Always look for opportunities to expand your vending business.

Last week while we were purchasing our new van, I talked to the owner, Jeff Jones, of the small auto dealership, Texas Auto Truck. He says that he sales about 2-3 vehicles a day. The two days that we visited with him we saw several new vehicles and several that were missing from the previous day. He has his wall of sales also with many vehicles sold. He runs his shop with his dad and a part time mechanic. As I was using my empty cases of soda to measure the cargo space, he started asking questions. He mentioned that he wanted a small soda machine. He needed time to talk to his dad. I gave him about a week to talk everything over with his dad and think about the soda machine and then I called him. He wants the machine. I was able to locate a small machine from someone that I have purchased machines from before. I will be delivering the machine on July 13, 2009. This is one of those times when I just happened to be talking to someone that needed a machine. Always look for opportunities. You will find them in some of the most unexpected places.

I did a profit potential analysis of the location. Texas Auto Truck is located in Wylie, which is between 17-19 miles from our home depending on whether I drive the freeway or the back roads. I usually try to get a location a lot closer. Most of my locations are within 2 miles of our house. I decided that I would go ahead with this location because I will not have to go very often, probably once a month. I wanted to insert my Excel file, but I haven't figure out how to do that yet. If the soda machine vends 3 sodas a day, it should net $27 a month or $328 a year. When the price of gas is taken into account, that is reduced to $19 and $232 assuming gas goes back up to $4 a gallon. If the machine vends 4 sodas a day, I should be able to make $341 a year. At 5 vends a day, that goes up to $451 a year. If this location is much better that I expect and vends 10 sodas a day, I would have to increase the number of times a month that I would have to visit to twice a month, but the profit per year would be $902. This is a little oversimplified, but it gives you an idea of what can be done with soda vending.

If I had to borrow the money to place the machine and this was the only machine that I had, it would take 1-3 years to start making a profit, but after that it is pure cash flow. I do not borrow money to pay for my machines, so I should have cash flow once someone starts buying sodas.

I will try to find a way to post my Excel file so that the calculations make a little more sense. I will also try to explain some of the calculations a little better when I do that.