EYL #63 Money Machine

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Hi, guys, welcome back. E y L. Yeah, this is an episode that I'm actually very excited about it one. Yeah, it's a big one. It's gonna be a big one. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. So you know, we like doing episodes like this where it's stuff that you see all the time, but you never really think about it.

Part of you daily life.

Especially as kids, you definitely is part of daily life, and even as adults, you know, you go to your lunch room or something like that, it's.

Like, yeah, we see it.

We see a lot of stuff all the time, and we don't realize like the money's all around us. We actually the money is that money's all around us.

These episodes tend to do that, man, I'm telling you, ever since we did Somebody like a trucking episode, every time I see a truck on the on the road, I might that's money, that's money passing.

I wonder who owns that?

Looking at the names on the truck, I'm like, damn, your vision just changed.

Yeah. So, without further ado, we got a very special guest because Chief Edwards from Philadelphia North Philly to be specific. Shout out to Philly. We had a lot of great guests from Philly recently. We had well, we had Prince down now and Danish you know they was the first one. And then we had oh, Sean Bullard shout out to Sean. Shout Sean Bullard for sure. And then we have Prince Donelle and Danis Chanelle. Then we had Whallow to sixty seven and we have big business shot the big business.

Man, Thank y'all, thank y'all, yeah for sure.

So all right, so before we get into the details of it, how'd you start, Like, because, like I said, vendom machine is something.

That all of us see all the time.

We always see vendo machines, right, But what made you actually take a step back and say, like, this is actually something I can make money on.

Well, I mean, the main the main thing was, for the for the most part, I was working a lot. I was trying to look for something the supplement, you know, my income now I was already getting that was passive, so I wouldn't have to do more work. So you know, that's what kind of led me to the vending machine thing. But it initiated the thought. That thought initiated as far as the idea of having a vending machine. When I was younger, when I was playing basketball, it was a

I'm just thinking when you're telling that story, I don't think I ever saw anybody taking I've seen people fill up vending machines in my entire life. I don't think I ever saw anybody take money out of a vending machine before.

Maybe they do it like they don't want you to see.

Yeah, they might do it like three o'clock in the morning when nobody's there.

Know that this dude's like.

They don't want you to see. That's the lesson I learned too, is not to let people see what you're taking out of that machine. Because I actually had one one spot that I was working with. It was a motel, you know, and the owner will always kind of peep and watch what I was doing, and then you know, he was seeing me taking the money out. Then one day he was like, man, I want that machine. You know, I ended up I ended up selling it to him and it was one of my best spots. But it

Yeah, you gotta be careful with that for sure. So all right, so what's your journey to get your first vending machine?

Like?

How that look like? What was what was the story behind that?

The journey to get my first vending machine was actually a two year process. So the idea was like something I'm thinking, like, all right, I got the idea in my head, I'm about to do it today, like, but the actual process took a long time because I had nobody really to teach me what I was doing, and I was just kind of, you know, fumbling around to figure it out. So when I made up my mind that I actually wanted to get a vending machine. I saved up some money. I figured I would get him.

It was.

It was only like probably thirty five hundred or something like that. And they give me a location with a machine. So I go to actually check out the spot it was. It was a decent spot. It was a hotel downtown in Philly. So I'm like, oh, yeah, this looks good, like you know what I'm saying. Hotel should be great. And then and the guy actually showed me where they wanted the machine place. So I'm looking at the space. I'm like, I don't think a Vendom machine is gonna

I mean the different type of machines is this machine selling snacks sodas.

So this this was a combo machine. So they thing was, Okay, it's a small machine and it should fit in any space. Like this was one of the smallest machines that we got, and it's gonna be good. I'm looking like, but it's not going to be good. And this is what actually taught This has taught me a lesson down the line, Like you know, before you actually go out and buy machines, you know, you gotta figure out your measurements and everything first. But you know, so I tell them that they take

Is that the ones like I put the quarters spin spending in right, right?

He had the gunballs, skintus, peanut m and ms.

Those always seemed really unsanitary to me because there's no there's no packaging on it. It just comes out as.

I've been in barbershops. But I've never seen them change. So I'm like, yo, how some money. I'm not even thinking that you're making money off this. I'm just like, this is like a nice little treat until nobody changed.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I mean so that's pretty much where I started. I brought I brought four of them from a guy who had a whole bunch of them, but he was I guess liquidate in some of his He had like forty of them he was selling. He was selling like twenty. I brought four from him. I had one place in a barber shop, like you should say it a recreation center, and I think it was a piece of store.

A piece of store, and he's in gumball machine.

Gumball machines, So that in place in a in a piece of store, and the other one I ended up not placing at that time. I just kept it in my house. So I started with those, and I've seen the money back off of that, which was like a little you know, it was a little something like a little extra spending money, but it was nothing really to move the needle. So I'm like, man, if I could just get a couple more of these, you know, maybe how much was that like a month?

Like?

So my average machine for the gumballs was like, uh, I was getting like fifty dollars a machine. So I'm like, a something look like one fifty fifty dollars. I ain't gotta really do nothing for it. I was, you know, fill the machine up and I'll come back at the end of the month and pick it up, you know.

So it was easy.

And the house spread out of there because I know you talk about location, you won't get into that.

Are they in the same area or they spread out throughout.

The city, same area. At this point, they're all in the same area, so you just go collect. Yeah. And they were all in places because you know, the way I got my first ones is this networking talking people. I know, they were all in places already already did like I already go already, I already spend time with that recreation center. That's where I played basketball at the barbershop. It was in with the barbershop. I want to when a piece of store was down the stree from my house.

Yeah.

I had people try to put stuff in the machine and turn and I just watch them like and sometimes it will work. And actually in one situation with the recreation center, the kids knew how to get something out without putting a quarter in there. I can never fair to this day. I don't know what they were doing because I thought it was broke, but it wasn't broken. They just had some type of trick, like so we.

Had a dollar trick in high school with the vending machines.

We'll talk about that. After I tried to down a trick with a vending machine, we can't talk about that.

So all right, So, so, so you're making a little not really making any money, but it's like whatever. But then you realize that vending machines is actually where the money's at right.

Now yet now yet, So so with the candy machines, I get to the point where, all right now, it ain't making no money. But I'm like, yo, if I if I could just multiply the amount of machines I have, then maybe I could see something. So I ended up long story short, I kept buying those candy machines to the point where I have around twenty of them, like twenty twenty five. And now at this point that's spread out throughout the city. So you're thinking, like four, got

Actually, what was the price of that.

The price of that, it was nowe hundred dollars for a soda machine. That's really one month with gumbos. Yeah, basically like a whole month's work.

For a I'm sorry, So you get that, you put it in the in the motel, and how does that work out for you?

So it actually started off slow, looking at you know what I what I what I get now? Like it started, it started off slow, but to me it didn't seem bad. So that first two weeks I had it in there, the soda machine in there, I made about fifty dollars. But at that point in time with the gunballs, the gun balls took me a whole month to make fifty dollars off of one machine. So I'm like, all right, well if I get fifty in two weeks, maybe two weeks I get one hundred, which is double what I'm

From two from two from two machines.

From two machines, is that fourteen hundred supplements in what you're doing from your actual job.

So my actual job at that point, without overtime, I was only getting about sixteen hundred.

So now so so now you got almost you equaling your job. You're not doing nothing just from two machines.

Right, and that's what really, that's that's when it hit me like like this is like this is something you need to do, like get get more, get more of these and you know, and grow and then you know, and at that time, I just wanted out of my job so bad. It's like if I get more of these, I get enough, you know, I could stop working and then you know, enjoy some some free time, like you know, that was my thing, is chasing you know, freedom dope.

And then you said and then from there you just went all in. Yeah.

So from then, from from that point I found I got a high school, got that got that spot, ended up getting another. I had two machines placed in that high school. Now the high school did the same thing that that motel did as far as numbers, very close anyway. And then so that point I'm past when I'm getting at work, and then I had another spot contact being oneted a machine place and at that point I left my job.

Was it your former high school? Because I know the barber shop exactly? So you went back to your phone exactly.

So how did what age were you when you stopped when you left your job twenty six, So twenty six you go out and you're just a full time entrepreneur. How to feel? How to feel be a full time entrepreneur?

You know what? It felt good, but it doesn't. The difference is, well, when you're working, it's like, all right, well I know what I'm getting. When you're an entrepreneur and you're just out here, it's like, yo, you gotta you just you gotta grind it, like because you don't you don't know what you're going to get now with the machines, it's pretty it was pretty stable in terms of income, but when stuff slowed down, I still my bills are still do Like, my stuff is still the same.

Yeah, nah, I'm I'm glad you said that, because that's that's true in any business. It's like as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, it's like walking a tight rope with no safety in that like you never know one one's false move in your your screws. And it's like people don't understand that anxiety unless you're an entrepreneur, right, because that's.

Like you said, you got a job.

Mean you have anxiety as your job, which you can get fired, but it's different because like all you got to do is show up and you're gonna get a pay check.

And before some people they got perform.

At the job. Sometimes I'm just saying, you know sometimes sometimes yeah, but you know to say that, you know, I ended up and you know, you know with what you're saying, Like so at that point where I was doing that, I got to the point where I'm doing it full time and then whatever could go wrong went wrong. So I had saved up a good portion of money, like before I even quit my job, but I ended

Motel got closed down, got got.

Shut down, so that that was a hard hit. And then the summer hit, my school slowed down, so right, the teachers aren't there, So the school goes from making a thousand dollars or whatever, you know, fourteen goes down to like four hundred, soot, you know something cris like Now that's like, man, I gotta go back to work. Like so at that point I went back to work.

Also you said I saw on Instagram you said why have a second job when you can start your first business?

Right?

And that's true, Like as far as like side hustle, It's like people use the word side hustle all the time, but it's like what does that really mean? Right? It means like like you said, as far as you might have a regular job, but that doesn't mean you can't be an entrepreneur either. It's like you can create another income stream for yourself while you're still working in your other job until you feel comfortable jumping off the porch and just doing that full time if you want to.

Yeah, And then that same note, I think you have to get to the point where your job not your job, where your business is making enough to actually pay you, because it's one thing that's that you getting the money in,

We've been saying that all week, man, and when we talk about multiple streams of income, we always by the theory like one is too close to none.

So if you got one, that means that goes away, you're done. Right. The more you can make, the more you can have, you know what I'm saying.

No, it's a good idea. And that's something I just thought about as far as like, if you're working a regular job and you have a side business or a business outside of your regular job, Yeah, that business, you might not actually be able to get any money from that business if you actually are growing it. But that's another benefit of having the job as well, because now you're not pressured like if you just only an entrepreneur, you're pressured, like you got a family to take care of.

I'm living right now.

I think it's it's more it's a mindset thing too, because I think, you know, the reason I even post stuff like that is because it's not really like people don't have the knowledge or you know, can't do this or can't do that. It's like they got you got. It starts with the mindset. You gotta have the right mindset to look at things the right way, you know

Like?

Then in this case with this, you know, benis in particular, if I have machines out there, I'm not working. The machines are doing to work for me.

I'm just got to make money while you sleep.

Right, Joe. So people people don't look at it that way. You have to look at it, you know, the right way in order to be successful.

Well, everybody's an expert on social media, and they always look to see like the wrong thing. They'd be like, well everything like oh you misspelled this, Like you get the point of it?

What about the gas?

There's always a critic. But all right, So that's that's the backstory. So now the next second we're going to go into what ey L is known for. We're gonna break it down and answer some questions and give some some free games as how people can you know, get information on the vending machine business. All right, so now we're going to get into some details. So all right, so for vending machines, right, first question is how much does the vending machine costs?

So it could range. So I mean the cheapest you're going to find it is always going to be somewhere around one thousand dollars if you're using a used machine, versus if you're coming in with something new, you're looking at about five brand five grand for a brand new one brand like brand new in the top of the line, new or used.

I didn't even know that there were new use machines. How where do we even get this?

Like?

Where am I finding a new machine?

Where do I go? So, I mean new machines you could get from like the man manufacturers actually making like coke, PEPSI like those type of places you could buy and trade from them.

Those are where the new machines come from. And we're talking about actual what I mean, there's different types. We're talking about food banded machines.

So we're talking about soda snacks. They do have food, they have ice cream machines. There's a lot of different different types so you're talking about used machines, which is you know, I use use machines, and that's what I recommend everybody else to use, mainly because it's easier to maintain and it's a lot more affordable. Like the price is nowhere close to you know, five thousand dollars. You can get a used machine for around nine hundred, which

You said, let go, Yeah, what's what's that?

So it's an app?

It's an app?

Yeah, so let go off for a Facebook market. But it just depends that. And another thing is it matters is how are you how are you trying to scale this? Do you wanted this to be on some side hustle, passive income stuff, or do you want to grow it into like a full time business, because if you're just doing it as a side hustle, just tarned some extra baldo on the sign, you know, using those resources such

Where do you find vending warehouses?

So you would have to google vending machine companies in your area and then contact them and see if they.

It's all like regional, it's all regional.

Yeah, after I order it, I'm thinking to myself, right now I'm ordering the machine, Uh, probably need the location first, right, because they're going to send that to your house?

Right, So do they send it to What happens after I order it?

So you could you could pick it the machine up first for our our I recommend to people always always always get the machine after you have the location. For multiple reasons, because if you go out and you get excited, Okay, I'm going to vending thing. I see a cheap Solda machine. This is a great deal. You buy it. Maybe you got it in your garage or something like that. You don't know what type of location you're gonna get first, so that means you don't know what that location is

So like what's some typical they like typical profit margins, like how much money can a person expect to make off of like one machine.

So an average a good location, well you'll see around five hundred dollars for the foot per machine. Right, most locations have two machines, you know what I'm saying, unless it's like a combo if most of the time, if you'll find a combo machine, it's in a smaller in a smaller space because they can't fit two machines, or it's because maybe it's a slower that has slower traffic, lower traffic, and you don't want to put two machines in there, you know that type of situation.

So like a thousand dollars if you have two machines and one location, Yeah, that's about it.

Right. When you have to find locations, you obviously looked at your life. You said, look, I played ball here, I'm gonna put one here. That's my high school, that's my barbershop. What does the average person have to do in terms of finding locations?

So step one now now to be honest with y'all, Like I had experience in like different marketing before beforehand, so I was already kind of seasoned season with UH networking and more and reaching people and calling all that type of stuff. Huh, doing something I did, do whole something, So I real estate. Yeah, so I used those same type of tactics to find locations because it was I learned a lot from actually going out and trying to find properties, you know what I'm saying. When I was

You know, I'm just thinking about it. A lot of places that I Yeah, they have two vendom machines, like a community center, a school. Yeah, you have two vending machines. I never thought about that before. I mean, or try to cut you off. You can have two vending machines right next to each other, Like one is sodas and drinks, the other one is candies and chips.

And stuff. They always like right next to right next to each other.

But that's not bad you think about it, like a thousand dollars, that's like you could be getting rental income, but it's a lot less overhead as far as buying a home.

Yeah, so that was what I was gonna say. Two things.

Well, first of when of these big corporations, like if I see a Coca Cola machine, right, that's a vendor machine?

Can I purchase that from it? Or is the corporation putting that in the location?

Because you could have two vendom machines and then they have all co products?

Can you purchase that?

Can you purchase it from from like Coca Cola?

Is that like a thing? Can you get a vendom machine from a corporation.

You're talking about as far as have if the machine is placed somewhere or if there is manufacturing the machines.

Well, so I'm thinking in terms of I have my vendom machine, right, I have two of them there, and then there's.

Like a coke machine those coke products.

Is that something that like the average person can purchase or is just straight from the corporation?

So so all right, so coke does Coke actually places machines themselves. So but what they'll do is they don't they actually just will place the machine, right, But the thing is the person they would have to like charge a certain amount the in products. So the products. Once you buy a certain amount of products from from Coke, they'll play they get you they get a place of VD machine for free, so and then they'll service it

So as far as location, because I know you said that you had a couple of different keys, foot traffic, isolation, uh, waiting rooms, so all of these different things. But before you even get to that, how do you approach somebody to put a vending machine in their place?

Like?

All right, so you you see a school, like, what's the process to say, hey, can I put a vending machine here?

I talked to the principal, Yeah.

Like how does that work?

So that's that's a good question. That's a lot of questions everybody ask us. But at all I really do is all approach. Whoever the receptionist is that they're that first point in contact, and I'll ask them who I need to speak to to place a machine here, So it's usually the person that everybody usually has a person who's in charge of doing business. So the high school as a you know, a business manager, I had to

So once you get in the high school, you get into the recreation center, is there a fee that you have to pay for being there or it's just part of the profit margin you have to give to the places?

Like how's that work?

So it's all about from my experience, it's all about how you get that how you get that spot. So if you have you can have different resources you're using to get locations. Right, if one thing that you could do is you out, you go out yourself and you actually look for locations, like you know, when we talk about the whole s other thing, it's called like driving for dollars, Like you're heard of that term, right, So

So if you approach them, you got to pay them most of the time. If they approach you, you don't have to pay.

Most of the time most of the time. That's how that goes. That also depends on what type of place it is, you know, because if you're dealing with like recreation centers and schools, a lot of times those those facilities are like the prod the funds already, so they always looking for different ways to supplement, you know, some incomes. So they're going to bring that up.

So what kind of commission is fair? Like if somebody, I'll let you put ithead, but here's you gotta give me twenty percent, Like what's a fair amount?

That a fear amount really depends on the traffic and that location. But you typically it is around ten percent ten percent. It's like a fear amount most of the time if it's a good location.

So you you sit down, you say that we can have the vending machine here.

What we do next we drawing up a contract. Right, So at the point where they give me the person of contact and they said they're interested and they'll schedule a meeting with them. So we're sit down like we're talking. Now, I'll have a proposal, which is something I came up with this from doing the meetings, and it's all the information is in the proposal, which just cuts down the meet in town. So you know in there it's just

Yeah, I'm thinking of like the school, right, so I'm thinking like one of the contendencies they may have is like you can't serve a certain amount of sugar exactly certain products.

And then it's like some people will want your actual service hours in there, or they'll want like if basically like if if something goes wrong, you have to repair it by all this amount of time type of thing like, so that stuff is usually people usually tweak, but for the most part, they did go about what's on the paper.

So okay, So as far as let's go back to location. So like you said, you said, foot traffic, accessibility, isolation, and waiting rooms. Those are like your four golden rules, right, oh, the.

One second to and then for the commissions. I never bring up commission. So never never sit down with a location and say all right, well, this is the amount that we're paying commission if they don't mention it. Oh yeah, no, no, no, some people think that that's like they pitching. Like point is like, we can pay you this much in commission, don't mention.

That because it's not neces. That's a good that's a good point because you might automatically assume that you have to pay because you're in their space. But like you said, it's kind of like an attraction where it's like, like my son goes to camp. Every time I pick him out, he's like, can you give me something on the vendom machine? So it's like, you know what I'm saying, it's like the vending machine.

Erness what's up?

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I'm Kristen Bell, and if you know my husband Ax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car not so much.

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It's actually helping in that situation because it's like people something you might just walk into a space just to use the vending machine.

Right, So that I'm now I'm thinking about from the business standpoint, having a school during the year is great.

Having a recreation center during the summer gonth.

Well, no, recreation recreation centers doing the school year are good too, because they have different programs and they have basketball games and stuff.

Yeah yeah, so all right, so location, location, location is the most important thing in real estate, period. And I guess it's no different from vending machine either, right, You got the best vending. You could be giving away gold bars if it's in the desert, didn't matter. So how do you know what's a good look? I mean obviously, well I would say, obviously, how do you know what's a good location or not?

So I mean from what you just basically what you just mentioned, but I picked them up as time went on, just noticing different things. So when I'm walking into a location, I go with a checklist. I don't really use it any more because I kind of like know now, but it's best to have a checklist and use this. And this is what you want to look for. So you want to look for when you pull up to the space, is it any stores around that building? So when I

Right.

And then when I walk in the door, I'm looking in terms of moving, I'm looking for steps and all that type of stuff because you have to move the machine in there. When it terms of what makes it a good location, I'm I'm looking to see where the machine will be placed, all right, So I'm like, all right, well, is it place somewhere where it's visible and people could

I'm like, because the gas station is the place now that they're gonna get.

They see the gas station because it's right because it was a big glass you know door obviously and it's right there. Versus if that machine is placing in a lot, but they just would have used the machine, then nobody wants to walk all the way over there if you ain't got too only in the night shift, right, So so you know that's that's real important. It's important is is it being visible and it being accessible to everyone, So if everybody can use it, if it's visible, that

Yeah, one of the.

Things you said, And as you said it, I was like, wow, that's brilliant. Places that have ideal time where people are just waiting. So I would say a hospital, but when you just said laundry Matt, I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, yeah, like people are sitting in there all day watching machines.

Though, No, laundry mats are big. Schools are big, recreation centers are big, hospitals are big.

I'm thinking that's the number one.

Office buildings are big. Dorms dorms, college dorms. College dorms are big.

Yeah, yeah, And give give an example is Temple we have a temple dorm. God was doing business with that location does around thirty five.

Hundred a month? How many how many machines?

Who machines?

You know what I mean?

Cos kids don't have a lot of money and they don't have transportation.

So if you put the.

Vend machine and that's that's you, that's your machines.

These to those two are a mind. It's the guy. Actually, I know we were talking a little more camera. So another guy, one of my first, my first mentee. I helped him find a spot and that was the spot that we got.

Yeah, thirty five hundred's that's good bread.

Two machines, two machines, thirty five And then on top of that, since that building is to build the way build, it could be more machines placed than there.

And you said, there's a difference in what I mean.

The older machines don't have something that's very important that you said, that's the card readers, right, because now a lot of people don't have cash, but they do have.

Cards to use. So what we do is we'll take the older machines and add upgrades on. So we might change the door, we might use what we call like the lead lighting. So you know the little light strips. Put that in the door makes it a little brighter. And we can add to car readers, but we would just have to change what's in there. It's called the circuit board. Okay, expensive circuit board costs about two hundred dollars. Car readers are about four hundred, so you're looking at

So, okay, so as far as installation, right, how do you know which products to put? So you just buying a machine and you can put anything in the machine, correct, anything you want. How do you know which products do you do?

Like?

Okay, I like three those? So or like how do you how do you know like which is a good product?

Question?

That's asking the question because all right, so my first location that I got when I when I said it was only doing only a few a few dollars or whatever I was putting in there when I like, so I had what I like, I'm walking through Sam's cub like, Okay, this is good, this is good. But after a while it was like, no, you have to put in what

Yeah.

Man, just depends depends. It depends what you have, but it's it's definitely best to always let the people tell you what they and the inventory you're actually going to get, right, So like you will go into these warehouses I go to, I go to Sam's Club, so I go to most mostly shop at Sam's Club, but I do have a

How often are you changing the machines?

Weekly? Weekly, weekly? Yeah so, I I mean, if you're doing it more than more than once a week, you probably need a bigger machine. If you're if you're not doing it once a week, you probably need a smaller machine.

And like, so, how do you know what to charge? Because you can charge anything. I just found that out. You can charge anything at the prices.

Yeah, you set you set all your own prices. And once again, it just comes down to demographics. It comes down to the region, the area you you actually you know working in. I know we're over here in New York, my candy bars are going to be about two dollars. Like what if I'm in Philly over there, it's going

Trying at least if I buy a candy bar for a dollar, I need to I need to charge three dollars in machine. Just using that as like an example, obviously not going to trye three dollars for candy bar, but saying.

They did that.

At my job, I went to the vendor machine and the sixty five cent bag of chips is now five dollars?

Is it really five dollars? The picture?

I was like, no, this is a joke.

Impossible.

I'm gonna say the picture it was ridiculous. I'm like, wait, impossible, I've seen the picture. No, Joe, I'm like, this is ridiculous.

What kind of chips are south No sound ships? How big is the bag of chip?

It's like the.

Normal sixty five cent No, it's impossible. It's like the two ounce bag. It's like one point seven.

I was sending out the picture.

It's impossible, ridiculous, that's crazy. But they do, you know, people do do that. I mean now I've never seen It's like the airport. The airport or like the hotels, you could really charge.

More foreh vendom machines and the airport. That's that's where you make money. Airport prices is just ridiculous just because.

Because now they got the vending machines that show electronics.

So that's that's another thing I wanted to touch on too, is like you could think outside the box and get creative. You could sell anything out of the machine. You so electronics. Uh, somebody I found online was selling knickknacks out of the in the in the airport and she was making eight thousand dollars a year.

What what what's a knickknack?

So like the stuff that you know you might get while you're in that city or whatever. Like there was those little.

Whatever like a little trunkeets and like little Welcome to l A I Love New York charms.

And stuff like that. And she had like balled up T shirts in there, like you know, making making good money like just taking outside the box.

I also see no one but you put trying to do it every time.

Right Like, So it's just a lot of different things you could you could put in there if you could really like get creative with it.

What's the craziest one you've seen?

Craziest one?

Do you have one on your page when you buy and they have gold bars? Yeah.

I never seen that one though, but yeah I've seen.

Yeah, yeah, you can buy god bars or pieces of gold.

I don't know why you want to buy it, but you know that's just let's go to the vand machine and gets some gold.

Yeah. Yeah, but you know it's a lot. That's a lot of crazy ones out there.

Man.

I've seen some where you selling water. I've seen pizza. It's a piece of that.

There was there was an article about that they're putting that on college campuses where it makes the pizza in like ninety seconds or something.

They had a Plan D machine on college campus, college campus, and it's actually not.

For well, that's actually honestly, honestly contraception machine. No, that's not a bad idea. Now that's the contraception machines is not a bad idea. You have condoms.

They used to put them in the bathroom. Remember you used to put a quarter and then you don't remember.

No, I haven't seen it.

It's a little slu like you put a quarter and get a contraception that wow?

Is that is that even legal? Tame point? All right?

I know I know they got them out there like the like here weave and.

So you know what what about medical marijuana marijuana period that too, They.

Got those out in California, they got the America. So I'm not exactly sure how those operate because you know that's that's regulated. So you need I d and what note security that machine? Probably yeah, that's a little different, but they do have dudes out there.

What about vandalism, like somebody destroys your machine? How does that you have insurance on it?

Yeah?

I haven't. I had to happen before once. But yeah, so basically, if somebody destroys it messes up you just if you got insurance on it, then you cover.

If not, you know, you can go through any insurance company. Got closed State Farm and literally.

I'm not sure if it's any I know State Farm is one, but it's just regular regular insurance companies covered. Is it pricey? No, it's not pricey at all.

It's not all you would recommend always having that, I would recommd.

I would definitely recommend having insurance. But the thing is when you actually go through the process, but picking out

Or with cameras like a school or community center.

Mins minds happened more so when I had it in that hotel. We were talking when it shut down. It was like when I went back there, it was.

Over what's the what's the life span of a machine?

That's a great question. I mean, I have some machines I haven't had any issues with like since I had and some of them you get it's just like problems. I had one machine in particular. That's it's always giving me a problem. I actually switched it out recently. What type of problems?

Like the mechanical doesn't dispense the merchandise?

No, So if then the machine really is only about it's about three parts. You got your your bill accepting a lot of people think like, oh, what about that's that's one of the questions. I get a lot too. What about the cost of maintenance. I don't really maint the cost of maintenance isn't high at all, Like it's really like it's rare that something goes wrong with those machines. But you got your bill acceptor your coin mechanism, which is where you put the coins in, and then you

So how do you all? Right? So the money you collect just you know you're going in. But like the credit card, how that gets goes in that process and that goes like directly to like a PayPal.

Account, it goes directly to the bank account. The bank account every time somebody uses right in, but it goes it doesn't go right in, it goes to that that service. It goes to that provider's account. Then they have a payout similar to what you would use like what I can shop. Yeah, like I choose the payout date and then on those dates you get paid out for whatever card read the self that you had.

What about the process of buying and selling routes.

I know sometimes you said that if there is a slow time, you.

Might want to sell that machine or sell that route, and talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, So I mean in the business, you know, obviously the bulk, the bulk of your money is going to come from you selling products out of your machine, but it's also other ways to make money once you get going, of which one of the best ways is, like you just said, buying selling routes. So I might like, for the perfect the perfect scenario or the best scenario I had with buying buying a route and selling it was

Is any way to get a machine for free, like financing or pay it back on the back end through money that you make and future or no.

It's a great question. So you can rent machines from the same type of people that I talked about before, as far as like with the if you're going through a vending warehouse, they do allow you to rint machines. Sometimes if you look online you can find some people that rent machines as well. I don't really suggest doing it because it gives you like an overhead, you know, well, you know, if that's your way in, and that's your

Can you say, like buy their products, like you're putting their sodas in your machine. So they got about like ten thousand dollars worth of cope.

It's not ten thousand dollars, but it's like it's definitely a good amount and you have to buy. You have to you're committed to buying that amount at least a minimum every month. But they'll give you the vendom machine for free because obviously it's helping them. It's helping you move that product, you know. But that's the way to get for your venom machines too, But that's not you probably won't do that until, like you know later about.

The contracts, what are the typical lanes of the contract? Is it like six months of the year, about two years? I do two years two year contract, Yeah, two year increments.

So all right, Well there was a lot of information for sure. So in the next second, we're gonna bring you home, all right, So we're gonna close it out. But before I got I got a few questions. So all right, especially in schools with kids and stuff like that, what's your thoughts on childhood? PCD is a big thing, So what's your thoughts on like junk food? Because you can have healthy stuff in there as well, obviously not as popular. Do you ever think about that.

Or Yeah, that's something that actually comes up a lot of times in the meetings when I'm talking to like the potential locations. So they they you know, they always want the healthy selections, which I'm big with healthy selections anyway. Definitely want to get people a choice. So I like to put half traditional and then I put half healthy. I tried the whole health thing and go that well,

Know, like a power bar something like that.

Not not not for the chips, but like like something big, like I'll let you and then once we get to like the snack when the candy road I'll just make sure it's like some healthy stuff like trail mix or like a power bar. So it's just something something that's you know, it'd be good for something somebody grab quick that's still healthy for you.

And depending on where you're at right like that, you have to take that into account as far as inventory, because like you said, Philly, I got a sugar tacks, right, so when buying stuff, you got to take that into accounts.

And we also have also have an old people's home, so you know in there, I can't put a lot of sugar stuff. So it really just depends on where you're putting that machine at. But it definitely. It definitely always comes up in the conversation when you're placing a machine is having healthy selections. Everybody, everybody wants healthy selections. And I think that's more so a big wave.

Now, yeah, in.

The direction that we're doing as a as a you know, country as a country is getting more healthy stuff out there.

So you know, yeah, you are the food source for a lot of us, Like we don't have a lot of us don't have time to go out for lunch.

It's like, let me just add something quick, right, and you want to make sure they get out the choice to get something healthy versus having to get something you know it's not good for you.

So like ramen, noodles and stuff like that. I've seen that in there there. So like what's the what's what's your sweet spot? Like you said, you don't like perishable goods for obvious reasons because they expire. Just can't they expire?

Yes, it has an expersion. It's a long one though, like a long like a long time all right, it takes a while, but really it depends on the conditions like your temperature and all that. So you in the summertime, snickers bar in the sun, ain't gonna last too long because it once it once, it resets most of the time when it resets into being like the regular form, so it's like like not really molded, but it's just like this colored and it doesn't look at peeling for

So you try to have your but it's always inside though, right, like air condition.

But I'm also talking about like storage, so you.

Say, too, I never thought about that. You got a story. Do you store or do you just do you just buy it as you go? I stored, but.

When I first started, I was just buyding as I go, So your.

Your liver was full of boxes, you know.

So I got a Halloween I gotta spot my crib wild like something similarly like this area here, but like a little smaller. That whole area was filled with snatch. But you know, if you buy it that you go, it's a little easier. But once you get it down to a science. So the thing about buying that you go with you gotta take trips to the store every week, like, so you really want to figure out how much you need, so you could just buy your month's worth and then

So a full time day is like, all right, I'm gonna schedule. I'm gonna go to this location to refill this location refill.

Yeah.

So it's like, all right, so I do my day before our prep fill up all full up, all my my bens. I have bens that I carry the products in full up, all my bens. Pick the spots. I'm going to just knock the spots down one about one, but I do. I'll pack everything the night before.

That's it's a one man show youself. Yeah.

Wow, So I saw you saying like, as far as the the numbers on it, so it's like, I think it's like under six locations is well under six machines.

Let me see it's run down something like passive.

Passive and dan, Yeah, can you explain that? Like the numbers so it.

Really now, honestly, it depends on your location obviously, but we're talking about this standard average, Like if you have around six machines, that's kind of still passive, Like that's not gonna take up too much of your time. And

So if you have twenty, if you have twenty machines, theoretically you should be making like fifteen thousand around that at least at least twenty on the good.

End, at least fifteen at minimum. At minimum, you should at least be doing like ten, even if you don't have good locations, like you should least ten a months right right now.

The thing about the Vendom machine thing is it's just an interesting situation because it's one of these things where I always say it's never about home runs. It's never about home runs in life. It's about base hits. Like if you play baseball, you gotta get base hits consistently. And the Vendom machine thing is like a base hit. Like even if you got you know, a couple going and you're getting two thousand, like, that's that's two thousand,

People think in their minds like, oh, somebody spent the dollars. Somebody spent the dollars twenty five. It's not a lot of money, but enough dollars make sense.

Now, you know, it's not even about that. A lot of times we just mentally priced off, We just mentally psyche ourselves out of everything. So it's like you see a Vando machine every single day. How many people have ever thought about owning a vendor machine. I've never thought about it. You see it, why not somebody owns it?

Getting killed?

Every single somebody owns it?

Like you know what I'm saying, Like why not?

Yeah, And I think a lot of people shot away from it too, Like even when they think about that idea, it's like they're scared of like the maintenance that we think, Okay, well I don't know how to fix it. But you know, at the end of the day, you it's not it's not too complicated. But for any business, you're going to have hurt us where you have to figure stuff out. It's no different than that. Like, so once you once you get it going and you run into an issue,

Fix Yeah, they're like, I'm going to ask you that, like do you fix yourself with do you hire like mechanics that specialize invent the machine?

So for the most part, I fix on myself. The only thing I really I can't fix is the refrigeration units. It's called the compressors. So the compressors are a little more complicated. I don't know how to fix those yet, but like the builds sceptors and the coin mechanisms and like that, that type of stuff. I can fix those because it's like it's a common thing, and that's most of the time. None times at the time, that's what

What's the best what's the best item invented machine history?

Peanut minems for snacks, for drinks, pepsi and pepsi yourselves like like nothing else whatever, whatever you say, everything else, Pepsi is going to do. PEPs He sells more than coke, Pepsi than anything. PEPs really everywhere everybody I know would do more than water. Yeah, your largest profile you item is water, though you make the most water for water. Yeah, but pepsi sells like nothing else. Peanut eminem is so real.

Well to what's what's your favorite?

My favorite Skittles, Starburs and Peter mn ms.

You know, I don't even know if I even had Peanut Eminem.

I don't like him personally. That's and that's what kind of messed me up the first time. I was like, these ain't good.

But when I was stalking, the combination of the pepsi and the peanut M and M.

But but butter crunch, butter crunch cookie the machine though it should be those are smack pay day Payday candy bars. That's that's an and oil and vinegar chips.

That's another niche. That's the tip.

That's not a niche, oil because elite.

That's the laite. That's the lead.

Red bag of Doritos class that's gone.

Those are moving the black popcorn hip back that's another item.

The cooler ranch, playing cooler ranch, playing not really laced. People like well and where I'm at, people like the hers like playing herds. They love those playing ships.

Do Rito's pretzels also, depending where they at.

But the Doritos, the Eminem's Pepsi, that's selling no matter, no matter I call those like staple items like those items will be in the machine no matter which.

I see sometimes they don't put like the eminem's in one row and then like put them at the.

Next row too, just because because they sell, Like because if you don't do that, you're gonna run out, Like so that that's gonna run out. It's like with pepsi and most of the time you have two rows of pepsi and just because just because it's gonna sell faster than anything.

You have to come back once it sells out.

Right, you might even have to come back. It's just going to sell out, and then you'll be you could be losing out the money if that person only came to that machine, they can get some pena eminems.

Ain't like want nothing type of thing. Are you moving into other things to put in the venting machine? Like it is there other items that you see in the future, like you know what, I might want to go that route.

No, I like, I like keeping it traditional, but I do see, you know, I'll see a lot of things. You know, I'll see people coming up with that's real creative. I'll see some celebrities coming out with different ideas. I know Calie Jenner dis launched like a Vendom machine with one of them had. Oh yeah, the other one had like her makeup line, which I know is big.

That's not a bad idea either, make up little stuff like that like chapstick and things like that where it's like you on to run. It's not a bad idea. But yeah, you're never gonna lose with beverages, especially beverages. People always drink stuff candy. It's kind of like it's like a no brainer.

And the words it might I'm addicted to candy.

Yeah, they always gonna be in business.

With the man Sheef. I appreciate you coming. Man. This is a highly educational episode and I think people are going to enjoy a lot of value from it. Man, can you tell people how to contact you and any initiatives? So you got you got education that you do as well? Are you teach people about this? You talk about that?

So I do have a I have an e book that I offer online for anybody that's just looking to get basic information on how to start, you know, a successful in the machine business and for people who are looking to get started like right away. I created the course Bailey mainly just walking them through a video course you know you do at your own page, just walking them through, uh, the stabs to get just to get started as well, replicated yourself. Basically you put it on important.

To do, so that's how long is that course?

I mean it's at your own page thing. I would assume it. It might take you somebody about a month to get get through.

So that's a lot of information. So pretty much everything that you need to know start.

Mainly, the most important thing is this your set up getting started, and then the next important thing is the location methods, so getting through that. You know, it's a lot of different things to set up the way you set up you want to. You can run ads ill teach people how to and ads on Facebook, on Google, setting up the website, that type of stuff like, so that stuff takes a little more time to get through.

A little more events. Yeah, we're gonna post a link to on our bio on YouTube and Apple, Spotify, whatever you're listening, so if you're interested, you can check that out in the description. But yeah, so can telling people how to contact you. Social media handles and all that social.

Media handle is at you know, I'm sorry, is the underscore vending underscore biz you know on Facebook is the same exact thing. So that's my Instagram in Facebook.

Yeah, Troy Housekeeping eye on.

Yeah, shout to everybody on Patreon dot com.

Y'all know that's our proud to pay program we have for examp Patreon, so obviously you know that the new tears and shout out to everybody that has joined. We have Nadia Aiming and Rustin. I hope I said that right. It has R in front of it, so I just pretended that it was Boston. So shout out to you for joining at Tier four because now you have access to Early Leader University, which is our online school, and

Man.

We actually did a class.

I did a class with my wife last week.

Yeah, I heard about it.

Just pretty ill man.

She she's ill in the world of human resource.

So she did a leadership of course, which was dope.

And yeah, so everybody that's on Tier four or five and Patreon, you have access to that, and everybody's been supporting our merch too man shout out to y'all. I obviously had the early university hoodie on shouty got our trademark assets of a liability.

So everybody that's been supporting that, we appreciate you.

We love you and thank you for your support.

Yeah, and don't forget our YouTube channel. Subscribe, like comment and we released content daily on YouTube. We break up episodes in the micro content. So yeah, make sure you check out our YouTube channel and subscribe to our apple in Spotify's reviews right reviews. Yeah, like subscribe the whole nine and uh yeah. Once again, we also will have the link to the course if you want further information on the vending machine business. I think I'm gonnaet involved in.

This every time.

I every time I every time I think, I'm like, I'm about to get a truck on a mobile home and I'm like, you know what, I want to get some because this is probably the most practical thing that I've heard so far. Like I think I can start this like tomorrow.

It's great.

Like people think like when they hear it, They're like, oh, I want to do that, Like Ed has always added things, and I'm like, no, we're saying the same thing in our heads, like, Yo.

We could do this, we should be doing it. Yeah, so you're not the only one.

Definitely want to get a couple of vending machines, and you got a rocker with me, come to the Philly. We wanna come to Philly and we're going to do a live podcast in the workshop. We got a lot of Philly alumni. Yeah. So what we do is we're going to tour right now, so we go to different cities. We just left Atlanta. Shop to Atlanta was crazy, and we're gonna hit like Chicago, Houston, New York, LA, and definitely Philly. Philly is like one of our biggest markets.

Definitely, definitely for sure.

Him and the book tip of this week is your e book called the Vending This correct, So Waking eight.

Get that at So it's available at how to Start a Vendor Business dot com and I have it available in the link of the link of my bio on my Instagram page.

Okay, yeah, so check it out and once again, thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll see you next week. Peace.

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