Adam Keller spent nearly 20 years building Tent-All Rent-All into a business many rental owners dream of running. What's his secret to decades-long success in the party rental industry?

*This episode of Booked Solid is sponsored by Event Rental Systems (ERS), software for party and event rental businesses.

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Adam Keller owns Tent-All Rent-All, a rental operation new owners can only dream of - big format tents, restroom trailers, weddings from spring through fall. He also created StartAPartyRentalCompany.com, where dedicated rental operators learn from lessons he says cost him around $350,000. Along the way, Adam built a follower count of over 300,000 on social media channels "Real World Side Hustles" and "The Tent Guy and other Entrepreneur Stuff".

In this episode, Adam explains why revenue was never the number that mattered - profit was. The efficiency habits that saved him the most labor hours, the inventory trap that cost him real money, and the line that inspired this episode's title: "rich customers suck." He also walks through the exact mistake that's cost new operators the most in year one, and why he's now selling most of the business he spent decades building.

Follow Adam:

• Tent Guy Instagram
• Tent Guy Instagram
• Side Hustle Youtube
• Side Hustle TikTok
• Side Hustle Instagram
• Start A Party Rental Company
  

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Learn more about Event Rental Systems (ERS) party rental software at https://eventrentalsystems.com/

Up to 20% of a hauler's revenue can quietly disappear through uncharged extra days, waived overweight fees, and other billing gaps. John Shaw gets tactical about where it goes and how to get it back - the two habits he tells every operator to stop immediately (running on gut feeling and "that's how we've always done it"), why AI can't do anything for a business still running on a dry-erase board, and where to start once your data is ready. 

John has nearly 40 years of technology leadership behind him - commanding a 200-soldier signals intelligence unit in the U.S. Army, leading a digital transformation at a $20 billion company, and holding two U.S. patents. He's now VP of Technology for the Field Services Group at Fullsteam, setting technology strategy across field service businesses. 

No hype cycle jargon. Just what nearly four decades inside technology leadership says about who wins with AI and who gets left behind. 

Jamie Schluckebier didn’t start with a plan. He started with a bounce house, a shoestring budget, and $350 a week as a youth pastor trying to support a family. Thirteen years later, he runs two separate event rental brands in South Georgia, a marketing services company called KoSocial, and a community called Bounce House Marketing Skool where over 230 operators pay $20 a month to learn everything he knows. He still remembers the Friday he didn’t deliver a single unit himself. That was the day he understood the difference between a business and a job.

In this episode, Jamie goes through all of it – how he built Spring Forward from scratch, why he acquired a competitor’s brand and what he’d do differently, and how 48% of his revenue now comes from customers who keep coming back. He talks about the two-brand strategy most operators would call cannibalization – and why it’s actually about Google real estate. He breaks down when an operator should try to learn marketing themselves versus when paying a professional will leapfrog years of expensive trial and error.

He also gets specific about AI – not the hype, the actual tasks. What he has running on a daily schedule, where it falls short, and why a motivated operator with the right tools will still beat someone who expects the tool to do the thinking. His philosophy is simple: he is the brand. Not the logo, not the truck, not the hashtag. Him. And he explains exactly how that translates to bookings – and what operators who aren’t ready to be a personal brand can do instead.

What you’ll take away:

• The actual breakdown of where bookings come from after 13 years (repeat, referral, ads – the real numbers)
• Why buying a second brand was 70% about Google, 30% about customers
• The line where DIY marketing stops being the right call
• How to use AI for specific SEO and operations tasks – and where to keep your hand on the wheel
• The moment you know you’ve built a real business