Daily Inspiration: Meet Ryan Broshear

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Broshear

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In June of 2016 we started our van rental company but the roots were created prior to that. We owned a Ford passenger van I used to tour in but it was also my daily driver. It wasn’t much to look at when you wanted to take your wife out on a date but it was great when you loaded it up with a band and hit the road. It broke down on us on a family vacation to Florida and when we got it back and got it fixed we put it up for sale. I bought a truck to drive for my daily driver and we started renting passenger vans from Nashville companies for our touring. While on the road with my band I started to think about owning my own rental company because the process of some of the other companies was not convenient for us. Then on one tour we had 5 shows in week in Chicago and we could not find anyone who had a van to rent. I have also been in the car business for over 25 years so we reached out to a dealership I had worked at and they had a Ford 15 passenger van for sale. I bought it the week of the tour not sure exactly how I could afford both a tour van and my truck. When we came back from the tour I decided I wanted to try and recoup some of the money we had to pay on the van by renting it. I put a post up on Gig Finders Facebook Group and someone reached out interested in renting it. It was Georgette Jones, the daughter of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. They rented on a few trips and another van came in on trade at the dealership I was working at the time. It was a Nissan NV 12 passenger van. I drove it home to my wife and told her she might think I was crazy but I wanted to start a rental business and we purchased the second van. We created an LLC and we named the company Road Warrior Tour Rentals because as we toured for my music career people always called me a road warrior for all the miles we would cover over the weekend and then be right back at work on Monday like we never left.
We grew our business up to 10 total vans by 2020 and nearly lost our business during Covid. At the end of 2020 we relocated our family to my wife’s home area in Indiana but the detail shop we have had clean our vans since day 1 let us store our vans there and help us to continue to offer rentals in Murfreesboro while also opening up business locations in Indiana and Cincinnati. We currently offer 15 passenger vans and Mercedes Sprinter rentals from our Murfreesboro location.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. We nearly lost our business during Covid. We had all of our 10 vans booked in early March of 2020. We had one set of clients booked to open on tour dates for Reba. We had a band on the West Coast in the middle of a tour and another band starting out on a month long tour. On March 16th of 2020 when the county was shut down I fielded nearly a dozen calls of cancellations. The bands had their tours cancelled mid-tour and other clients had their vacations cancelled. In one day over $25,000.00 worth of business cancelled and losses continued from there. We refunded clients deposits for upcoming bookings and made it right with all the bands who were on the road having their tours cancelled. We believed that after Covid it was important clients could trust us. It tapped all of our reserves to try and do the right thing and we were facing an extended time not being able to rent out any of our 10 vans as the country remained closed. Most of those vans had monthly loan payments due and insurance that we had to float with no income.

We started selling off vans and I was able to get down to only 4 vans by the end of 2020. I was about ready to sell the fourth van when the country flipped a switch and let everyone go on vacation again. Instantly I didn’t have enough vans to satisfy demand but they became very hard to buy and the price of them inflated. We slowly built back up but even to this day the ripples of Covid still effect our business.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My career as a country music artist was an exciting chapter of my life. I moved to Murfreesboro with my wife Amie in October of 2014. We had written an album together and recorded it with a friend from my home town, Daniel Agee, who was the band leader with Joe Nichols at the time. The album came out great and we decided to release some singles to secondary country radio. That led to radio tours and performance opportunities all over the country. I was written up in Billboard Magazine in the Summer of 2014 as one of the Top 10 Artists to Watch. My wife managed my tours and we spent most weekends hitting the road and building my fan base across the county. In 2019 my wife and I welcomed a baby girl to the world named Remington. Even when she was a baby we would take her on the road with us for shows all over the country. Now she is 5 and even helps us clean vans! We created the van business as a way to supplement income while I pursued my country music career.

How do you define success?
Success to me is not something that is a final destination. It isn’t money or some goal reached. Success is a continuing push to follow your dreams. To me success is the journey, the opportunity to follow your heart and see what becomes of it. It is ever changing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.roadwarriortourrentals.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roadwarriortourrentals/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roadwarriortourrentals
• Twitter: https://www.x.com/warriorrentals
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@roadwarriortourrentalsllc