Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashleigh Woolf. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ashleigh, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.
We’ve been in business for over 10 years now and for the first 7 years, we only had 1 machine. Personally, it was very intimidating to begin scaling up. We were only being rented several times a month and rarely did we have to tell someone no because we were booked. In 2019, I had accidentally scheduled 2 weddings for the same date. I found the error a few weeks before their actual wedding and I couldn’t bring myself to canceling on either one of them. I didn’t want that image for our business and didn’t want to disappoint our customers. So I did the only logical thing I could think of and bought another machine. Now having two machines, I felt more confident in marketing our business and put the effort in with advertising. Within these past 12 months, we’ve purchased 7 more machines. We now have all of our machines wrapped with our logos and we have custom cups so that every single one of our customers and their guests know who we are and where to find us.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My partner has always had an entrepreneurial state of mind since a child from retrieving airport baggage carts for 25 cents to going door-to-door to mow lawns. 10 years ago, he mentioned he wanted to rent margarita machines, so I scoured the internet looking for one to buy. Ironically, I was able to find one that was actually the best machine in the industry. With no prior knowledge of the business model or that this market even existed, we bought our first machine in May of 2012. The machine has a freeze time of 15 minutes that can also be placed outside and withstand this Texas Heat. With our one machine, we were limited on growth but nevertheless I posted on Craigslist and told a few family and friends. I was extremely bashful because my mentality was never a business/sales mind. I was too shy to tell anyone for fear of failing in the public eye. I essentially, for the next 9 years left all marketing and operations on my partner, Victor. He was great at what he does from servicing the machines, to sourcing manufacturers but his attempts to grow a larger scale business were futile because of me. I shot down all his ideas, on the mindset of “but what if we fail?” Finally, I finished my Bachelors in Business and with nothing to focus on, I took the business, his ideas, and ran with it. I told every single person I knew, I held giveaways on social media, I posted on FB marketplace, I made Google and Yelp pages and left the fear of judgment behind. I made sure every person I knew and 10 of their friends knew that I rented margarita machines. Although, I had been in business for 9 years, quietly, there were already dozens of companies with a good hold on the market. Soon enough we were being booked every weekend and I kept expanding my service base, my quantity of machines, and my marketing tactics. From there, we grew like wildfire, if one person had us at their event, five others followed suit, absolutely needing us at theirs.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Emerging into a foreign market, I undervalued myself and undercut our price compared to my competitors. I wanted our customers to experience us without having to turn people away because they couldn’t afford it or because we were the same as our competition. As my name grew bigger and bigger, we were being booked on the weekends and filling up most weekdays. Soon the demand was so high, that I was turning away dozens of potential customers every weekend. Some were even offering to pay higher prices just to have us but morally I couldn’t cancel on someone so that I could earn more money. I soon found the correct price point, still being inline with my competition, but now not being so stretched thin. Now we are booked but a rate we can sustain and provide great quality service to every customer.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
The best marketing tool we have utilized is our branding on our machines and our cups. We have seen that everyone loves to post on social media especially instagram. They will post their drinks or the machine. In February, we knew we needed to capitalize on this, so that their guest can tag us in their posts. One of our favorite lines is “We saw you at our friend’s event and we had to have you too!”
Contact Info:
- Website: woolfsritas.com
- Instagram: @Woolfs.Ritas
- Facebook: Facebook.com/WoolfsRitas
- Yelp: Woolf’s Ritas Margarita Machine Rentals