“Tent guy” starts new rental forum

Jon Anderson, a 10-year veteran of D.C. Hall Rental Service in North Branford, Conn., recently launched Rent Talk Online (www.renttalkonline.com), a new forum for the rental industry. The free site has multiple threads covering a wide range of rental industry topics, which users can easily access after registering with the site. Topic threads include tenting, lighting, product support and administrative issues, to name a few.

Anderson says he started Rent Talk Online (RTO) as a way to share information among rental industry peers. “My long-term goal with RTO is to gain a large group of people who will frequent the site, and make it the premier place for information pertaining to the rental industry,” Anderson says. “My short-term goal is to sell enough advertising space on the site to break even. My ultimate reason for creating the site was for my own identity. I think it would be neat to hear someone say, ‘Hey, that’s the guy who started Rent Talk Online.’ The monetary end of it is secondary.”

Anderson has been marketing the site by gathering e-mail addresses and sending out information about the site via e-mail and snail mail. “Mailings are my major advertisement as of now,” he says. “As the budget permits, I plan on adding new methods of promotion.”

When asked what he enjoys most about being in the tent rental business, Anderson says it’s the camaraderie. “At least where I work, the whole crew is like family,” he says. “Most of the time we are spending more time with each other than we do [with] our own families. You develop quite a bond with your co-workers. Also, being in the tent rental industry is somewhat unique, so you have that identity. People know you as the ‘tent guy.’”