Borrowing, Renting, and Making Do
Module: Buying for the Business You Have
Last lesson we talked about what to buy now and what to wait on. This one's about the stuff you don't buy at all. Or don't buy yet.
Here's the thing nobody tells you: you probably already own half of what you need, and the rest you can borrow, rent, or fake your way through for a season. I know that sounds like I'm talking you out of shopping. I am. A little.
Ask what you actually own
Before you buy anything, walk through your own house first. I mean actually walk through it, room by room, and write down what's already there that could work.
When I started catering, I had two roasting pans, a card table, and a cooler that used to go camping with us. That was most of my early equipment list right there. I just hadn't thought to count it because it didn't look like "business equipment." It looked like Tuesday.
Do this on paper. Not in your head. You will forget the folding chairs in the garage if you don't write them down.
Borrowing is underused
People are strange about borrowing. They'll spend eighty dollars on something they'll use twice a year before they'll ask a neighbor if they can use theirs. I get it, nobody wants to be a bother. But most people like being asked. It makes them feel useful.
A few things worth borrowing before you buy: - Anything you'd use less than four times a year (folding tables, a big cooler, a pressure washer, whatever your version is) - Anything expensive that has a cheap-to-borrow version in your ward or neighborhood - Anything you're not sure you'll even like using yet
The cost of asking is a text message and maybe feeling a little awkward. The cost of buying wrong is money you don't get back.
Renting, for the bigger stuff
Some things are worth renting even after you're established, because owning them costs more in storage and upkeep than the rental fee. Tables and chairs for a big event. A tent. A truck if you need to haul something once. I still rent chafing racks for anything over fifty people because storing forty of them in my garage would mean storing forty of them in my garage, and Jami has opinions about the garage.
Rule of thumb I use: if it would sit unused more than it gets used, rent it.
Making do, honestly
Sometimes the answer isn't borrow or rent. It's just make do with less than you think you need. Use the smaller cooler and do two trips. Use the card table and put a nice cloth on it. Nobody at a ward party is auditing your equipment. They're eating the food or wearing the sweater or getting the haircut, whatever it is you're actually selling.
This is where I think about a night early on, before I'd figured any of this out. Jami sat me down at the counter with all the grocery receipts fanned out in front of her, calm, not upset, and asked me straight: was I running a business, or was I just feeding people because I liked feeding people?
I didn't have an answer. Took me a long time to get one, and honestly some weeks I still don't fully know. But that question is the same question you're answering every time you decide whether to buy the thing or make do with what's in the garage. If you're testing whether this is a business, borrowing and making do is exactly right — you're not sunk yet, and you shouldn't act like you are. If you already know it's a business and you're just being cheap out of nerves, that's different. Figure out which one you're doing before you decide.
The real opinion here
Start smaller than you want to. I said it last lesson and I'll keep saying it because it's the one people ignore. The clearance-rack food scale is still out in my garage somewhere, twelve dollars I didn't need to spend, bought because it felt like a deal instead of because I needed it. Borrowing and renting keep you from doing that. They let the business tell you what it actually needs instead of you guessing.
A real caution
If you borrow something, especially anything with a motor, a blade, or a flame, ask how it works before you use it, not while you're using it. Every tool has a quirk the owner knows and you don't. Rented equipment usually comes with a quick walkthrough. Borrowed equipment from a neighbor usually doesn't, unless you ask.
And if you break something you borrowed, replace it or fix it without being chased down for it. That's not a business rule. That's just a person rule.
Before next time: Walk your own house and write down five things you already own that could work for your idea. You'll be surprised how short the actual shopping list gets.