Hiring Employees to Service Bulk Vending Route

[McMEnterpr]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure one of the big questions bulk vending operators ask themselves at one time or another is whether they can step back and hire employees to service locations. While I don't have enough locations to justify hiring employees just yet, I am very interested in learning how some of our successful VENDiscuss forum members have accomplished this.

If you have some thoughts on the following questions, it would be much appreciated:

• Is it possible to pay independent contractors to service the route for a set fee or based on an hourly rate?
• Are your employees only servicing racks (large profit locations) or do they also service smaller locations (single, double, tripled head machines)?
• If you are not hiring an independent contractor, but actually pay benefits, employee liability insurance, etc., have you found that you can still remain profitable as a bulk vending operator?

Thanks,

Brian

[alyssamma]

Check out this thread. Specifically my reply to the OP (2nd post). It addresses your first bullet point + some other items.

http://www.vendiscuss.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=3055&forum_id=4

[Jax Snacks]

I also have a post on the same thread. I don't believe bulk and employees can mix. If the overhead doesn't get you, then the employee theft will!  Not to mention the damge a fired employee could cause.  I believe Smiley has some employees, I am sure he has some good insights on this.

Jax

[markvend]

Brian,

I currently have 5 contractors that work for me on some of my routes. The drawbacks Jax pointed out are critical. All 5 of these people I know extremely well and I have observed their life for years. Plus, I have my numbers from the routes and have good comparisons to go by. You must take safeguards though and have checks and balances.

The company I bought originally had about 12 contractors and it worked well for them, but the owner was an excellent detail oriented manager. I do know they had one problem with theft over the years but that was the only one I know of. They mainly hired retired people who wanted to make an extra 3-4000 a year servicing machines. She got many recommendations from Pastors of churches (no guarantee necessarily people won't steal, but it might be a starting point).

I have been very hesitant to go this route and would not have had I not personally known the people. The flip side is that I cannot do the volume of machines we have by myself and had to make the transition. If you have another income to hedge against potential losses of going this route, it might be a legitimate consideration, but I would say approach it very cautiously.

THanks,

Mark

[ROGERS VENDING]

If you get that big, why not rig your machine with a different lock on the money box?  The route drivers only service the candy, etc... You come buy and pick up the money twice a year or quarterly....

Cheers,

Jesse

[McMEnterpr]

Jesse,

That sounds like a great idea, however, there is a couple draw backs. In particular, if you are paying a commission, the location owner would get paid less frequently and may be bothered by this enough to want to replace you. Also, you would get paid less frequently.

However, your idea does seem to resolve a lot of the employee trust issues.

Brian

[sterling]

I'm venturing into the employee/help realm on my route. I am hiring my nephew to do some of my locations. Well see how it goes, but I know Ican trust this guy.

[quotealex]

Other than a family member, I wouldn't hire any employee. It's way to easy to skim off the top or steal the location.