All About The Vending Business

Tags: dead driving time|Science of Getting Rich|improve YOU

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Once you have a business you will be asked to donate to many organizations. What I am about to share with you is coming from many years of raising money for a local group where I live. When I would ask for a donation and they said “no” I never took it personally.

Most of the time when someone said “no” it was just that their funds were tight. So please don’t think you’ll look like the bad guy if you politely say, “no”

The ones I liked the best were the ones who added… “good luck on your efforts” and they meant it.

When we as a business do donate we donate a basket of goodies.
I get a basket and fill it with chips, candy, crackers, cookies, ect. I always attach our business card so it does not get lost and try to display it so that you can’t miss who donated this great item.

For many years I always put together a huge basket for an annual fundraiser that was always held the day after Thanksgiving. Our beautiful basket was always held over for the live auction and the bidding was fierce. I was always pleased to hear that it brought a good price, always over $100.00.

I don’t donate to this local event anymore….WHY?
Because they don’t ask!… Silly People.

Be prepared to say “no’ to donation requests if you are not able. May I suggest the perfect donation would be a brandable product to YOU
when you can!

Tags: donated item|basketof goodies|donation requests

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Setting a machine to dispense a free vend at random is nice a nice way to reward someone for making a purchase. What normally happens when someone receives a free vended items is they make an additional purchase, because the money was already in their hand.

Several years ago we got T-Shirts with the Hershey’s logo on them. We also got a decal that drew attention to the promotion we were offering. Anyone who found a Hershey’s sticker on the back of their candy bar would get a free T-Shirt. Sales were brisk especially since we put the first sticker on the second candy bar to vend.

Use your imagination.. you could put coupons on the back of your product, perhaps a joint venture with a local sandwich shop.

This also sparks interaction with people who work at your stops… and interaction is always a good thing.

Some of these people may leave and the place where they go may need a vendor….. Who do you think they will think of?   You!
Of course!

You might offer people a finders fee if they are able to find you a stop to place your machine. People know people… connections are a good thing to have.

We were at a stop and the manager kept getting moved to different location. We placed vending machines in every move he made. Gotta love connections.

Good will and interaction is always a good thing.

Tags: free vend|free item from vending machine

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Just for a moment lets pretend that a serious injury has landed you in the hospital and you are unable to speak.

What would happen to your route? Sure it would be OK for a bit but we all know how important service is. No service means no money coming in.

Who would know where your stops are?

Many of the operators I speak with work alone. They do their entire route themselves. They do not have a partner what would know where the stop are and be able to help out if needed.

May I suggest you take a bit of time and write out this information… just in case. It doesn’t take long to write down the name of the business where your machines are located. a phone number and the name of a contact person.It might also be a good idea to indicate how often these stops are serviced and what kind of machine you have there…candy? soda? combo? gumball? ect…

Taking a few minutes now to jot down this information may save a great deal of time if something were to happen in the future.

Go back to the Boy Scout motto…… Be Prepared!

Just in case.

Tags: mapquest|map out your route

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If your in business… You need Business Cards. When your just starting out, may I suggest you print your own business cards in small amounts.

Let me explain my reasoning for this.

Your just starting out and you are working with just a little capital. Office supply stores like Staples and Office Max offer you a very economical way to print your own business cards, all you need is a computer and a copier.

Making your own business cards is no different than making address labels. I would suggest you purchase both the business cards and the return address labels from the same manufacturer. I usually buy Avery.

If you have gumball machines you can buy the very small ones. I just bought Avery item # 8867 (1/2″ X 1 3/4″) white return labels. This would be the perfect size for you to print your name/business name a phone number and even an email address if you like. They are self sticking so your able to place them right on your gumball machine. Some people will want to post them for all to see but others like myself would probably post them in a more inconspicuous spot… but of course that is just me.

I would buy the larger address labels that are about the size of business cards to place on the other larger vending machines. These labels can be made to look just like what you plan on printing for your business cards. Name, phone number, perhaps an email address… do you have a logo?

It is easy to save this information to your computer to make them up as you go along. The reason I suggest you do this yourself is because it will save you money but more importantly you will be able to change it later as your business grows.

What would you change it to?……. Perhaps a website or at the very least a Facebook page. But I will save that for another post.

Making your own business cards and labels for your machines is really simple stuff. You may have to play with the cards and the labels to make them fit properly but I am trying to offer you a suggestion to get you started off in business the most economical way.

You want people to know YOU…. Your Branding yourself… so get stated!

Tags: branding|brand yourself|make your own business cards

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According to Beverage digest, Diet Coke out sold Pepsi cola in the US for the first time in 2010. These figures were just released in March.

What about you…
Do you sell more Coke than Pepsi? 

Tags: Diet Coke challenge

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Main St. Cafe has a great new product called “Protein Smoothies” People love smoothies, Main St. Cafe offers them in 3 delicious flavors,

Creamy, Fruity and Nutritious and with a 6 month shelf life… What could be better than that?

Read all about this new product from Main St. Cafe

Tags: Non-Refrigerated Smoothies|Main St. Cafe

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Our first introduction to the vending machine business was from a notice that we got in the paper about a Vending Seminar.  It was being held about an hour away in Allen Park, Michigan.

Tags: vending machines|vending machine seminars

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Do you have bugs in your machines? The creepy crawly kind?  Ants can be a real problem. How many times have you put out ant traps?

Many times this cannot be avoided…. If the machines are placed somewhere there are bugs to begin with some will most likely end up in your vending machine.

Tags: kill ants dead naturally|natural bug killer|ants in vending machine

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