What kind of things do successful vending operators do or How to Make Money in Vending?
Successful people plan and set goals. If you want to do well, you have to see and feel yourself in the vending business.
You need realistic goals
You’ve got to be very specific with your goals
You need to be detailed
Larry gives an example of a realistic and specific goal; he goes over a typical day in the vending business.
Episode Transcript:
How to Make Money in Vending Tom Shivers: I’m Tom with the Vending Business show. I’m here again with Larry Towner, who is a vending business consultant. He has been in the vending business for a couple of decades. And we’re glad to have him here today to explain a little more about How to Make Money in Vending. So, thanks for being here Larry.
Larry Towner: Thanks Tom, it’s a pleasure.
Tom Shivers: Now, I know sometimes people getting started in a business or in particular a vending business have some misconceptions about what it means How to Make Money in Vending. What’s one of the common ones you hear?
Larry Towner: Well, you know, the most common thing I hear about business in general is that if you’re in business you’re making money. That’s my number one comment. And then of course you hear it a lot in the vending business. Because after all, everybody knows how much your product costs. You can buy it for a quarter and sell it for fifty cents. And of course, you’re making millions on that! Just millions!
Tom Shivers: So, that’s kind of a misconception. What kind of things do the vending people who are doing well or successful in the vending business. What kind of things are they doing that most of the new people aren’t? Or are not aware of?
Larry Towner: Well, one of the biggest issues that successful people in general do. And again, but, it applies to the vending industry just as much as it does any other businesses. Successful people set goals. They plan, and they set goals. And one of the things if you’re contemplating getting in the vendor business, you want to set some goals. You can make, literally, and I mean, we were just joking about it before. About making millions of dollars. But, you can make millions of dollars in the vending business, if you want.
Larry Towner: It’s just a question of successful planning and successful goal setting. If you think you’re going to get into the vending business and make a million dollars in a year, if you can figure that out, would you please let me know because I’d like to do that. After 20 years, I mean we were very, very successful and no complaints. Liked the vending business but, it’s a lot of hard work but you can learn how to make money in vending. .
Larry Towner: So, one of the things when we talk about goal setting. Did you understand that Tom? Did you understand what we’re talking about when we say that?
Tom Shivers: Well, I think I understand that successful people work hard. And that’s a big part of why they are successful. So, I conceptually get that. Yes. But, please go on.
Larry Towner: Well, when we get down to goal setting it’s like, if you want to do well, it doesn’t matter what you want to do. You have to see yourself in the business. You have to feel yourself in the business. So, I’m going to give you a quick description of what a potential goal setting for a new vending operator might be. He’s going to come out and he’s going to say, you need realistic goals. So, you have to say if you’ve never been in the business, you got to say well how many new accounts do I plan on getting this year? What kind of accounts are they going to be? How am I going to service them? And what are they going to look like?
Larry Towner: And to that, I’m going to answer you’ve got to be very, very, very specific. And for example, I want to have four new accounts this year. I want these accounts to have 50-100 people in them. I want the populations of those accounts to be let’s say 50% Hispanic and the rest is a mix. I want it largely in a blue collar operation. I want to have a single snack, and a single soda machine there. And I want these accounts to generate X amount of dollars per year. I plan on servicing these accounts once or twice a week depending on the volume of business that they’re going to do. It’s this kind of detailed planning that helps you understand exactly what you’re going to do. Because the rest of your business can be determined by those parameters, that we just set out. It’s all about planning again. It’s about getting your ducks in a row. And implementing that plan.
Larry Towner: And so, again, we just kind of touched on the fact the vending people work hard. Typical vending day. You’re going to up early in the morning. You’re doing to do one of two things. You’re either going to be up early in the morning or work late at night. I always got up early in the morning. Early in the morning to me is 4:30 in the morning. We would have trucks loaded and be on the road by 6:00 in the morning. Be at our first stop at around 6:30. We’re going to work from 6:30 until whenever.
Larry Towner: We generally sat at accounts during traffic times. Again, a bit of planning. We didn’t want to have our guys driving around in traffic looking at a windshield. When they could be looking at the glass of a machine, filling it. So, that was part of the plan. They would be out and they would work until about 3:30 to 4:00, sometimes 5:00 at night. After which they’d turn in their money, restock their trucks to a certain degree. They restock in the morning as well. And they’re ready to go for the next day. And sometimes on a good day we’d be done by 7:00 at night. As an owner/manager. That’s hard work, when you do it 5 to 7 days a week. Or 6 days a week. But, you have to have that planned out. That’s goal setting. That’s how you get yourself going.
Tom Shivers: Excellent stuff Larry. Thanks so much. Tell us little bit about what you do and how people can contact you.
Larry Towner: Well we do vending consulting. We do it for people that are new in the business. Or if you’ve been in the business awhile and you want your operations streamlined, you want to have any kind of internal audits, anything like that. All kinds of consulting on vending, we’re available at [email protected]. That’s one word, it’s [email protected].
Tom Shivers: You’ve been watching the Vending Business show on how to make money in vending, a publication of A&M Equipment Sales.
How the Vending Business Works with An interview with Larry Towner, vending business consultant
How the Vending Business Works is well first thing that’s most important in any business venture is do a little planning. The second thing is before you go out and buy equipment, how about have a place to put it – go get an account first.
What are some of the better accounts for vending today?
I would look for businesses that are growing. Businesses that supply the construction industry in the current economic environment, but it depends on what you want to do – your goals.
When you land an account, what’s next?
Now it’s time to go buy the equipment and to keep expenses low I would go for refurbished equipment from a quality supplier.
After you buy your equipment, then what?
Have someone who knows what they are doing move your equipment because there are lots of tricks in moving vending machines through doors, etc. Then you’ll need to setup the equipment.
In a future video we’ll be covering what products to include in your vending machines that really sell.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTS:
Tom: I’m Tom with the Vending Business Show here with Larry Towner who is a vending business consultant. He’s been actually run his own operation in the vending business for quite a while, a couple of decades and recently sold his vending business in 2012. So we’re happy to have him on the show today. Thanks for being here, Larry.
Larry Towner: Oh, I appreciate it, Tom.
Tom: Today we’re talking about how the vending business works. A lot of times, people that are new to the vending business think they have to buy a vending machine first. But, what’s the most important thing to start with,On How the Vending Business Works Larry?
Larry Towner: Well, Tom, I always like to say that the first thing that’s most important in any business venture that you undertake is to do a little bit of planning, number one. The second thing is before you go and buy equipment, how about have a place to put it? When I say that, what I mean is go out and do some sales and actually get an account first.
Tom: Yeah. So, yeah, let’s say, what are some of the good places to find or to locate … What are some of the better places?
Larry Towner: Well, there’s all kinds of places. I mean, you see vending machines out there in the world, you see them everywhere from on street corners into businesses, retail shops. Some vending machines are becoming retail shops. This is kind of where we have to get into a little bit of the planning thing like we were just talking about. You can go into a planning situation, you kind of decide what do you think is going to be best for the for the business and to help you make money. Perhaps the reason you’re actually watching this video is just to find out that kind of information. So we’re here, you and I, we have these discussions on a fairly regular basis to discuss some of these things.
Larry Towner: So when we get into that planning thing, you should sort of develop an idea of what you want to do and then you decide what businesses or what the vending types of locations are going to do to do your best. That’s kind of a roundabout way around your question there, Tom. But in effect it’s the same thing. I can answer what the best locations are for me, but that’s not necessarily what the best locations are for you as one of our potential viewers.
Tom: Well, that’s a good point, Larry. So let’s just say if you were starting a vending business today, where would you … How would you go about finding locations? What would you go for?
Larry Towner: Well look, what would I go for? I’d be looking for areas where there’s growth in business and to that, while that sounds broad, it’s where you’re looking for. There’s less competition and growing businesses and things like that. In business cycle, they come in and out. They go through various different stages of growth. Right now we’re in a somewhat depressed real estate market or at least the construction industry and real estate is off a little bit, but it’s going to, it’s starting to make its motions back. So some of the things that I would be particularly looking for would be into accounts that might supply the construction industry and things like that, in the current, this is 2013 under the current environment. So those might be some things that I would be looking at. A lot of it’s going to depend on what are your particular ideas. Do you want to be in schools? Well, school vending is going to be there for quite some time as long as there’s school. So really depends on what your particular goals and objectives are.
Tom: Okay. Now let’s say you land a placement, you get a deal with the business or organization that wants your vending machines. What’s next?
Larry Towner: Well, you get this business, now you need to actually go out and it sounds like you need to go buy the equipment. Of course there’s probably a thousand choices on equipment. One thing that people need to understand in vending is is that you have to keep your expenses low. So if you’re new to vending, my suggestion is you go for refurbished equipment and you go to a quality supplier, someone that’s been doing refurbished equipment for quite some time. My particular choice is A&M Equipment Sales, which is probably where you’re looking at this video from.
Tom: Okay. So after you’ve gotten your equipment, then what?
Larry Towner: Well, then it actually comes time to actually install the equipment, that be a simple or difficult job just depending on the location. Usually, there are several people in a [inaudible 00:04:55] area or actually anywhere that can actually move equipment for you. I would suggest if you’re starting that you have someone that knows what they’re doing, move equipment, vending machines are heavy. There’s a lot of real tricks and moving vending machines that if you’ve been doing it for unfortunately 30 years, like I have, you know all of the tips and tricks to actually getting them through doors, how to do it without taking them apart and so forth and so on, but I suggest you just hire somebody to do it. There’s plenty of qualified people in any given market that’ll move things for you. You move it in, you’re going to set it up. At that point, it doesn’t walk into that account completely filled and completely working and completely priced out. Now, again, depending on where you purchased your equipment from, some of those issues might be done for you, but you will eventually have to learn how to do those things anyway, so.
Tom: Right. So yeah, I guess, supplying your whatever products fit that particular business, you’ll have to find out what those are and find a way to learn what works in that particular machine, right?
Larry Towner: Well, one of the great things about that, Tom, is I think we’re going to do another video on that in a future installment, aren’t we?
Tom: Yeah, absolutely. We will get to that one.
Larry Towner: So say that so that you all come back and take a look, but we’ve got all kinds of tips and tricks that are going to come on to teach you what products you should be considering when you go and put them into a machine because a lot of it, it’s its own topic, but there’s lots of variety and lots of choices. So we’ll do that in another one.
Tom: Okay, great. Tell us a little more about what you do, Larry, and then we’ll sign off.
Larry Towner: Well, we do vending consulting for particularly for startups and also, but for people that are looking to maximize their operations, get the most money out of their operation that they have now and try to help them, give them some consulting services. We’re available at [email protected], if you care to contact us, that’s all one word. [email protected].
Tom: You’ve been watching the Vending Business Show, a publication of A&M Equipment Sales.
Is There Money to Make in Healthy Vending An interview with Larry Towner
Excerpts from the interview: Is There Money to Make In Healthy Vending
“Healthy vending products are hot, they constitute a growing market segment that needs to be capitalized on,but the business opportunities,…Is There Money to Make in Healthy Vending you need to do serious research on any business opportunity before investing in that opportunity.”
Are there ways to offer Healthy vending solutions besides these Business opportunities?
“A business opportunity wants to sell you machines fronted with a healthy promotional sign. They promise to place the machines. They promise fabulous profits.” Is There Money to Make in Healthy Vending?
“I always suggest to my clients that they partner with a reputable equipment supplier, someone that has many years of experience in the vending industry, a company that has a reputation of providing excellent equipment at a fair price and provides outstanding customer service after the sale. My choice was Joe Nichols and his staff at A&M Equipment.”
“In regards to Healthy product promotion, he has many options available, from machines fully with Healthy Vend logos, to individual column selections promoted as healthy selections.”
“The opportunities abound, just be smart. Get help from experienced people. I can consult, Joe Nichols can consult, talk to other business people, network. Be wary of someone promising the world.”
Listen to the interview:
Episode Transcript:
Tom Shivers: Is There Money to Make in Healthy Vending Hi, this is Tom Shivers with the Vending Business Show and Larry Towner is on the call here as well. Thanks for joining us, Larry.
Larry Towner,: How are you, Tom?
Tom Shivers: I’m hanging in there. Today we’re going to talk about healthy vending and I know that’s a very hot topic right now. All kinds of things even up in Congress are talking about it. So is there a business opportunity in vending healthy items?
Larry Towner,: Boy, Tom, you’re not kidding. Healthy vending products are hot right now. They really do constitute a growing market segment that needs to be capitalized on. But the business opportunities, I think you need to do some serious research on any business opportunity before investing into that opportunity.
Tom Shivers: Why do you say that?
Larry Towner,: Well, business is business and there’s several ways to approach business. But one thing all businesses have in common is a desire to make profit. Any business opportunity that offers something of value that you cannot get elsewhere, you now, the offering company wants to make a profit too. So if a guy comes to you and says, “You can make a million dollars in healthy vending,” why wouldn’t he be doing it himself? So I guess the question always is, is what are these opportunities offering? What makes them unique and valuable? If you’re going to spend some money on a business opportunity, what makes it unique? What makes it valuable?
Tom Shivers: Well, are there ways to offer healthy vending solutions besides these business opportunities?
Larry Towner,: Well, there’s always alternatives. The first place to start is with the business plan. Write down your business idea, conceptualize it on paper. Be very specific, run numbers, go in and see how many things you have to sell, do a break-even, things like that. It’s very, very important to write a business plan for any business that you get into. This exercise in writing a business plan can either save you or make you thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
Tom Shivers: Get more specific.
Larry Towner,: Well, let’s just say a business opportunity wants to sell you machines fronted with healthy promotional signs and they promise to place the machine, and they promise fabulous profits and what alternatives might be out there? Well, vending companies invest large amounts of money into their equipment. Vending is a very capital intensive business. I suggest to my clients that they partner with a reputable equipment supplier, someone that’s got lots of years of experience in the vending industry, has a great reputation of providing excellent equipment at fair prices and providing outstanding customer service after the sale. I’m going to tell you, if you don’t have customer service after the sale on your vending equipment, you are really going to be left out in trouble because equipment is equipment and I don’t care what business you’re in, if you have equipment, things are going to happen to it, you’re going to need either a repair source or somebody to help you troubleshoot these things. My choice has always been Joe Nichols and his staff at A&M Equipment. Joe started in the vending businesses and actually his family has been in the vending business for 35 years. He intrinsically understands the wants and needs of vending operators because he’s been one.
Larry Towner,: In regards to healthy product promotion, he has a bunch of options to choose from. You can get a machine that’s fully logoed, that has healthy signs on the front and you can customize those signs, you can do whatever you’d like as far as your own branding concept is on healthy vending. Or it can take you right down the column level, meaning if you just want to vend one or two items, he can do a promotional item up inside the machine that says, “These items are healthy” or whatever it is. But my goal always is, is if you can stay flexible with your promotions, it’s almost a better way to do it. You can promote your healthy selections as a part of your total product instead of the whole machine. But that takes you back to your business plan. You want that whole machine to be healthy products or do you want to mix those product selections? Have you even thought about it? A couple of words of caution, a typical snack machine costs around a thousand to 35 hundred dollars used, and 25 hundred to 5 thousand dollars new, depending on options and your customizations.
Larry Towner,: This snack machine should be fully electronic and have the ability to take credit cards and debit cards, as well as coin and paper currency, as it were, to take actual money. These are all things that, again, a reputable equipment supplier will be able to discuss your options and to give you the kind of information that you need as to whether or not this is going to be valuable to you. That’s always been my take. It’s just stay flexible and understand exactly what you’re trying to do.
Tom Shivers: You didn’t address the placement of machines.
Larry Towner,: Well, machine placement, it’s real common for people to promise they’ll place a machine out there for you and one of the things that we always say in that is is that sales basically is a … Or machine placement, if you want to call it that is a sales prop. It’s just a numbers game. If you call in enough people, you’re going to be able to place your equipment. In vending, placement is relatively easy. My numbers ran, and I’m not a stupendous sales person, but if I called on 10 businesses, I would end up placing one machine. And again, that’s a general average. It always seemed to work out this way. I had to make 50 calls before I got that one placement, but then I got 5 in a row. So when I took my long-term statistics, I knew if I knocked on enough doors, I would get the business.
Larry Towner,: But it depends on a bunch of factors and things like that. But that’s the kind of thing that if you think about it as it’s just a sales process, you need to do it. A lot of these business opportunities promise placement, but usually they provide you with locations that you could obtain by yourself with minimal efforts. I wouldn’t be paying a premium for placement of machines if they’re in marginally profitable locations. If there was so much profit to be made in these accounts, why would you be giving them away? That’s what I always say when it comes to the placement issues.
Tom Shivers: What else can you tell us about healthy vending?
Larry Towner,: Well, opportunities abound right now. As you said, we’ve got legislation going on in congress, we’ve got … It’s really a hot button right now. The big thing is just be smart. Get help from experienced people. I can consult, Joe Nichols can consult the vein of equipment. Talk to other people in the business, network. Just be wary of somebody promising you the world and talking about net profits and how you can place these and make tons and tons and tons of money. So that’s just always my words of advice to anybody that’s considering starting a new business is just be smart. Be patient. The opportunity will be there. The healthy vending opportunities are here now and they’ll continue to be here as our society gets more and more health conscious. And so be smart.
Tom Shivers: Well, thanks for sharing, Larry. Tell us about your business and what you do.
Larry Towner,: Well, we do consulting for the vending industry and we do videos and podcasts just like this. We can be reached at [email protected]. That’s S-E-R-V-I-C-E-G-R-O-U-P-I-N-T-E-R-N-A-T-I-O-N-A-L. I don’t know my own spelling. @earthlink.net. Anyway, that’s how you reach us. We would love to consult with you on any of your leads and things like that. We’re extremely reasonably priced and things like that. Or contact Joe at A&M Equipment.
Tom Shivers: You’ve been listening to Is There Money to Make in Healthy Vending at the Vending Business Show, a production of A&M Equipment sales.
Vending Operations Making More Money Chuck Reed of MEI facilitates a panel of five outstanding vending operators to emphasize the main points:at the Nama show about Vending Operations Making More Money. Vending Operations Making More Money These large vending operators are talking about the basics of making money in the vending business and some of the new technology that keeps track of sales and inventory. There are new inventory controls from the warehouse to the route truck and into the vending machine. Vending Operations Making More Money a lot of the telemetry that are on vending machines can now tell if the machine is working or not and send a message when it is not. Recyclers were a big thing at this conference thus generating more vending profit. Installing credit card readers and telemetry that goes with it was also a big plus. To increase your vending business or keeping it at a manageable size. Good employees make mor profit. A good route man is worth his weight in gold. He sees your customer every day and can keep that account for you. Employee pay make sure some sort of commission. The better job he does the mmore money he makes and you make. Listen to some of the great ideas these guys come up with. You have been listening to Vending Operations Making More Money at The Vending Business Show only at A&M Equipment Sales. For More information Acquiring New Vending Accounts
Youth Market and Vending Machines Food and Drink Digital interviewed Michael L. Kasavana, Ph.D., who is a NAMA-endowed professor at Michigan State University’s School of Hospitality Business on the topic of the youth market.
Youth Market and Vending Machines Kasavana says a major trend is enhancement of the consumer interface and for vending machines that means a more interactive transaction – one that youth who shop and play games online are used to including payment options available online. “Why can’t you do that at a vending machine?”
Another trend is the products being sold are no longer traditional, but moving toward non-traditional items like energy drinks, trail mixes, things perceived to be more healthy.
Youth Market and Vending Machines Also product information like nutritional content. The younger generation is watching what they eat. Vending machine manufacturers will soon be required to project the food manufacturer’s nutrition label like you see on most packages. USA Technologies already has a screen that will retrofit on the vending machine that shows nutritional content. It is also a credit card reader. For more information on Usa Technologies USA TECHNOLOGIES ePORT G9 You are watching the Vending Business show at A&M Vending Machine Sales. For more videos you can go to www.ameqquipmentsales.com and go to vending business blogs. Over one hundred vending blogs available.
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