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What about this business keeps you awake at night?


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I have considered this as well.  I look at it like this: If I build it up to the point that I make a pretty good salary, and I am willing and able to continue, then I see no reason to sell out.  I have taken a temporary break from expanding the business as I consolidate everything,   In the future though, the question is.. do I only expand a little and maintain a good salary without ever have to worry about employees?  Or do I grow it bigger and bigger until I can start to buy other companies out and make a multi-route operation with semi-passive income?  I have been in the industry for 11 years and I am 32.  As long as I remain healthy, I feel like I have too much potential in this industry to sell out any time soon, but I also worry that only companies like canteen could ever buy me out and for pennies on the dollar.

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After running my business for 14 years and building up from 5 machines to 300 for a few years it didn't take long for attrition to occur as more as more people tried to get rich in vending.  At that point it became more work than fun because at the same time the unemployment rate was at it's lowest and I couldn't keep that third driver position filled. After a couple of years of not having fun any longer I sold it and went into the repair business which was much more enjoyable.  The lesson I learned was to never have an employee ever again due to the pain in the butt they are.  This, of course, is only my opinion and perhaps I wasn't properly prepared to manage employees once having them became troublesome.  My error was that I was always looking for someone like myself that was a self-starter and would work endless hours and work as though they owned it.

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11 hours ago, vendcobros said:

I worry that I won't be able to sell my route and I will have to keep it until the day I die or the phone calls will never stop!

 

:blink:

Well, there are a lot of factors that go into the ability to sell but if I were buying another route or company, I'd want them to be as technologically up to date as possible; e.g. vms with telemetry and cashless on a large part of their equipment, for starters.

 

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We could have bought a route back in the day for pennies on the dollar.  Less than that.  Pennies on the 10 dollar.  We passed because the machines were crazy old and out dated.  The accounts were pretty below average too.  It would have increased our revenue by 50-65% and we would have broke even in less than a year from what I remember, but the headaches would have been crazy.  Slowly upgrading the equipment would have been a nightmare.  Most of the accounts were reaaal slow.  

I think that's the biggest thing if I were an imaginary buyer of a route.  The average account has to be respectable and the equipment has to be worth a darn.

I don't plan on getting out of vending anytime soon, but about once a year I think about how sell-able my company would be.  Slowly, constantly improving and upgrading equipment is crucial.  I think in 5-10-20 years as cashless because almost a staple, it will be easier to sell/buy routes.  Instead of saying "here's what my route does in cash" and hoping someone believes you, you can show them the actually data for each account.  

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11 hours ago, arkhusker said:

Well, there are a lot of factors that go into the ability to sell but if I were buying another route or company, I'd want them to be as technologically up to date as possible; e.g. vms with telemetry and cashless on a large part of their equipment, for starters.

 

I have all that. It's still hard to find a big buyer the more yearly gross we add!

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3 hours ago, CapitalCityVendingLLC said:

We could have bought a route back in the day for pennies on the dollar.  Less than that.  Pennies on the 10 dollar.  We passed because the machines were crazy old and out dated.  The accounts were pretty below average too.  It would have increased our revenue by 50-65% and we would have broke even in less than a year from what I remember, but the headaches would have been crazy.  Slowly upgrading the equipment would have been a nightmare.  Most of the accounts were reaaal slow.  

I think that's the biggest thing if I were an imaginary buyer of a route.  The average account has to be respectable and the equipment has to be worth a darn.

I don't plan on getting out of vending anytime soon, but about once a year I think about how sell-able my company would be.  Slowly, constantly improving and upgrading equipment is crucial.  I think in 5-10-20 years as cashless because almost a staple, it will be easier to sell/buy routes.  Instead of saying "here's what my route does in cash" and hoping someone believes you, you can show them the actually data for each account.  

Yeah I agree. You should be able to provide tax returns for the whole route if you're running legit as well.

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One thing to keep in mind as you grow, try to get as much bang for your equipment buck as you can. Here's one way: Let's say you land an account, but don't have equipment for it. If the place doesn't merit new or first class refurb, take a look at your best accounts. Your best account might deserve an equipment upgrade and use that equipment for your new account. you have now pleased 2 customers with one purchase. 

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