Steve Martin

The letting industry is booming. With most properties too expensive for people to get on the housing ladder, a dearth of lending instruments, the need for a flexible and transient workforce, high divorce rates, and an increase in immigrants coming to the UK, more and more people are looking for rental accommodation. The requirement for professional letting and managing agents is high. Providing you have some business acumen and determination, you can run a successful lettings business without any specific prior knowledge. This book will provide much of the information you will need, and shows you how and where to get additional information, training and resources. The book provides a complete guide to starting and running your own residential letting agency even if you have no previous knowledge of the industry. It will also provide valuable information for anyone buying into a lettings franchise, or for people already working in the industry. Contents: Acknowlegements; Preface; 1. Background to the property letting and Management Business; 2. Where do I start?; 3. Setting up the Business; 4. Marketing; 5. Business Finance; 6. Staffing your Business; 7. Customer service and Exceeding Customer's Expectations; 8. Business Legal Requirements; 9. Complying with the Latest Letting Regulations and Legislation; 10. The Letting Process; 11. The Property Management Process; 12. Client Accounting Procedures; 13. Additional Income Sources; 14. The Next Step - Expanding and Diversifying; Index

My account of my time in the Territorial army

Legendary comedian and actor Steve Martin's memoir of his early years in showbusiness

The thrust of this book is that you should exercise great care in doing business with sign companies. All sign companies are not rogues, however; there are many good companies. This book will help customers to single them out, to the commercial disadvantage of the remainder. For those who buy a lot of signage, this book offers a useful aide-memoir. You are probably aware of the endemic problems in some parts of the industry, alert to the risks, and adept at handling them. Even some of the experts, however, might find one or two twists in these pages that are new to them. For those who haven't bought signs before, the book should act as a very large warning. Do not go into the business of buying signage lightly; be well prepared. Not all the 100 questions in this book will necessary apply to your situation; you will have to sift out those that are relevant. No one is suggesting that it is practical, or sensible, to subject a sign company to the full interrogation given here - life's too short! Conversely, an awful lot of these questions are not exclusively applicable to the purchase of signs. If you have taken the trouble to buy a book like this, I assume you are a manager that spends money on signage. But you will, doubtless, buy other goods and services, as well, and I hope the book serves a wider purpose.