JEREMYTINA

Do you have a tech manual available for the USI machine or is there a way to test to find out which component is dead? I'm comfortable

Can you message me the part numbers and the cost for the board and display for each machine? And the card reader pricing?

I have a local guy selling a USI3014 (doesn't turn on), a USI3013 working (looks clean), and a Dixie Narco 3561 glass front machine. All for $1600. I'm somewhat handy and can fix most issues myself if I know what's wrong, but I'm looking for opinions about the price, and possible ideas for what the issue may be with the 3014 and potential cost to repair. Also, would these machines possibly be upgradable to take credit cards?

You've been spending too much time behind the wheel Bub.

[quote name='lak20019' timestamp='1304869785'] I wanna be like Jeremy and Tina when I grow up [/quote] Smartass. lol

Ok so the last few weeks have been crazy. I had to turn down 2 fullline locations. It killed me to do so, but I just couldn't lock myself into them. The were combo machines in service shops averaging $35-40 per week each. Unfortunately, they had to be service every week, and they were 15 miles farther than my current stops. However, this week, I landed a new 5 way rack location in a dollar store at 25% commission, I had a barber shop call that just opened, and wants the world, but I'm going to start slow. He worked for another of my locations, and called wanting an arcade game, small bulk, and a soda machine. Wants 50/50 on arcade (mortal combat), 50% net on bulk, and 25% gross on soda. On top of that I have another salon location with bulk that asked if I could put in a can soda machine, so I am searching for a dn276 cheap. I also have a chinese buffet that is going to kick their existing vendor and allow me to place a 6 Way rack along with a 4 column sticker. My father in law went to file for SS this past week, and his employer is going to allow him to start working part time. This will free him up for me to train him on what I need him to do, and how it needs to be done. I am in the process of writing an employee handbook, policy and procedure manuals, etc for future needs. He is going to work for me 3 days a month to start. This is something I can certainly afford, and his hours will increase as I pick up more locations. I will continue to use locators to fill in the gaps, but as my time becomes freed up from servicing, I intend to continue to go out and locate more racks and machines into plazas I already conduct business in. All in all, it's been a great couple of weeks.

I make and rely upon my fulltime jobs salary too much to vend fulltime on my own. My plan is to employ my father-in-law starting in August and have him do most of the day to day operations. I would love to do this as my main job, but I would need more than 125 more racks or full line locations to truly cover my current income. So I may not get to do this fulltime until I retire, or until I have a route large enough to cover the above location requirements. If I can continue to grow at the pace I did last year every year, then maybe 5 years would be a possible timeframe.

How's the locating going? Haven't seen a blog post from you in awhile.

As many people who've read my past posts know, I advocate using locators, and use them frequently. I work full time, and more, and I like to spend time with my family as well. This leaves little time to locate. I have used 6 locators in the past year, and have had varying levels of success. I am down to 2 now, and I use them for finding leads on different types of equipment. Both use vastly different means to get the job done for me, but both have come through many, many times. I found that I was complaining about the locations being found for me alot, and I recently found a way to solve the problem. I am now supplying my own call lists and it's working beautifully! I pulled my own call list up online and filtered it by business type, put it in an excel format, and cleaned it up a bit. They just began using the list today and I already have 2 new locations. I realized that complainining wasn't solving the issue, and that I was irritating not only myself but the people who were working for me as well. I know that if any locations are found from the list, I will be happy to accept them, and will gladly pay for every one. I can sort the list by address, so when I go out locating on my own, I will know who has already been called, and I plan to work that call into my face to face approach as well. Paying someone to do the selling for me is not really any different than any other large company strategy. Everyone employs salesmen, mine just use a phone to make the connection. I want my company to become large enough over time, that I can afford to hire people, and develop a brand awareness. Locators will get me by for now, until the day I can hire someone to hit the road selling fulltime for me. I have gained 10 heads in the last week toward my goal of an additional 200 by August. If I can keep this up, and have a couple of weeks that are stellar, I should make it.