the rig, book events, and when the rig is ready, cool, then you can reveal it. You can start taking bookings for it, but it should not keep you from doing the work.
We have worked with people in our group containers that take months before they actually start doing the work, and the reason is, they're like, “well, my rigs not done”. Okay, but we're not talking about your rig right now. We're talking about your website. We're talking about you deciding which brand archetype you wanna show up as. What's your voice and tone? Who's your ideal client? What are your values? How do you wanna price this out?
All of those things are pre-work that can be done before you get your rig and should be done before you get your rig.
Dawn: I wanted to ask you how mobile bar owners could differentiate themselves if they happen to find themselves in a really saturated market outside of using the rig as the differentiator.
And then I thought that's not even necessary because we just spoke with Amanda Allison from Behind the Party here on the podcast, and she owns a venue in Texas in one of the most densely saturated markets in the US and she told us that only two mobile bar owners have ever reached out to her about making connections and creating a relationship.
And in the visibility workshops and in The Academy, the visibility strategies that we teach are centered around making those invaluable connections with what you call amplifiers to help people get in front of hundreds of people who are willing to pay them. And part of that key is getting in front of venue owners, and creating partnerships with venues, photographers, event planners, and other people who are in the events industry.
And she has only ever heard from two mobile bar owners. That's insane to me! And that leads me to one of our Achieve members, DeAnn. DeAnn doesn't have a rig, does she?
Sarah: I don't think she does have a rig. She has some satellite bars, I think, but I don't think she has a rig.
Dawn: You can look her up on Instagram. Tin Barrel Beverage Bar. Go check her out because, oh my goodness. When you see her Instagram, she's completely Pinterest-worthy. It's just the most beautiful setups I've ever seen and what's really beautiful, she doesn't have a rig! But in the Achieve Program, she did over $100k in sales in the first 90 days, and she was able to do this and leave her full-time job, and that's what's available to people without a rig.
Sarah: Also, this might hurt some people's feelings a little bit if they have already invested in their rig. The expenses that come with the rig, and I'm not even just talking initial outlay of cash and investment. The rates on commercial car insurance continue to go up. We just had a conversation in the Achieve program, a brand new mobile bar is trying to ensure her one rig and her tow vehicle. And she's getting a lot of no’s because insurance companies are quick to not wanna cover things, and they're like,” what is this rig?” But the ones that she's getting yeses for are anywhere from $9k to $11k a year.
And that's just to protect her rig when she's driving it around from event to event. She's gonna continue to shop this out. I've talked to a number of other people, myself included. Mine was around $4,500 for one rig and a tow vehicle per year.
But that was two years ago, three years ago now, when I had my mobile bar. And we know for a fact insurance rates are going up specifically around this industry. And so you have to add that on, you have to add on repairs and maintenance. That's something that you just have to do. You know, you gotta change out tires every once in a while.
It's gonna get nicked and dinged, especially if you have the aluminum skins because anytime a rock gets kicked up on the highway, it's gonna create a little ding in the skin of your bar. So you're gonna have to maintain that. You're gonna have to spend extra time cleaning out your gray water tanks because of your hand-washing sink and stuff.
So there's a whole lot of operational things that go into having a rig. And because of the costs associated with having a rig, mobile bars that have rigs have lower profit margins. Often because it's so much simpler operationally, and it's so much less expensive to operate without a rig because the costs aren't so high and because rigs are utilized at such a smaller percentage of overall events, people decide to go into business without ever purchasing a rig.
And so while I'm not saying people shouldn't have rigs, I had two of them. Well, at one point I had three of them. My own personal experience can tell you that a very small portion of my events had the rigs and a very large portion of my operating expenses were associated with my rigs. So not only are rigs, in my opinion, a poor choice or poor outlay of cash in the very beginning, but they're also ridiculously expensive over time to maintain.
And so if you're starting off with, let’s call it, over $25,000 in expenses before you've even booked an event, you're gonna have to work a whole lot harder and start making money a whole lot faster in order to start profiting before that 18 to 24-month mark. Where if you're not making at least six figures in revenue, by that point, you will end up either selling your whole business, or you will end up exiting the industry, whether it's selling your mobile bar for pieces or just shutting it down.
Dawn: Mm, yes. Moral of this story, if you are looking to purchase a rig, if you're in the middle of a rig build and you're holding yourself back, or if you've been sitting on a rig for a while with no return on investment, this episode is for you and it's to remind you that your rig is not your business.
It's to remind you, we're not here to be mean, we're not here to hurt your feelings, we're here to be really real and we want you to be profitable. We want you to be successful. And the only way that you can do that is by uncoupling your business from your rig and getting really, really honest with yourself about what it's gonna take for you to move forward without that fancy lawn ornament.
Cause that's what it is. It's a really expensive law ornament, and at the end of the day, it's a liability. Not only is it a liability, but there are ways that you can invest in your business. There are assets that you can invest in, like the Mobile Bar Academy, like one-to-one coaching, like solid business strategy, that will help you make money in the long run and you don't have to be holding yourself back.
Sarah: And to be clear, you can be a mobile bar with a rig and make lots of money. But in most cases, the vast majority of that profit margin and revenue are coming from events that don't require your mobile bar. So we just wanna see people enter this space and succeed. That's our number one goal in supporting this industry, is that anyone who decides “I'm gonna start a mobile bar” can build wealth doing it because it's possible.
You know, I've been known to say in the past, the mobile bar business is a surefire business. There's no lack of events. Every event has booze or beverages, and someone needs to be responsible for serving that booze and beverages responsibly, so there's a guaranteed market and you have a product or you have a service that people need and want, and there's no shortage of them.
Even in the most saturated of markets such as the Houston or the Dallas Fort Worth market, which has 80 to 100 mobile bars, (the number changes as we get different reports). There's enough business to go around and so there's no reason to fail in this industry unless you just do the work or you decide you don't wanna do it anymore.
Obviously, there are reasons people should not be in this industry, but that reason should never be because they can't get booked. And so, we share this because we want everyone who wants to be in this industry to succeed, and because it's very possible and it's available to everyone.
Dawn: Well, this has been insanely valuable, again, as usual with THE Sarah Murphy herself. And what I want people to know, if they're listening to this and they're in the middle of a rig build, or you're feeling discouraged, before you sell before you give up find one of us, reach out, and we can support you because we have done this a hundred times over.
Sarah's helped thousands of mobile bar owners go from hobbyist to pro and we have a proven method. We have a proven roadmap on how to get you visible in front of the clients that you absolutely love working with, and that absolutely want to pay you.
We have that roadmap for you, and it is proven and so don't get discouraged. We have your back. And if you're feeling like, “Ugh, this just sucks, this is exactly where I am and I feel this pain deep in my soul”, then reach out to hello@mobilebevpros.com, because you're not alone, friend.
We see you and we have helped many, many, many, just like you become successful so that they can leave their full-time jobs so that they can take this thing to new heights, they can scale to multiple six and seven figures. So we see you, we hear you, and we want you to know that rig or not, we have your back, and thanks so much for taking the time to read through this. May all your wildest mobile bar visions be made manifest!