All aboard as Ling Valentine creates the UK's first travelling mobile office
Immigrant entrepreneur LING VALENTINE has hit the road with her online car-leasing firm -- by turning a London bus into a high-tech travelling office and showroom.
40,000 Britons rushed to the forecourts on September 1st to buy new registration "56" cars but Valentine says the increasing trend for changing cars every two or three years is helping her business. She simply rents brand-new cars to customers for 2 or 3-years, at transparent prices.
Ling (33), who runs-Gateshead-based LINGsCARS.com, spent £7000 buying her bus on eBay and a further £7000 painting, renovating and kitting the bus out with flat-screen TVs, a DVD player, computers and wireless internet connection so her customers can surf the web and find car prices.
Chinese-born Ling hopes to target the public at supermarkets, venues and other outdoor events all over the country by inviting them onto her bus to look at her car rental offers. She says:
"It's great to be on the road in my bus meeting customers. My business has never been better because people now understand how to liquidise their financial assets. House price rises and cheap credit means that people are more sophisticated than ten years ago. People buy property because it appreciates in price. Buying a car outright or borrowing the money makes no sense because cars depreciate in value. Why invest in something that decreases in value? Liquidising the capital tied up in a car can free up plenty of cash. Renting means no depreciation, no loan and fixed-costs. People like a flat monthly rental, which includes road tax and delivery. The public also like to compare my 100 different cars on a level playing field. Traditional dealers just don't allow this; they like to keep everything confusing with loans, APRs, made up offers and deals, which cannot be compared because these all disguise high profit margins. Car dealers like confusion-marketing, the public doesn't."
Ling sells over £1.3m of new cars every month from her website which displays all her cars and prices in a simple manner. LINGsCARS.com attracts an average of 50,000 visitors per month thanks to her wacky marketing techniques such as free Chinese money, free Chinese lunch and free Chairman Mao red books, plus her Nuclear Missile Truck. Her blogs, live chat rooms and viral marketing techniques such as "Chop Gear" films have become compulsive viewing.
As a Chinese immigrant to the UK, Ling is proud to have built a £16m/yr business from scratch. "The British Nationalists can shove this where the sun doesn't shine", she says. "I pay more tax and contribute more to the UK than all of the idiots put together. I think we should send all these anti-immigration people on a one-way trip to Poland, they need people there, these days".
"My new 1966 World-Cup London bus is the best mobile office in the world. I can work as I move. It beats car dealers hand-down because my low overheads enable massive savings for my customers. Customers love me because I am the Ryanair of the car world. I provide cheap new cars of all makes by cutting costs. People don't want all the car dealer rubbish. They just want good service and the lowest prices."
"Which part of 'you are too expensive' don't the car dealers understand?
See www.lingscars.com
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