The One On One

When I speak of the one on one I’m talking about talking with my employees. This is a great way to find out about problems they are having.

It is also a good way to make them feel like they are a part of a team. The one on one can solve many problems that a company may be having and should be used to get problems solved that concern employees.

 

How Often Should One On Ones Be Used

I personally think one on ones should be used every other week. Communicating with your employees gives them a feeling of value.

If a company is having problems then an owner may want to do them every week. There is no better way to solve company’s problems than to have the entire team pulling in the same direction to solve the problem.

When To Do One On Ones

I like to do one on ones after the employees get back to the warehouse on Thursday afternoon. The week is still fresh on their mind but you don’t want to wait till Friday because most employees are looking forward to starting their weekend.

Who Talks

This should be a give and take session with both of you talking. If the employee is the quiet type it may take some well-planned questions to get them involved in a conversation with you.

Discussing profits is always a good place to start. My company uses Rutherford and I get a copy on each routes performance every week. In the not so distant past my company was having problems with too many stale products.

I started talking about this problem with each employee and the stales have taken a very positive move for us. Remember to give the employee a chance to talk and you will probably hear, like in the stale case, where they are having problems. You then have the opportunity to help them solve the problem or at the very least you will know why things are the way they are.

Summary

The one on one is a very useful tool that every owner should employ. It has so many positive benefits. It opens up an employee. It helps the owner understand what the employee is up against and it builds a team atmosphere.

I know in many cases it has helped me to solve minor problems before they become a major problem. I would encourage all owners that are not using some sort of one on one to implement a program as soon as possible.

It is the simplest way I know to get employees active in helping you solve the everyday problems of your company.

Company Kitchen

Our first Company Kitchen (honor based no vending machines) in Iowa has been up and running for two weeks. We have four cameras installed so we can watch what is going on at any time we want from an office computer to a laptop in a McDonalds on their Wi-Fi.

We can also go to another site that will tell us the sales at any of our Company Kitchen locations. The system uploads new data every two hours. Sales are up at the new location by about 30 percent. The thing that fascinates me is the cold food sales.

Cold Food Sales

We are getting 25% to 50% more sales out of our cold food items and selling ten times more cold food at this location. The difference seems to be that they can open the cooler door and physically touch the item before they actually buy it.

We are selling more of the higher end items now that the Company Kitchen has been installed also.

Constraints Of A Vending Machine

As most of you already know vending machines will not sell anything larger than an LSS bag of chips. With the Company Kitchen the chips are displayed on a rack like you would find in a grocery store or a convenience store so the bag size limitation problem has been removed from the equation.

If a company wanted to sell paper or pens that is also an option now.

Paying For Merchandise

Company Kitchen has eliminated the need for cash. There are several different ways to pay at the kiosk.

1-The customer can pay with a credit card.

2-The customer can pay with a debit card.

3-The customer can pay through their Company Kitchen account that can be set up in a matter of two minutes.

Company Kitchen Account

When a customer sets up a Company Kitchen account they get their own web page. This web page opens the door for them to access all of the customer benefits that Company Kitchen provides them.

One of the benefits is that at the end of a day they can open their web page and see exactly how much money they spent at the kiosk. They can also see the nutritional value of each item they consumed that day. They can put money into their account from a credit card or a debit card.

The customer can also put money in their account at the kiosk by letting the machine know who they are which activates the bill acceptor. They can put a one, five, ten or twenty in the bill acceptor and it is put directly into their account.

Company Kitchen has eliminated paying for an item with cash and the advantage in my opinion is that people don’t think about how much they are spending. That results in sales going up.

When they sign up for the Company Kitchen account they are given a small card that when scanned takes the money from their account. The thing that most of the customers enjoy is that by having an account they can use their thumb print to pay for an item and it comes from their account funds.

How convenient, the customer comes down for a glass of water and as they walk by the coolers and the shelving they impulsively pick up a Coke, walk to the kiosk, scan the bottle of Coke, and put their thumb against the thumb print eye. You just made a sale and all they needed to buy that Coke was their thumb print.

Theft

About 1% is the norm. You don’t pay the account a commission and your cold food is being sold at a premium price. Here is something else to consider.

If you are getting $1.35 out of a 20oz bottle of soda through a vending machine and there is a deposit of 5 cents on the bottle like there is in Iowa you are actually getting $1.30. Now add sales tax and in Iowa that is 7% so now subtract another 9 cents so you are actually taking $1.21 to the bank.

With the Company Kitchen you can program it to add the sales tax and the bottle deposit. Now you are taking a $1.35 to the bank instead of $1.21 and my friend that extra .14 cents is profit in your pocket.

Summary

The honor system is coming to vending and I don’t think there is any way we can stop it. The vendor has finally figured out what the honor snack box operator has known for years.

Vending How Will It Look In Five Years

Changes in the vending industry have always seemed to move slowly. There is a new form of vending that seems to be taking hold and it is making me wonder what the vending industry will look like in another five years.

The new form of vending I’m talking about is the self serve break room. Most of us have seen the self-checkout lanes that are at many Wal-Mart stores today.

Now picture a break room where there are no traditional vending machines just a cooler for the cold food, milk and items that need to be refrigerated. Then a rack that holds the candy, chips, and pastries that would come inside a snack machine.

Most locations would have a cooler for soda, energy drinks and items you would find in a glass front soda vending machine. If the location justifies it you may have a freezer to sell frozen food.

Your customer walks along the displays and takes what ever they want and then steps up to a kiosk where they can pay with cash or a credit card. Many companies will pass out their own debit cards that you are able to replenish the money on the card.

Each employee will have their own web site to go to and at the end of a day, week, or month they can look to see exactly what they have purchased at the companies break room. It will tell them how many calories, saturated fats, and most anything that shows up on the ingredients label.

Pricing Items

Pricing of items is a major bonus with this system. Many companies are able to price their cold food at 30 to 50 percent more than they would be able to get out of it through a vending machine.

Another advantage is if you are charging $1.35 for a 20 oz bottle of soda that comes out of your vending machine that is the total amount you will receive for that item.

Now with the self serve you may price that 20 oz bottle of soda at $1.39 and then when they get to the kiosk to pay for the item the kiosk will add sales tax and the bottle deposit to the total amount that your customers pay.

Many people don’t mind paying more for a meal that they can pickup and look at before making the actual purchase. Figures are saying that sales are going up from 20% to 50% at a location after the kiosk and coolers are installed.

Theft

Theft is minimal if you watch the type of account that you are setting up with this type of a program. When you factor in being able to get more out of the same products that you sell through your vending machine this becomes a viable new tool for the vendor.

I will be writing more on this subject in the near future. I would like to hear from you on your thoughts of this type of a system.

Figuring Sales Tax (Are You Paying To Much)

When you sell an item such as snacks and sodas through a vending machine or a snack box the local sales tax has to be figured out of the money you bring in.

If you’re not careful you can be paying taxes on top of taxes. My CPA once gave me this formula to help me from paying a tax on top of a tax when I figured my sales tax.

Lets assume your weekly sales are $5000.00 and your state sales tax is 5%. You are going to take your sales times 5 (Sales Tax rate) that equals 25,000. Then you are going to take 25,000 and divide it by 105 (Sales tax rate + 100) and that equals $238.10.

Now take $5000.00 minus $238.10 that equals $4761.90 and that is your actual sales. If you took $5000.00 times 5% you would be paying $250.00 in sales tax.

Total Sales $5000.00

5000.00 x 5 (Sales Tax Rate) = 25000.00

25,000.00 / 105 (Sales Tax Rate + 100) = 238.09523 round to 238.10 (Actual tax)

$5000.00 – $238.10 = $4761.90 (Actual sales)

I hope that these two examples are clear. It is never easy to discuss numbers in an article such as we have tried to do here.

Summary

Paying taxes is something we must all do and should feel like we have done something that helps our country to continue to be a great country to live in.

On the other side of the equation, over paying taxes has never been something that I have felt compelled to do.

The equation I have given above makes it possible to be fair to yourself and to the state you live in. Use the equation above and feel good about yourself.

With the extra money in your pocket at the end of each month take your’ loving spouse out for a meal.

Spring Sale

Our first spring sale is here! This is the lowest price on white snack boxes we have ever offered. You can buy the white snack boxes as low as $67.45 per case.

Along with that all the accessories are on sale. Double Bonus - save in two ways! Buy in quantity and you recieve the quantity discount and the sale discount.

White snack box, large coin box, white snack box tray shippers, tray stands, price labels, shortage control cards-all are discounted 10%!

Here is how you recieve the discount - put everything you want in the shopping cart (must add up to $100.00 excluding shipping).

In the Promotions and Discounts box enter the word sale in the yellow block. Below the yellow box look for the button that says update cart and click it. Your 10% discount is subtracted from your items, continue to paypal to pay.

Hurry to your savings! - Sale ends March 13th at midnight.

Store Home

Healthy Snacks And Sales

Healthy snacks can be a profitable item for vending machines and let’s talk about the different ways. If they are profitable why not fill your machines with healthy items and help us overweight people eat healthier?

Here is the answer: we don’t always feel like a healthy snack. Sometimes we just plain and simply want a bag of potato chips or maybe a candy bar.

A doctors son that was the plant manager at my largest vending account once told me his fathers favorite phrase was: You can eat anything and everything in moderation.

How Does It Affect Sales

Many venders tell me that the healthy items are hurting their sales and are the cause of too many stales. I would agree with the statement that it could hurt if you are not careful on the stales side of the equation.

So how can you service the healthy snack food people without cutting into your profits? I think that most people will purchase a healthy item from time to time even if it is only one time in a month when they are feeling like they need to lose weight.

In a large facility there are always some people that are eating healthy even though that is not a large number. So, how do we take care of them and still make a profit?

Offering Healthy Snacks And Stales

If you are worried about stales and the account is not a large account that can handle a full column of snacks cut your par level down to half a column per healthy snack.

If you want to make sure your drivers know how full to fill the column take some masking tape and place it at the desired level. This way your driver knows not to go beyond that point when filling the healthy snack.

How many healthy snacks should be available in a snack machine is a question some venders ask. That really depends on the account. I think that a few items should be offered in every machine. To hold down on stales, (as major manufactures are raising the point that they want healthier employees) come up with a game plan.

The Game Plan

Use the healthy items to land more of the large accounts that are rightfully yours. Take the right or left side of your snack machine and offer the employee a choice of healthy or regular snacks in each machine.

A snack column is usually twice as wide as a candy column. So give the account from the top of the machine to the bottom of the machine on the left or right side one snack column wide filled with healthy snacks.

When you get to the candy column you will give them two columns on that side of the machine. This makes a nice look to the machine especially if you mark the healthy items with a green pusher or label.

Now you have given up 16% to 18% of your machine to healthy choices and by limiting the par levels you should be able to keep stales under control.

Summary

Take the initiative and keep healthy snacks under control. Pick up new business by being able to say your machines have a healthy blend of items. Who knows, there could come a day when healthy items are the larger selling items in your machines.

I remember when the seat belt law came in to effect, at first I resisted buckling up, but now it is just the norm. As with the seat belt law, choosing a healthy snack could also become the norm.

Price Increases

What Will A Price Increase Do?

Price increases will help improve your profit margin. It will also help absorb the wholesale increases.

Here Are The Most Common Reasons To Delay A Price Increase

You are afraid your customers will notice the increase and be angry or disappointed in you. You feel comfortable with your current level of income. You don't know how much you should raise your prices. You are not seeing your competition raising their prices. You're afraid you will just have to work harder to sell the same amount of merchandise.

Five Ways You Can Smoothly Handle Raising Your Prices

Increase your prices regularly. Slowly raising prices at regular intervals will help you keep up with inflation and may even keep you ahead of inflation. By raising your prices once a year in small increments you won't attract much attention.

Pick A Month You Will Raise Prices

So many vending companies get out of the habit of raising their prices. Then they find themselves forced to make a major price increase. A major increase draws the attention of your customers and will come as a surprise to them.
It is much better to raise your prices more frequently in smaller amounts. Raising the price of chips one year, candy the following year and pastries the year after that helps to lessen the shock of a price increase.
In the vending business your wholesale prices will slowly increase. Many times a wholesale increase will be as low as .25 cent per unit. Many vendors are lulled to sleep with such a small increase but over time they do add up.
After a few years without a price increase the vendor finds themselves without the capital to make needed improvements. Take the philosophy that the wholesaler takes and increase more regularly in smaller amounts.

Establish Quality And The Price Will Follow

Quality needs to be established before a price increase can be warranted. When I speak of quality I'm speaking of both product quality and quality customer service. In the vending business service and product quality must go hand in hand.
Quality of your service comes in the form of deliveries being made on a regular schedule. This includes the machines being kept clean, filled to the prescribed fill level and, of course, working. As the owner of a vending company you need to have a program in place that ensures the driver is doing a good job and not cutting corners.
Name Brands Sell. An example of this would be Baby Ruth and not Baby Ruth Crisp. The crisp bar does come at a lower price but with the limited amount of space a vending machine has it's not advisable to try saving a few pennies this way.
Establish quality in your service and the products you carry. By doing this you have a winning combination that is hard to beat and customers don't mind paying for.

Offer Different Sizes

You can add new sizes of product to your machines to enable an increase. If you are only handling the vend size chip add the LSS (large single serve) bags to your line up. When you add the bigger bags it is a good time to raise the price on your vend size bags. By giving your customers a choice of sizes they will respond more favorably to the small bags new price.

Serve Your Customer Better

As we talked earlier, give the customer what they want: quality products and good service. You will find the price issue just goes away. People enjoy doing business with people they like and trust. Remember, always listen to what your customers want and over deliver. They will be willing to pay for it.

Let Your Customers Know Why You Are Increasing Your Prices

There are different feelings on how to let your customers know of an increase. I tell my contact at every location in person. I then like to put a sign on the machine that reads like the statement below:

Notice

We value our customers and appreciate the patronage that you have given us over the years. However, due to manufacturer increases our suppliers have increased their prices. To help offset some of the costs we will be increasing our prices.

Thank You

ABC Vending Company