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player ready...Business: The Rental Place
Address: 1743 Quincy Ave., Naperville
Phone: 630-369-0242
Owners: Jim and Dorothea Caracciolo
Number of years in business: They opened in 1980 on Ogden Avenue and later relocated to Quincy Avenue.
What does this business do? They rent everything from tents and tables to dinner plates, champagne buckets and popcorn machines, anything that’s needed to throw a formal party or gathering. “We help people celebrate weddings, engagements, birthdays, graduations, births, christenings. We help people celebrate funerals, divorces and remarriages. … And when it’s all done, we take it all away,” Jim Caracciolo said. “We help both individuals and organizations. We’ve worked with the city of Naperville, the Rotary, the Jaycees’ Last Fling, the Exchange Club and many more.”
Why did you start this business? “I always wanted to go into business, and there was a big sign in a window at a new building on Ogden Avenue that said, ‘You can own this business.’ It was a franchise. Six weeks into the training session by the franchiser, they went bankrupt and walked away. But I stuck it out.”
What is the best thing about being in Naperville? “The community, and also the city events. We just moved to this bigger space here. The industry told us it’s time to expand and add inventory. And this new location has changed our operations dramatically because we are able to do things during the winter that we weren’t able to do before.”
When is your busiest time of year? “We are busy from April right around through January. We still work the other months as well. We do tents in the winter time. We do the Naperville Ale Fest, which is coming up at the end of this month, a major event. People coming out to have a good time, outside, under tents.”
What is the most popular service you provide? “Everything has it’s season. There are certain things that rent or are more popular at certain times of the year. Overall, throughout the year, the most profitable, I’d imagine, would be the tents. We are a full-service party and event rental, so everything else kind of feeds into the tent rental. If people want to have an event, we can provide everything for that event except for the food.”
What is a less popular thing you would recommend? “We have popcorn and cotton candy machines, they add a bit of fun to an event.”
What item did you stock that you thought would do well but was a dud? “Not a dud, just more difficult. The clear tents. They take a lot of work, and not every event benefits from them.”
What is the thing you most like to do as part of your business? “Make people happy. I stopped counting about 15 years ago how many hundreds or thousands of people we’ve seen married off, and how many thousands of people we’ve helped graduate”
What is your least favorite thing to do? “Not anything I really dislike. Because if I did, I’d probably not be in the business anymore.”
What is the best thing about owning your own business? “Being independent. And making decisions, being constantly challenged to learn more, for many different reasons.”
What is the biggest downside to owning your business? “The environment is always changing. You have to change and you have to be modern and update yourself, for your customers, for your products, on the services that you should or shouldn’t provide. The biggest challenge is staying up to date.”
What is the biggest misconception about your business? “It’s the fact that it’s more economical to rent than to purchase. But there is a point in time when you use it often enough, you are better off owning it. But you still have to deal with it wearing out, replacing it. It is still, in the majority of times, more economical to rent than to buy.”
How would you describe your business philosophy? “We’ve always had the philosophy that we can help plan an event that can fit anybody’s budget. Everybody’s event, no matter how big or small, has the same importance to us. We want to make sure that everybody is treated in that same special way.”
How has your business changed over the years? “We started out in the beginning as a general rental, with tools and everything. And then we progressed into a party and event rental. … It would change by demand. We always responded to customers’ needs. And when customers started asking for tents, we wanted to be able to respond to that. A business has to be able to respond to their customer base.”
What advice would you give someone thinking about starting a business? “That’s an easy one. Take as many business courses as you can take. There are paperwork requirements (that) are horrendous. The government requirements are horrendous. The more knowledge you have, the more successful you will be sooner, the less chances you will make mistakes. That’s all. There is no governmental allowance for ‘I didn’t know!'”
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Daina Saleh is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.