How many no answers do you get vs yes

[allegiant120]

Im just starting trying to place a few honor boxes im recieving a lot of no answers. Out of asking 20 I probably have 4 yes. What approach tips could you recommend? Thanks

[flintflash]

What type of honor box are you placing?  Lollipop/mint boxes or Honor Snack trays?  I have been doing Honor Snacks for about 25 years and I can tell you that 1 in 5 placed is about average.  You are not going to walk into 10 businesses and place 10 snack trays.  You will need to hit 40-50 businesses to get 10 snack trays placed.  That is something that I "Hammer" into my sales reps heads when I hire them.  It's a numbers game, and the more accounts you call on, the better your odds of placing a box.

Just be pleasant, always greet the customer with a smile, and introduce your service to them.  Be honest, but be brief.  Keep your presentation simple.  Don't go into long, drawn out explanations on how the honor system works.  "We place the box at no charge to you.  All we ask is that you put your $1 (or $1.25, whatever your price is) in the coin box for each item that you take."  Quick and simple. 

[bhumphrey829]

4 out of 20 is not bad at all.  I have found that  to be about my average.  Sometimes I will get 7 or 8 no's in a row.  Then there are times I will get 6 or 7 yes's in a row.  All depends on where you are.  Flint is right, it's a numbers game.  I don't look at getting turned down as a negative, I take as getting to mark off a location off my bucket list and just move on to the next one.  And as Flint will also tell you, keep a mental note because you may go back in 6-9 months to those same locations and turn some of those no's into yes's.

[VAVending]

I agree totally with these guys. Listen to what they say, they do this really,really well.

Every day is different for me honestly. Some days it’s 7/10, some days it’s 1/10. I’d say my current average is 5/10 though.

For some tips on what to say, I reposted Flint’s, Bryan's and my placement scripts/tips here: 

Be sure to check that out. A key thing that Bryan mentioned is not to let the “no” get you down. A good salesman takes a no as his que to turn around and try somewhere else, better.

Lots of people won’t want your service, and that’s fine. You’re out searching for those special few who’ve been waiting for you to walk in the door, even if they don’t know it.

Don’t give up, let your successes fuel you and read Bryan’s weekly updates; they are a wonderful source of motivation. This is an amazing bussiness if you stick with it.

[allegiant120]

Thanks so much guys! Great advice!

[VendingKingllc]

Would this change for Candy boxes vs Snack boxes?  Im considering Candy boxes and have a goal of 7/10.  Is that unrealistic? 

[VAVending]

I’m afraid I have no experience with candy boxes, but if you’re doing it from the charity angle I’d think your numbers would be higher than us honor snack box vendors. Just a guess though.

I’d say avoid setting any goal but 10/10. Every location I walk into is “my next placement”. If you think of a location as filler until you get to the next good one, then you’ll treat it as filler, and won’t get the placement.

At the end of the day you can look back and figure out what you’re successes and failures actually we’re, but don’t start the day with those numbers in mind. Sometimes you won’t get a single placement, and sometimes you’ll wish you’d brought twice as many boxes.

I’d say ratio is more a matter of idle curiosity than actual import. You should always be working on your placement script anyway so that won’t affect it.

Just my 2¢.

[flintflash]

15 hours ago, VendingKingllc said:

Would this change for Candy boxes vs Snack boxes?  Im considering Candy boxes and have a goal of 7/10.  Is that unrealistic? 

I've been in Honor Snacks for my entire vending career, so I don't have much knowledge on the Charity Lollipop/Mint boxes.  I do know that you will target different accounts.  Where we want small offices, industrial, and stores and want our boxes in the breakrooms,  YOU are going to want to target more public spaces, such as restaurants, store counter tops, and such.  I'm not sure what you mean by 7/10.  Are you saying, placing 7 out of 10 boxes that you go out with?  If so, that is such a subjective target.  There are too many variables, including time, the number of accounts visited, and effort.  You could go out for 3 hours and place 7 and think "well I placed 7 out of 10."  Or you can stay out until all 10 are placed.  Some days it seems like you can't give your boxes away, and some days the customers are grabbing them out your hands before you even get to the door.  Persistence is the key.  You will run into plenty of NO's, but it's shaking them off and finding the YES's.  When I'm talking  about 1 out of 5, I am referring to placing 1 box for every 5 accounts called on (that's an average).  You might call on 40 businesses and place 8 boxes (1 out of 5), or call on 40 businesses and place only 5 boxes (1 out of 8).  Just keep going though!  Starting out, you should be selling everyday.  As you build your route, divide your time into route days and selling days (though you should always be selling, even on route days).  Best of luck to you! 

[jerrybrooksvendall]

On 9/12/2018 at 9:22 AM, flintflash said:

I've been in Honor Snacks for my entire vending career, so I don't have much knowledge on the Charity Lollipop/Mint boxes.  I do know that you will target different accounts.  Where we want small offices, industrial, and stores and want our boxes in the breakrooms,  YOU are going to want to target more public spaces, such as restaurants, store counter tops, and such.  I'm not sure what you mean by 7/10.  Are you saying, placing 7 out of 10 boxes that you go out with?  If so, that is such a subjective target.  There are too many variables, including time, the number of accounts visited, and effort.  You could go out for 3 hours and place 7 and think "well I placed 7 out of 10."  Or you can stay out until all 10 are placed.  Some days it seems like you can't give your boxes away, and some days the customers are grabbing them out your hands before you even get to the door.  Persistence is the key.  You will run into plenty of NO's, but it's shaking them off and finding the YES's.  When I'm talking  about 1 out of 5, I am referring to placing 1 box for every 5 accounts called on (that's an average).  You might call on 40 businesses and place 8 boxes (1 out of 5), or call on 40 businesses and place only 5 boxes (1 out of 8).  Just keep going though!  Starting out, you should be selling everyday.  As you build your route, divide your time into route days and selling days (though you should always be selling, even on route days).  Best of luck to you! 

Amen to that!

[FlyGuy]

Research shows 9 out of 10 vendors exaggerate about their rates of locating success for their machines/boxes 

Guys, aiming for 50% or better is nearly impossible unless it's some everyone-knows-everyone tiny hick town or something. Even 1 in 5 of all stores you go into is aiming quite high in many places. I agree with hoping for success each and every time, but don't get discouraged by unrealistic expectations. Every market is different.

...I would honestly say I'm between about 1 out of 5 or 1 out of 7 all time for ones where I even have a chance. That "have a chance" is not including the ones where I ask about snacks and find out they have a vending machine, they have another snack box company already, owners buy free snacks for the break room and/or lobby (common with financial offices), or their store/corporate policy doesn't allow it. I suppose nail shops that can't speak English don't really offer any hope either... and there are many of those, lol. If you include all places, those places where I had zero chance or a legit chance, then it is probably closer to 1 in 10 of all businesses I walk into that I manage to place a box. 

Before you simply say "what a loser," realize that I am not bad at sales... I'm far above average with people skills and I'm a relatively good looking and young guy (like it or not, that helps). My boxes are clean looking, marketing materials are sharp, and service is good. My full time job is customer service... selling a service, actually. It's just that snack boxes, or any business, is usually VERY saturated in any major metro area (and I'm providing honest stats). I imagine I would be doing much better in rural areas (but I'd be driving much more and probably selling fewer snacks per box). I suppose it is a big fish in a small pond... versus being a variable size fish in a lake or ocean situation. There are pros and cons to each.

As was said, it is highly variable, though... some days, I might be 3/11 and other days 1/19 or even 0/22. No joke. Those are all real days this year. I just checked my locating log stats so far this year for the heck of it, and I'm 7/86 in 2019... 8.1% success. I don't feel like checking my notes and counting them up, but I figure that a quarter of those cold calls I had no chance for reasons mentioned, but that is still only 10.8% success (7/65) if you drop those off.

Remember, I'm just part time (one day per week with roughly 1hr swapping boxes and 2hrs locating new)… those %s would change a lot if I do good next time out or re-visit prior ones and they decide to accept a box. From those trips this year, I still have a dozen or more leads to follow up on when I have time or go back to that street (employee liked it but I'd need to email or call decision maker, need to stop back since store was too busy at the time, manager was on vaca or not working that day, manager supposedly asking corporate, etc etc). Most of those kernels never pop into popcorn, but a few occasionally do... worth emailing or stopping back in when you're nearby.

Where I am, there are at least three competing snack box companies I've run into that also do snack boxes very similar to mine. I think one is full line vending that also does snack boxes, but I don't care... just minding my own business. Some shops actually have multiple boxes (I won't play that game). A lot of places say to me "snack box is back there, but your co-worker just brought a new one yesterday" when they see me walk in... saves me time, I guess. Other places reject me since they tried it in the past with other snack services and got burned for whatever reason... I try to ask them what their dissatisfaction was and offer to do better, but the bridge is typically burnt long ago. I've even found banks or shops that literally opened a month before I visited and they already have a box company that beat me to it. It is pretty competitive. I guess the good side is that the majority of the area businesses are familiar with how snack boxes work... saves me some time explaining.

Corporate places (cell phone shops, urgent care centers, banks, oil change shops, etc) are the toughest because the decision maker is often someone in a HR office halfway across the city, state, or even the country. Even if the first front desk person you see and that store's manager is interested, they typically cop out since they don't want to go through the trouble of asking corporate for approval... or corporate says no. Medical or dental or vet places are also very tough since the doc is usually the owner, and even if they're not busy, they often just say no when the front desk girl goes back to ask them since they want to avoid coming up front and talking for a minute. It is still worth trying everywhere, though.

I find that I do the best with local businesses or franchised shops (where the manager/owner is decision maker and might even be sitting up front), but they are not always high volume places. These are your salons, credit unions, shops, shared tax/insurance/law/etc offices, auto and manufacturing, etc etc. You never know until you try. I will give any place a chance and treat them well unless they violate my theft rate % policy. 

My point is simply that you can get this to work well anywhere if you work at it and have a good product + service. I could have easily given up once I kept running into competition, but I have built up to around 50 boxes, and it is a good, fun side job. I just wanted to put this out there so any new reader on the forum starting snack or mint/lollipop boxes doesn't get discouraged if their area is in a busy city with a lot of competition and dead-end corporate businesses also. If I ever retire or move to somewhere more rural, I'd imagine I might get success placing 1 in 5 and having far fewer locations where placing would be impossible. If any of you are in that type of location, count your blessings. Either way, it's a fun side hustle. GL

[flintflash]

On 4/15/2019 at 9:33 PM, FlyGuy said:

My point is simply that you can get this to work well anywhere if you work at it and have a good product + service. I could have easily given up once I kept running into competition, but I have built up to around 50 boxes, and it is a good, fun side job. I just wanted to put this out there so any new reader on the forum starting snack or mint/lollipop boxes doesn't get discouraged if their area is in a busy city with a lot of competition and dead-end corporate businesses also. If I ever retire or move to somewhere more rural, I'd imagine I might get success placing 1 in 5 and having far fewer locations where placing would be impossible. If any of you are in that type of location, count your blessings. Either way, it's a fun side hustle. GL

I have actually found that "busy cities" can have a higher sales rate than rural areas.  Like I mentioned before, 1 in 5 placements is VERY realistic and has been our company average.  Are there days where the placement rate is 1 in 8 or higher? ABSOLUTELY!  But you can go back into those same areas 6 months later and have a better success rate.  We recently had a sales rep go into an area and place 8 trays in about 5 hours, calling on roughly 30-35 businesses.  4 months prior, a rep was in the area and struggled.  You just never know what is going to happen, and NEVER "write off" and area as bad or difficult, because circumstances and conditions will change.  I think the main point here is don't concern yourself so much with Sales Rate (1 in 5 or whatever), but set goals as to how many sales you want to get each day.  My sales reps go out with a target of 8-10 sales each day.  Some days they fall short, but most days they are spot on.  Some days it takes 8-9 hours to hit the goal and some days, they hit it in 5 hours.  Just stay FOCUSED, DETERMINED and let the "no's" roll off your back.  Keep moving forward and you will grow.