lacanteen Posted March 28, 2017 Share Posted March 28, 2017 I realize that a lot of my concerns are different, as we are 20+ route operation, but I'm just curious any how. I worry about service related things that haven't happened yet and try to avoid painting myself into a corner, such as using only USAT card readers, using only In-One update kits, using only Mei cash payment systems, and weeding out non desirable equipment. That's the easy stuff. I'm concerned about the direction of refrigerants. The bottlers tested CO2 systems for a few years and it didn't fly because the pressures were just too high to maintain a seal. Now, it looks like in 2018, propane will be the system of choice, how 1940s of them to think of that. Unless there's major rules changed at the EPA, and the new administration might change them, we will see propane systems. The other thing I see, is the major change in the make up of my 'fleet'. With micro-markets growing exponentially, I now have stand alone commercial coolers and freezers, most of which do not have self contained sealed systems like drink machines. Some day, after the warranties run out someone is going to have to fix these things. The kiosks aren't hard to work on, but when those coolers start falling............ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magiccity726 Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 I'm somewhat new. I have about 60 machines on location. Most of which have no contract. A couple of my better accounts are older hotels in Miami Beach. I'm scared they will be torn down before I can grow enough to sustain the loss. I worry about people breaking the glass on my snack machine at a certain location because it happens now and then. Thinking about my business in general keeps me up at night as I am currently a one man show and there is a lot of overhead in this buisness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 Truthfully, I can't say there is too much that keeps me up at night. The two most recurring things that DO keep me up at night (if anything does) are deciding where to spend my money (ie. repairs, upgrades, new equipment, myself, etc..) and dealing with machines that need repaired and/or machines that need to be stocked soon. Since I do this completely on my own, it gets difficult to balance repairs and stocking machines. When it's time to have machines moved or major repairs done (refrigeration decks, board exchanges, etc...), I find myself getting behind with the business and THEN it becomes a mental battle of who needs done tomorrow and who can wait a few more days. Those are the things that keep me up at night. I used to get bothered by simple things such as disgruntled customers who get upset about prices or locations that ask for some sort of upgrade (when they make almost no profits to begin with). Now, since I am more experienced, I don't let those types of things bother me too much. So.. in summary, it's the simple management of my time and my money that keeps me up at night. Virtually everything else is a piece of cake and I usually forget about things until the next morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkinthepark Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 Do you ever go to sleep at night thinking about the sounds of a vending machine? The bill acceptor taking a dollar...a soda vending...change being given. Since I started running the vending machines at our school, I sometimes hear those sounds in my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 30 minutes ago, darkinthepark said: Do you ever go to sleep at night thinking about the sounds of a vending machine? The bill acceptor taking a dollar...a soda vending...change being given. Since I started running the vending machines at our school, I sometimes hear those sounds in my head. Not that I can remember lol. I started as a driver back in 2006 so I am far beyond thinking about the noises that the machine makes. That's funny though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacanteen Posted March 29, 2017 Author Share Posted March 29, 2017 11 hours ago, Magiccity726 said: I'm somewhat new. I have about 60 machines on location. Most of which have no contract. A couple of my better accounts are older hotels in Miami Beach. I'm scared they will be torn down before I can grow enough to sustain the loss. I worry about people breaking the glass on my snack machine at a certain location because it happens now and then. Thinking about my business in general keeps me up at night as I am currently a one man show and there is a lot of overhead in this buisness A few things I can tell you, is that a one-man operation can be profitable, if you don't burn yourself out. Just because you can run $12K sales per week, doesn't mean you should. A driver for a large company can do that because he has the support of office, service, and warehouse staff. I had a customer/friend in the mid 1990s that was a "one trucker" and ran $350K per year, which was really humping it back then. He only lasted 4 years and had to sell out. The best piece of advice I can give anyone in this business is this: do not have a single account that is 10% or more of your business. To lose it would be devastating. !0% doesn't sound like much, but in a game of pennies, it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brendio Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 12 hours ago, AngryChris said: I used to get bothered by simple things such as disgruntled customers who get upset about prices or locations that ask for some sort of upgrade (when they make almost no profits to begin with). Now, since I am more experienced, I don't let those types of things bother me too much. ^ This was the case for me early on, and I have learned not to let it get to me as much, but I stress a bit for the first few weeks of a new account (one recent one had four or five problems in the first month). Refrigeration breakdowns are a concern as I can't fix them myself. I have a good refrigeration mechanic who worked on the machines for the guy I bought it off and he only charges me for labour (I buy the parts), so it works out heaps cheaper. But he can be hard to get on to lately, so I worry about machines being out of action for long periods. I also always get nervous when needing to move machines, whether it be ones I do myself (when there is access to a forklift on site) or get pros to do. My mind worries about the logistics of the process having to organise the fine details and worrying about machines getting broken along the road. I haven't had any bad experiences in this regard, but am just naturally a bit of a worry wart. Finances also concern me. I have been in business over two years now and not drawn a wage from the business. I worry that I have put a whole heap of work into an unprofitable business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magiccity726 Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 4 minutes ago, brendio said: ^ This was the case for me early on, and I have learned not to let it get to me as much, but I stress a bit for the first few weeks of a new account (one recent one had four or five problems in the first month). Refrigeration breakdowns are a concern as I can't fix them myself. I have a good refrigeration mechanic who worked on the machines for the guy I bought it off and he only charges me for labour (I buy the parts), so it works out heaps cheaper. But he can be hard to get on to lately, so I worry about machines being out of action for long periods. I also always get nervous when needing to move machines, whether it be ones I do myself (when there is access to a forklift on site) or get pros to do. My mind worries about the logistics of the process having to organise the fine details and worrying about machines getting broken along the road. I haven't had any bad experiences in this regard, but am just naturally a bit of a worry wart. Finances also concern me. I have been in business over two years now and not drawn a wage from the business. I worry that I have put a whole heap of work into an unprofitable business. I too worry about finances. While I gross a decent amount of money, it's tough to pay myself sometimes. A veteran vendor told me the other day, if you can master vending, you can master anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brendio Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 It's hard for me to tell sometimes from the finances whether the business is worth it until you have enough years data to be able to notice trends. Like you say, the gross revenue can be good, but if you don't control the expenses you aren't left with much at the end. I've had a number of -- what I hope to be -- non-repeating expenses such as upgrading bill acceptors because of currency changes here and upgrading telemetry because the 2G network got shut off On top of that I lost a large account that was 30% of my revenue at the time and have had to lease a shed rather than work from home because of issues with a neighbour. I'm sure the business is in better shape today than when I acquired it, but if I were to sell it today, I would make a large loss. I suspect that the third year in business, having a lot of these expenses behind and most machines for the lost large account re-sited, will be a turning point, and I have to tell myself that when I feel like giving up. I do wonder sometimes if I would be better cutting my losses though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 1 hour ago, lacanteen said: The best piece of advice I can give anyone in this business is this: do not have a single account that is 10% or more of your business. To lose it would be devastating. !0% doesn't sound like much, but in a game of pennies, it is. Too true, early on I was able to get into an account that ended up being about 20% of my total sales at that time. It was an airport and I subcontracted vending under the food contract. New contract time, new company, we got along fine but they needed to show that a percentage of their suppliers were "disadvantaged business enterprises" under federal regulations. In comes Blind Services vending and out I go.... ouch! I was able to work thru it, but boy did I appreciate my smaller accounts being there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 17 minutes ago, Magiccity726 said: Finances also concern me. I have been in business over two years now and not drawn a wage from the business. I worry that I have put a whole heap of work into an unprofitable business. Took me a little over 3 years to actually start paying myself, and even that was not a lot. Fortunate to have a retirement from my first career coming in to live on. I console myself that I am growing the equity in the business and it is worth a lot more than I have put into it (money wise anyway) because I have been able to reinvest earnings. Not needing an immediate income has influenced my business decisions so perhaps I could be taking home more if I had made that a goal instead of growth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 I guess my big worries right now center around cash flow and inventory control. I know the bills will get paid, but I like to stay ahead of the curve. Doing my product orders and setting up new accounts eats up cash so fast I have to always watch not to overspend so other bills can get paid on time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindVending Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 Same as the others. Cash flow. I have grown the business 160% in the last 14 months and as we all know after machine, moving costs, other expenses new accounts require it gets expensive real quick. Have had some unfortunate luck with a ton of MEI acceptors and validators needing to be refurbished lately, almost 30 in a 3 week period. Never fun! Makes it real hard to draw a salary or feel like you're actually profitable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkhusker Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 I can't say there is much about vending that keeps me up at night anymore. After 20+ in the business and 13of that as an owner, as long as I don't do anything crazy, things tend to work out. We've lost business that I thought would put us in the hurt locker but we've always managed to push through and be ok. My biggest problem right now is finding time to acquire new locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 On 3/28/2017 at 8:24 PM, Magiccity726 said: I'm somewhat new. I have about 60 machines on location. Most of which have no contract. A couple of my better accounts are older hotels in Miami Beach. I'm scared they will be torn down before I can grow enough to sustain the loss. I worry about people breaking the glass on my snack machine at a certain location because it happens now and then. Thinking about my business in general keeps me up at night as I am currently a one man show and there is a lot of overhead in this buisness On the glass worry, you can have a nice plexiglass piece cut for you snack machine at any glass shop like Andy's for about $20...then two things, if someone breaks it and gets cut you could be sued for medical costs, plexiglass does not cut anyone and much harder to break. Save the original glass from your machine so if you get another spot you can put it back on. Blue Moose Bev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapitalCityVendingLLC Posted May 23, 2017 Share Posted May 23, 2017 I think what lacanteen said about "try not to have any account be more than 10% of your business" is crucial for any business, any size, especially vending. We all know, sometimes you can/could lose an account due to something that you can't control. I always tell people, one of the best parts about my business is my biggest account is 6.5% of my business. After that, I have 3-4 accounts around the 4-5% mark. My biggest account could get dropped and it wouldn't hurt me much at all. It would suck, but the business would be fine. All of my accounts are independent from one another. So many companies (not just vending) forget this idea, and go under when they lose their biggest account. As for things that keep me up at night, there isn't much at all. I am blessed to say that my business is running pretty smooth these days (knock on wood). We go out of our way to keep great relationships with our accounts. I know our service is top notch for the most part so I don't worry about someone getting any of our accounts. None of our accounts are big enough to knock us on our butts if lost. We have a break in every other year or so but no need worrying about that. If I had to find something to worry about, it would probably be trying to stay as efficient as possible, on a day in and out basis. Whether that is "what machines am I going to work tomorrow and in what order", or "how are our profit margins, cogs %, etc." I am a very number oriented person so I know 1-2% here and there adds up quickly. Always looking for ways to get the company to work more efficiently. Year by year, we set goals. The most important goals each year are increase our revenue/machine/visit, have our best year when it comes to profit margin, and have our best year when it comes to COGS%. From a short term "keep me up at night" perspective, we are going to have to buy a new (to us) truck in the next year or two. I would like to pay mostly cash, if not all cash for it, so saving up for that has kept me up at night a little bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wegroup Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 What's got me up lately at night is a request by an account that wants fresh sandwiches and such, it's a good account, an all eggs in one basket type of account. I'm 3 years into a 5 year contract, we've got a great relationship, never a problem, not 1 complaint or issue since I've been there. I've been doing my due diligence and find that the request is a losing proposition. It's not a micro-market situation (blue collar, temp workers, truck drivers). I don't have any other options other than having to put in one of those food/frozen machines. Any feedback would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 Depends on what you define as a good account. I just talked to one of my best locations and they don't think I should bother with food since the previous vendor pulled their food machine. I'll give them a better soda machine in turn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindVending Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Why did the previous vendor pull only the food machine? Around here any factory with 300+ employees requires a food machine or they will find a vendor who will offer it. The food moves but it is food which is a breakeven adventure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Because it's not a 300+ person account lol. They might have 50 people but demographics plays a big role as well as the distance from fast food or anything else you can buy food from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindVending Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Absolutely. Fair enough. Carry on lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgia bulldog Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 I use to let a lot of things get under my skin when I first went into this business. I built it to 3 routes nice warehouse and owed USI a whole lot of money with a un godly high interest rate 4 kids in school and college just around the cor nor. The employee situation was bad and the worst thing was this business was hurting my marriage. I made a hard decision to cut my loses keep my best accounts and dump the lowest profit locations and I became a one route operations.The day I did that was the best decision I ever made. Vending became fun again the hours are long but I get to talk to people on my accounts meet my wife for lunch and go to my grandson football practice and I do not sweat the small things like when you run out of orange Sunkist and you put orange fanta in its place and the location calls mad as heck . I just tell them the next week I will change it out with Sunkist just make this crazy business fun laugh cut up with the people at sam's club and joke around with the other fellow independent vendors in your area make friends with them and help them when you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duck67 Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 On 3/28/2017 at 10:46 PM, darkinthepark said: Do you ever go to sleep at night thinking about the sounds of a vending machine? The bill acceptor taking a dollar...a soda vending...change being given. Since I started running the vending machines at our school, I sometimes hear those sounds in my head. lock klick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vendcobros Posted June 29, 2017 Share Posted June 29, 2017 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magiccity726 Posted June 29, 2017 Share Posted June 29, 2017 9 minutes 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! Lol. The deeper I go, the more I feel this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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