Gaagghh - Wifey is threatening an intervention...

[ABCVending]

She says the "vending nonsense" is absorbing too much time....and she might be right, beginning to interfere with golf and fishing.  

(Note:  I don't call her WIfey to her face, noooooo, that is my internet tough guy act - I am not sure what would happen if she actually caught me at it, best we don't ever find out)

Been at this for 7 years as a side hustle, collecting accounts in close proximity to my day job so I can hit them before/after work and lunch time.

Kind of at a tipping point now - 14 locations with 30 machines and find I have gone from juggling tennis balls to juggling flaming cans of gasoline - not so much a hobby anymore.

Not sure how many of you guys are doing this as a side job - but that was always my intent, with maybe down the road using vending to supplement whatever I've managed to scrape together as a retirement plan.

Anyway, weekdays are for work so have no problem dedicating an hour or two every day during the week to the vending gods - it's the weekends that are precious.  Up until recently, vending got 4 hrs on Saturday, 2 times a month - now I am out every Saturday for at least 6 hrs, that is no bueno.

Pairing back is tough, never sold off an account and have only lost one in 7 years so this is new territory.

For me, I have three types of accounts:  

Slow $100/mo (min) but slow service cycle as well about 1 x month.

Middle $ 200-$ 300 mo - service cycle 2 x month

Core $ 600 -$ 800 mo - need these to keep it rolling

So I am going to try and find that sweet spot, the perfect balance of time/money - knee jerk is to single out the slow accounts and dump em but some of those are nice because they don't require much time and are reliable and stable.

Core accounts are not going anywhere if I can help it.

Leaves a half dozen middling accounts - think a couple of these time suckers have to go - easier to sell, free up bigger chunks of time.

Flawed logic?  Better to keep the middles and dump the slows?

 

ABC

 

[AMD Snacks]

Hey, I  have no idea how to help with your situation, but aren't you in Seattle area also? I'm closer to tacoma, but if you feel like getting rid of some of those slower locations message me 

[ABCVending]

36 minutes ago, AMD Snacks said:

but if you feel like getting rid of some of those slower locations message me 

Sure - sent you a message.

 

[Russ]

7 hours ago, ABCVending said:

For me, I have three types of accounts:  

Slow $100/mo (min) but slow service cycle as well about 1 x month.

Middle $ 200-$ 300 mo - service cycle 2 x month

Core $ 600 -$ 800 mo - need these to keep it rolling

I would dump the monthly accounts. I'm going to look at this from the customer's perspective - if I realized that all the product in that machine had been sitting there for a month - other than canned soda at least - I would not be too anxious to buy it no matter what the shelf life. Even if the account didn't actually NEED servicing more than once a month I'd be there every other week just to swap out some of the product to keep it from looking like snack museum.

[vendcobros]

I think you're much better off eliminating the small accounts. You're still running wear and tear on those machines and when parts start breaking there goes all your profit on repairs.

[Southeast Treats]

Absolutely pare off the slowest accounts, and keep working up the list until you hit your comfort zone for time AND profit.  You may want to lose the slow ones that require the most driving time early, even if they are not the absolute slowest.  

[NYCandyMaN]

I would keep them all and get more of the monthly ones, agreed they are very slow, but they are steady and guaranteed, the larger ones are great, but what happens if the places shuts down, in NYC, there are places like that, they shut down the next day, lease is up, gotta go! Now you're stuck with nothing! I love the slow ones, less work, less headaches, and still making that cash. Service only the major ones weekly, the rest leave for monthly, I do about 90 days on the slow ones. Sweet zone!

[AngryChris]

8 hours ago, NYCandyMan said:

I would keep them all and get more of the monthly ones, agreed they are very slow, but they are steady and guaranteed, the larger ones are great, but what happens if the places shuts down, in NYC, there are places like that, they shut down the next day, lease is up, gotta go! Now you're stuck with nothing! I love the slow ones, less work, less headaches, and still making that cash. Service only the major ones weekly, the rest leave for monthly, I do about 90 days on the slow ones. Sweet zone!

This is terrible advice. 90 days on full line? I could spell it out if necessary, but I think any seasoned full line guy knows why going 3 months between service cycles is bad for full line.  And to say to get more like that?? Do you want people to go out of business? 

[MaxQualityVending]

For me, I have three types of accounts:  

Slow $100/mo (min) but slow service cycle as well about 1 x month.

Middle $ 200-$ 300 mo - service cycle 2 x month

Core $ 600 -$ 800 mo - need these to keep it rolling

 

Dear Abcvending,

You said that you have 3 types of account but you never said how many of each type you have exactly.

My point is this, if you have for instance 20 accounts that do let's say an average of 250$ per month each, 5 that do 100$ each and 5 that do 800$ per month each you have 30 locations that make around 9500$ per month. Now i don't know what's your main job but if i were you i would leave your main job and dedicate myself only to the vending.

Without leaving any actual accounts but instead find more and more and work only during the weekend

[CapitalCityVendingLLC]

Drop the bottom ones.  If there are any that are a pain in the butt, I'd start with them.  Everyone has that slow account, where the machine is always acting up.  I know we do.  If you have to spend 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there wrestling a frozen cooling deck, or fighting with a bad bill acceptor, that is wasted time.  If this wrestling time is at a slow account then you are spinning your wheels.  

 

Just think, one "Core" account doing 600-800 a month is equal to 6-8 slow accounts as you have described them.  Lets say you just had 5 "Core" accounts.  They would do the same revenue as 30-40 "slow" accounts.  Boom.  Think about all the time you schedule your route each time, how many times it takes driving to each individual slow account.  You don't think about it but just the time going back and forth from your vehicle to the machine and then back.  That time adds up.  Less driving time, never having to worry about stale items, having a lot less equipment that can break down.  The answer, most of the time, is always have fewer better accounts rather than a lot of slow accounts.  Now it isn't bad to have a healthy mix.  We have a good bit of "slow" accounts.  Being able to space them out helps our scheduling, and it helps us be more diversified as a company so we are not too dependent on one type of an account.  But for you, looking to slim down, I would definitely start with your slow, stubborn accounts.

 

I would ignore NYCCandyman.  I think he was referring to bulk candy machines....

 

Also, as Maxqualityvending said, you could almost just go vending full time.  We don't know the full details but get it to where you have 15 "Core" accounts and that would put you doing $108,000-$144,000 in Revenue for a year going off the numbers that you gave us.  That's pretty solid for a one man operation.  Nothing like being your own boss...

[AngryChris]

1 hour ago, CapitalCityVendingLLC said:

Drop the bottom ones.  If there are any that are a pain in the butt, I'd start with them.  Everyone has that slow account, where the machine is always acting up.  I know we do.  If you have to spend 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there wrestling a frozen cooling deck, or fighting with a bad bill acceptor, that is wasted time.  If this wrestling time is at a slow account then you are spinning your wheels.  

 

Just think, one "Core" account doing 600-800 a month is equal to 6-8 slow accounts as you have described them.  Lets say you just had 5 "Core" accounts.  They would do the same revenue as 30-40 "slow" accounts.  Boom.  Think about all the time you schedule your route each time, how many times it takes driving to each individual slow account.  You don't think about it but just the time going back and forth from your vehicle to the machine and then back.  That time adds up.  Less driving time, never having to worry about stale items, having a lot less equipment that can break down.  The answer, most of the time, is always have fewer better accounts rather than a lot of slow accounts.  Now it isn't bad to have a healthy mix.  We have a good bit of "slow" accounts.  Being able to space them out helps our scheduling, and it helps us be more diversified as a company so we are not too dependent on one type of an account.  But for you, looking to slim down, I would definitely start with your slow, stubborn accounts.

 

I would ignore NYCCandyman.  I think he was referring to bulk candy machines....

 

Also, as Maxqualityvending said, you could almost just go vending full time.  We don't know the full details but get it to where you have 15 "Core" accounts and that would put you doing $108,000-$144,000 in Revenue for a year going off the numbers that you gave us.  That's pretty solid for a one man operation.  Nothing like being your own boss...

Those are excellent points.  I am doing pretty good as a one-man operation myself but I have aspirations of getting myself to the $250k mark.  Doing over $100k is pretty easy as a one-man operation but I wouldn't necessarily quit my day job if I didn't have to.  It's very nice having steady income and I do miss that but I also love being my own boss too.

There's a lot I could say about the value of time as my time is very valuable to me.. but I would like to reiterate that the cost of repairs is often pretty static.  Refrigeration decks need to be repaired occasionally.  It happens.  Coin mechs fail over time, validators fail, etc...  The difference between an account doing $1200/year and an account doing $5,000/year is that the larger account will easily cover repair costs whereas the smaller account might take anywhere from 3 months to several years to cover the repair costs.  When I first started out, repairs costs ate up my profits quick.  So did fuel expenses.  I have since gotten way more saturated and fuel expense is a pretty small portion of my overall expenses (used to be 2nd highest) and repair costs have steadily increased but not at the same rate as my income.  I can afford repairs now because I have enough profits coming in.   Mind you, last year I canceled about 10 accounts in total and my profits slightly INCREASED after doing so.  It was after realizing that that I decided I wouldn't take any more slow accounts.