Shop Owners/Managers Please Chime In

First Off, mods, if there is a better place for this post then please feel free to move it...

2 of my friends started a business about 3-4 years ago selling car audio/video equipment and since then we've all been to installer school have become mecp certified and have gained a good amount of experience with a good variety of cars.  We now are looking into opening a shop in the area because there arent very many (if any) custom shops in this area, but we feel like the demand is there.  What i want to know is what are the absolute most basic things we need to get in order to set up shop.  because we plan on laying the groundwork for opening the shop in this year so that hopefully we'll be able to open up in 2006.  We have a few places that are willing to rent bays out to us, so finding a building wont be necessarily difficult, but what other things should we take into consideration?? Any comments or knowledge anybody is willing to share is completely welcome... Thank you...

• A good accountant ! I've been talking with a fellow installer friend of mine and he says that a good accountant will make you or break you in the business. They will be able to find loop holes in the system, make you money instead of making you pay and also give you some great advice for what you should and shouldn't be doing with your money.
• Pick and choose your advertising. Look at who your advertising to and make your advertising money work for you. A simple sign on the highway or a local newpaper does wonder's. Go to trade shows or competitions with vehicles and make sure you have a good representation of vehicles from your shop there.
• In my area there's no better advertising than word of mouth. Just remember one thing, one happy customer brings in about 5 new customer's but one unhappy customer's can tell 100's or thousands of people ( especially with the internet ) to not go to your shop. Keep your reputation good and free of hack jobs. Nothing wrong with telling a customer that you can't do what they want.
• Buy shop equipment or display fixtures second hand. You'll be amazed at how much you can save yourself when you start a business buying second hand.

Thanks for the replies guys.  Im definitely taking all of this advice in.   I liked the idea about avertising on the road, and I'm going to discuss that with my partners.  We also talked about getting some ads in local radio as well.  I actually have a cousin who's an accountant although i dont know how good he really is, i have faith in him.  As far as licenses and things of that nature I need to figure out who I should call to figure out all of the legal necesseties of opening a shop.   As far as tools.  We have started buying tools (Each of us probably has close to $1k dollars in tools indivudially), but i know large shop tools will need to be bought as well.  Thanks again for that advice guys and if you think of anything else, please add it.  Im just trying to get as much good counsel as possible.

Keep it coming...