The Implications for Business Owners of Modifying Their Car

As an entrepreneur, you may have various reasons to seriously consider modifying your car for business. While simply using your car as a workday mode of transport might suffice, you may also choose to wrap it in advertising, expand its storage… the possibilities are immense.

Still, it bears emphasis that you should think carefully before you embark on any modification for the vehicle upon which your livelihood relies. There can be both benefits and pitfalls if you modify your car as a business owner – as detailed below.

The Implications for Business Owners of Modifying Their Car

Before you do anything… consider how it could impact on your insurance

If you are contemplating a modification of any kind to your car, it would be wise to let your insurer know first. Automotive alterations can make insurers nervous, potentially leading them to hike premiums to meet what they perceive as the increased risk of the policyholder making a claim.

However, “perceived” is an important word there; not all insurers look so dimly on modifications. Going down the specialist route with modified car insurance could be just what you need to protect both your car and your corporate finances.

Why might you want to tweak your vehicle?

In essence, a car serves one simple, primary purpose for a business owner: getting them to their workplace and back. That workplace could be an office, factory or retail outlet, to reel off just some examples. Meanwhile, at the other end of the trip could be the driver’s home or a client’s premises.

However, imagine how much you could spread awareness of your business simply by having its logo, colours and other visual branding elements emblazoned across your car. Alternatively, you could let other firms take up advertising space on your vehicle’s bodywork.

Depending on the sector in which you work, further possibilities for altering your car might naturally present themselves. For example, you could expand your business into transporting various goods and supplies – and for that workload, you might want to make your vehicle more accessible or boost the amount of storage space it contains.

Modifying Your Car as a Small Business Owner

What practical steps can you take to modify your car?

If you want to take up the advertising idea, you could opt for what are known as vehicle wraps. The Did You Know Cars website explains that these wraps can be affixed to a vehicle’s sides, front and rear – and even cover its windows. Both “full” and “partial” wraps are available.

It may especially appeal to you that having a wrap fitted would be a one-off cost. Whereas keeping up a radio, social media or postal campaign is likely to require sustained expenditure over a protracted time period, you might not feel the need to replace your car’s wrap until your company’s logo, branding colours or contact details change.

As for making your car more accessible, you could do that by adding a ramp – especially convenient if you are interested in helping elderly or disabled people to attend appointments. If you intend to offer airport transfers instead, you could enlarge a storage area in your vehicle to let it more easily accommodate luggage, as Small Business Trends explains. As you can see, there are many potential implications – both positive and negative – of an entrepreneur choosing to modify their vehicle. So, it’s important to bear all of these in mind, and to research any other possible impacts, before you commit yourself to any particular course of action to modify your car.

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About Dequiana Jackson

Dequiana Jackson, Founder of Inspired Marketing, Inc., helps overachieving women entrepreneurs conquer limiting beliefs and create marketing plans that grow their businesses. This includes one-on-one marketing plan development, digital product creation, web design and content marketing. Dequiana is the author of Know Your Business: How to Attract Ideal Clients & Sell More and runs the award-winning blog, Entrepreneur-Resources.net.

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One comment

  1. car wrapping may have an effect on your insurance, it depends how aggressive you are with wrapping your car. e.g. covering the windows will definitely change your insurance premiums.

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