Live Let Thrive Podcast
Airbnb, PadSplit, Corporate Rentals, Arbitrage, and Live Let Thrive cover all the creative ways to rent out your properties to maximize profits. We also cover creative ways to buy properties. Come along for the ride and have some fun along the way!
Live Let Thrive Podcast
Vending Machines on a 9–5: “No Card Reader, You Lose 70%”
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Matthew Thompson runs 42 vending machines across Dallas-Fort Worth and shares the hard numbers behind the business. Without a card reader, you lose 70% of potential sales - cash-only machines are leaving money on the table. He breaks down the real costs: machines run $2,000-$4,000, card readers take 5.95% per transaction plus $10 monthly, and you should budget 20% for losses including vandalism and theft. One customer pushed a hospital machine into a wall hard enough to break the compressor - a $1,000 repair.
Matthew walks through his grind as a financial director by day and vending operator by night, working until 1:30 AM to learn bill acceptors, coin mechs, and HVAC systems so he could keep all money in-house. He covers turnkey location purchases, product selection by demographic (Dr. Pepper and Peanut M&Ms are top sellers in DFW), pricing strategies that don't alienate customers, and why convenience beats everything. The conversation turns to putting machines in Airbnbs and PadSplits, moving services as a side business, insurance requirements, and the coming wave of smart coolers that let customers grab and go.
Work with us. Interested in professional management or consulting?
Myka — Sharebnb: www.sharebnb.com
Steve — Argest Rentals: www.ArgestRentals.com
Sign up for PadSplit with Steve's link and get a free 1-on-1 PadSplit strategy call with Stevie Stacks: padsplit.com/hosts
Myka's other podcast, Entrepremarriage — building wealth without losing the marriage: youtube.com/@Entrepremarriage
All our links: linktr.ee/liveletthrive
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Cold open
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.
SPEAKER_03Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive. Coming at you from Fort Worth, Texas. This is episode 340. Or somewhere around there. Of your favorite short-term, mid-term, long-term. Rental podcast in the world, and throw in a little bit of um share economy stuff and pad split, and we talk about all the fun stuff. So we had, here's the thing. This episode is funny because it was just uh
Recording a vending machine consultation for the podcast
SPEAKER_03started out as a conversation, right? With a certain Matthew Thompson, uh vending machine specialist and a friend of Micah's. And I I was just more like a consultation. I called him and I was talking, you know, I wanted to learn about the vending machine game, and maybe I could put him in my Airbnbs and make some extra money. And so the conversation was so good. I asked him if it would be cool if I recorded the conversation. And he said, Yeah, sure, let's do it. And so I recorded the conversation, and I thought y'all would get a big benefit from it, even if you're not into the vending machine uh game or thought about doing it. Uh it's very inspiring what he um he told me. And I'm inspired to get my first vending machine and give it a shot, right? You know, you don't know until you try. I could fail miserably or I could actually make a little extra money at some of my Airbnbs. So, anyways, I think you'd enjoy this conversation. I trimmed it down quite a bit because it was a long conversation, but um I think you get something out of it, and you might be motivated to get your own machine for your Airbnb short-term corporate rental, pad split, whatever you're doing. So, without further ado, here is Matthew Thompson. So you went and bought a couple and put them in your garage, and what happened?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I bought a couple machines. Um, and uh, like I said, I went to YouTube university, um, just got on and just researched things on there, how to um do a bill acceptor, how how that does it work, um how many bills it accepts, and things like that. You want to know the limits, how to fix it, how to fix CoinMex, how to install CoinMex, and how to install bill acceptors, um, how the motors work, things like that. So I didn't want to outsource anybody. I know when you're starting a business, you want to keep all money in-house.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You want to keep all the money in-house. And the only thing that I couldn't do is HVAC, which is the cooling systems. And you would have to have an HVAC license to um kind of acquire the things needed to fix um what the cooling
First turnkey location purchase for $2,500-$3,000
SPEAKER_01decks and the cooling fans and things like that. So after that, once I figured out everything and how to do everything, I just decided to I I wanna I want to see if I can get a location, you know, invest my money into a location. And the first one was in Dallas. Um, and I invested roughly, I say about 25 to 3,000. And um, but you do your research on it, you go and visit and make sure everything was good, and you wanted to know the numbers, because uh vending location is nothing without the numbers. But you also got to understand that okay, I'm not this is not to make me money at the beginning. This is just to fill it out, get the get get all the uh the nuances out on how to the trial and error, fill in the machine, how long, things like that. You want to do like the research on there, like that's just uh um how do you say it uh hands-on action. You want to do hands-on action, and once you do the hands-on action and you get everything together, then you start expanding from there. But let me go back. Um, um, you asked me how I started. Um, I was um at the time, I was a financial specialist um for a marketing firm. And um, what I did was I did anything financial. It was two of us on that financial side. We always did a skeleton crew, but we got paid well. Um, but I was like, okay, I want to make sure I can kind of start other things. And once I start the vending, then I was promoted to financial director. So then that's when everything kind of changed. Um, and I tried to still do the same things that I did as financial specialist, but I realized that it was way more intricate than um than the financial specialist. Because specialists, you're doing one thing or multiple things, but it's not um effective when you're doing the whole totality of the whole company. So you're dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars, and I was like, okay, I gotta figure it out, you know, because you gotta come in earlier, you gotta run meetings and things like that. At one time I was just part of a meeting, you know, part of a section of the meeting, and then I turned out to run the whole meeting, and I had to run uh learn about every single um uh department so I can run it correctly because I was the top, and then you have the CEO. Um, and we I I used to meet with him a lot. So, but when I was a financial specialist, I didn't meet with him a lot, it was just in the meeting. But when I was financial director, it's just more um, I was more intertwined with the CEO. So it's like, okay, I'm a person that I I want to give them what they pay for. I don't like slacking on anything, so when um I got that job, I dedicated a lot to it, but at the same time I had to do my own. So I'm not gonna stray away from doing my things just because I got a new uh position. So it was just more time. So um a typical day for me was um I would get up at 6:30,
Working 6 AM to 1:30 AM between day job and vending
SPEAKER_016 o'clock, maybe 5. It depends on if we had a meeting with the CEO. If I had a meeting with the CEO before we had the meeting, it's just prep. Um, and then I would um stay there until around 5:30, and then I would work out for a couple hours until 7 o'clock, 7:30, and then that's when I start doing my research, my work, my hands-on things with in the garage and things like that to make sure, ensuring that I know what I'm doing. So it took um around, I would say I would do it to 12 or 1:30 in the morning. 12, 1, 1.30 in the morning. Okay. Because I said, I wanted to put in as much time as I put in with them. Yeah, it's not fair to me to give them all my time and then something that I'm passionate about, I want to do, I give it two hours.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01That doesn't work for me. Right. Um I'm uh I hate failure. That I just don't like failure. So I to ensure that you don't fail, you have to put in the time. It's just like anything else. You go to practice for basketball, you want to be good in basketball, you gotta practice as much as you practice in with everybody else. You have to put your own practice in. That's uh some people don't understand it. You got to put shots up to be better and things like that. So that's what I did. Um, I'm not just gonna go to practice, say, for instance, I'm not gonna go to practice, and then that's when I start practicing. That don't work. You gotta practice on your own. Then when you go to practice, you can show your development and what you've been doing, and that's how the coaches look at you and be like, okay, he's been doing things on his own, he's been trying to better himself. That's how I looked at it. I looked at it as a team thing. How would I be better?
SPEAKER_03So, because I like to like Kobe, like Kobe practicing on vacations and shit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yes. You still gotta do it. Just because you're on vacation doesn't mean the world stops. You can't stop, you can't stop. And I just went on vacation recently, uh, at the end of the year for New Year's, and I was still thinking about what it's my next move. I was also looking on my phone and just making sure everything is good with my business, and then saying, okay, at the beginning of the year, I have an action plan. And when that beginning of the year started, I'm in I'm in the trenches, going back at it again. Because I believe you're supposed to get better every year in anything you do, no matter what it is. Um, and that shows you your growth and your progression. If you didn't, that means if you stay still, that means you're not growing. That means you didn't do well. Like I look at things a little different. But um, yes, um, so once I did my first, when I did my first deal, I stayed with that deal, I would say for about a month or two.
SPEAKER_03So I mean when you deal the when you first put one in a in a certain location?
SPEAKER_01Well, it wasn't even I didn't put it there. That machine, the machines that I was working on, they are still um in the they was still in the garage at the time.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01But I purchased a location, turnkey. Oh, you get to do that first. You want to do a turnkey first so you can start generating revenue. It's not a lot, but it's generating revenue so you can have a base on, okay, excuse me, okay, this is generating revenue. Because if you do your own thing, you don't know how things run. Once you put it on a location, you don't know how it runs until you start making the money, your profit margins coming in, and things like that. So you gather, you do a turnkey and gather information from that person, and if they have car readers or things like that, they will provide something for you.
SPEAKER_03The data.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the data and all that, so you can be like, okay, this is what it's making, this is what I can expect.
SPEAKER_03So this is this is real quick, this kind of like parallels with real estate, right? You just mentioned turnkey, that's like a real estate term, because somebody has this machine in the location, it's already making money, and they're selling it to another operator. That's kind of like a turnkey situation in real estate when they already have this house, they already fixed it up, it's already getting got a renter in there, and then we take it, like one of us takes it over, and we already know how much it's gonna make per month.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes, you you yes, it's the same premise. Um, you just want to have something that's concrete so you can look for. You want to have a baseline. Once you have that baseline, now you can determine whether I can make it better or it's gonna be worse. You want a baseline because you don't want to just step in and say, okay, um, you ask a person, oh yeah, it makes um four or five hundred dollars a month. They can lie, you know, they can look at the fip, they can lie, they can say all these things, and you give them the money, and next thing you know, it makes $100 a month. So you want some kind of safe haven where you can say, okay, I need to see the data. Now, once you get into this space and and you know what you're doing, then you can kind of look at it and say, Okay, I know this makes this much, or this doesn't make this much. So you can be like, hey, just like real estate, I know it's not gonna make this much in this area or this time, or you know what it's gonna be. Um, but I wouldn't recommend that for people that's starting off. You want to always get data, always getting that data so you can understand what's going on and you have a baseline. And now once you had a baseline, you can act from there. Because you can you can make it worse. It's like a challenge for me. You can make it worse. It's a business, it's not just oh, I purchased something that's automatically gonna be the same. No, it's not. You you can it different owners do different things.
Adding value to existing locations through better service
SPEAKER_01So if I jump in, I want to make sure that I can make it 20 to 30 percent better automatically once I even purchase it. And that's what you want to do so um, so that you know that you have a goal to reach. Yeah, so that's what I did. I just literally purchased with another one, and it was making, yeah, I say it's making he told me he gave me the data and it was making only 4,000. Well, I would say not only, but 4,000 annually. But I know I can get it to make 6,000, even 10,000. It just depends. But you gotta look at what you're doing. I know that I can do that. Once you add your value to it, people don't understand it. You gotta add your value too. If you know what you're doing, you can add your value and you know that it's gonna get to this point, especially if you always live up to what you do. That's what I honor more than anything is your word. If you can live up to your word, then that's a baseline as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If I say I'm gonna call you back or I'm gonna call you back and I call you back, there we go. If I say I'm gonna be there to help you move whatever products or something like that, or move your help you move something, move into an apartment or anything, your word is all you have. And once you do that, now that baseline is saying they said I can rely on you. That's the best thing you can have in life, is people that can rely on you and understand that okay, I can rely on him when he says he's gonna do something. So it is very gold, that's gold.
SPEAKER_03Uh, yeah, it's true. So you you get to go see the machine in person, right? You saw okay. And I mean, I don't know about the the first one, but like nowadays you can go look at a machine. I guess what do you you see? The snacks that they're putting in there and stuff like that, and what their revenue is, and you say, Okay, I could put different stuff in there and then beef up the revenue.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um, and once you go, you look at pricing, you look at pricing, you look at the machine, everything. You would be like, okay, this is on the newer side machine. They got certain products in there that um is not only chips in there, but they got launchables or things like that, which I heard your podcast about the perishables and non-perishables. I told you, I researched, I have to. When you told me, I was like, okay, let me listen to what he's saying. But yes, it's it's perishables. You have to have a license for anything that doesn't have a date on it. Anything that doesn't have a date on it, uh, expiration date or best buy date, you can't put in the machine legally. So um, like launchables has a date on it. Um, like cheese and crackers and things like that has a date on it. Tuna has a date on it, um, cup noodles, um, crustables, things like that, that has a date on it. And that's the only thing you can sell through the machine. Um, if you start doing sandwiches that's pre-made and things like that, that's a problem. You have to go get a you have to go get a license for that, um, a food license, and they have to verify it and check it every year and things like that. So um I like to stay on the other side because I still can provide a convenient service and a great service for them, and I don't have to worry about any uh licensing. Um, but once you look at a machine, you should know that okay, it's a newer machine, they selling certain things for an amount that you usually in your other machines you sell them for a little bit more due to what you bring to the table. And you can tell by his pricing or her pricing that um they they just they're not doing it for a business, they just doing it to make money, and that's a difference. You're trying to make money now, you kind of price gouging, and that's not good.
SPEAKER_04Right, right.
SPEAKER_01But or you got it too low and meaning that you're not paying attention to the the world and how pricing is supposed to be. Like you're supposed to go to what I do
Pricing strategy: gas station convenience, not price gouging
SPEAKER_01is go to the gas stations and see what their pricing is. And that's what it is a convenience store.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you pay for the convenience.
SPEAKER_01You base it off of convenience, you have to. You don't put things in there that you don't uh that you think that, oh, I'm gonna uh I I can't I can afford these and hopefully they buy them. That's not how they work. You go in there and do what I do is go in there, do a consultation, talk to them, and say, hey, what do the office prefer? And once you do that, then you can um you can kind of base it off, okay, they asked for this, but uh at this place I only can provide that because the margins is not good for this, but I do have an something that's adjacent that's um comparable. And they still will buy it because it's what they want and they understand that certain things you can't get. So but to to um answer the question a little bit more, um you either price and you want to get in the sweet spot because like I said, you either price gouging and trying to just make money and just it just doesn't work for them because they stop buying, you alienating the customers, or you got it where it's too low, they're buying, but you're not happy with the margins. So you have to find that sweet spot. It's a lot of things complicated in this business. You just gotta know what you're doing, and once you know what you're doing, it's set. You just go in there, it's automatic after that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so no, that's cool, man. Um what I see at my job, a lot of man, these these guys buy the heck out of those energy drinks, man. That's like that's 100. I'm 100.
SPEAKER_01I still I still have to um I have like two or three rows dedicated to just energy drinks, all brands. Uh and what's been jumping up lately, um, the Celsius has been, I guess let's go back. Red Bull and Monster, cornerstone, never will be replaced, always gotta have it in the machine. But then you have these new players in the game. Because you got I I can compare. You got ATT and you got Verizon right there. It's never gonna go away. But then you got this T-Mobile and this Boost Mobile and things like that that's making a little play because they buying up other stuff to compete with them. So what two companies that I look at that that shows that kind of um space is uh Celsius and Alani New. Celsius for the people that want to go a little bit more healthier with the energy drinks, because it's a green tea extract from that, and then you have the Alani News that their marketing is better when it comes to the cans and the flavors and the taste. So the only thing you can do is have better flavors and tastes because everything else is gone. Like Red Bull and Monster, that's just the cornerstone. They don't have to have different tastes and things like that. People just know the brand. It's just like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It's always gonna go. But then you got that Dr. Pepper regionally in Texas. A lot of people don't drink Dr. Pepper upstate and things like that. I didn't really, I'm from Arkansas and Dr. Pepper was third on the list, but you come to Texas and number one.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um that's how I look at online news. It's just breaking into it's just breaking into the stratosphere, into this um space where it's different color cans and things like that. It's doing marketing and flavors that is not typical. If you want to break into a space, be different. And once you be different, be efficient. Once you do those two things and continue to work and and and put in that effort, you're gonna win. You just it's just a matter of time. You're gonna get some of the space. Say, for instance, both Red Bull and Monster have 50-50. Now you got Celsius and Alani News, now they get what a third of that. So now it's 33% for the new. Now the other ones got 33 and the third, 33 and the third. You breaking into the space, that's all you need. In that space, it's it's a lot of money in that space. Everybody needs it, everybody needs it because now these days people eat different, they drink different. Everything is predicated on their energy. People's energy is not like it was back in the day because they don't eat right and things like that anymore. They it's what they want instead of what their body needs.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01So then their energy is a little low. So they just I need to, I gotta go to work, I gotta go to work and be efficient. So let me drink this energy drink to be that. And now, once you do that, it's kind of like an addictive situation because now you need one every day, like back in the day. Every hour, every hour. See, now that's what I'd be like, okay. Because I would talk to people on site, and that's one thing that I do differently than everybody else. I really do talk to them, and it's one guy that wanted a Lonnie News, and I was like, okay, I talked to him about it, and um, he was like, Man, I'm glad you keep it stocked all the time because I need it every day. Sometimes I need it two times a day, and then if I gotta go to my other job, I need it three times a day. I and then I was like, and this is what he said. So I told him, I was just honest. I said, That's good, I appreciate you coming to the machine, but you gotta be careful with that. Always be hydrated, take your water, drink your water. I want him to be safe too, you know, not just to buy my product, lose a customer, yeah. Hey, that don't hurt either. That don't that doesn't hurt either. But I'm also um a health advocate, too. So I just want people, I want people to it's like drink responsibly, it's just like alcohol, just drink responsibly. Yeah, because you know it's just it hurt just as much, your liver just as much. So you just gotta you gotta drink your water and do what you need to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm pouring me some water now. You talking about that.
SPEAKER_01Hey, I just gave me uh a protein shake before I got in here. Protein, um, because I don't like chocolate, but I got protein, um, a little bit of creatine, and also like um beetroot powder. Beetroot powder, which is, you know, it helps with your blood flow. So that's a good thing for you. And of course, I got water as well, but you know, you gotta take your the supplements that your body needs. Some people don't do that, but you know, it's it's kind of mandatory um as you get older. As we know we as we get older. So, but um Oh, sorry, baby. You okay?
SPEAKER_03You okay? My my little girl came in here. I was like trying to reach back for her and got her in the play hi. Hi. All right, go play, baby. Go play.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right back up.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01She's just inquisitive, which is cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Get her around the business and stuff, learning about it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, for sure. I have a son as well, and I want to get him in the space as well. I want him to know that hard work was put into this, and the only way to do that is as they keep going and keep going with you to different sites and helping you. He can literally say, I was there when my dad did all this, and I see how hard he worked. And then once I give him the opportunity, not just giving it to him, just give him the opportunity. Hey, I got this for you. You know I got this business. I want to give this to you. And if I give this to you, you know, and I want you to make sure that you take care of it. And if he decides to take care of it, then yes, I'll hand it to him, but I'm not just gonna give it to him just off of the strength that he's my son, but I want him to know the hard work of it. And he will take it more serious if he decides to say yes. If he don't, that's fine. Take your own path, but I want to provide something for you once you get older. It's generational wealth for sure. I know that's what we're doing for all our kids.
SPEAKER_03I I guess that uh that reminds me of that viral post about that that mom that bought a instead of getting her son a Christmas gift or birthday gift, she got him a vending machine.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03You remember that?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I remember that. I remember that. And that's and I looked at that as well, and I thought about that. That's why I thought about it with my son. Instead of getting a vending machine, I give him a vending company, you know, and he built from the ground up with me. And that's the only thing. Some kids, when they are on the rich side already, the daddy already did what they needed to do to provide for his family, they don't know what he it took to do that. And all they know is they can get money every day, he take care of this and take care of that. But they like, oh, I can get another one. Say, for instance, the PlayStation 5 break. Oh, he'll buy me another one. But do you know how much $600 took to you know how much that took to get? So once you bring them on these trips, they understand that. Yeah, and that's what my whole mission is to do and um provide this generational wealth that I will be first generation of doing it. And I I don't mind it. I don't mind putting in the work, and if I don't have a extravagant life or the best life, long as everything after is set up. And like I said, I came from financial, um, I came from a financial background, so I'm very in uh intrical when it comes to that and very serious on financial um stability. So that's why I definitely would teach my son, like like right now, um, and I this is not, I don't know I'm going off on a tangent, but I just want to give a um an example.
Giving gold dollars instead of toys for birthdays
SPEAKER_01I used to give my son um toys and stuff like that all the time for Christmas and things like that, but that was so intangible because they would be thrown away and this, this, this every time, or break. And so I knew one thing that I know that will always appreciate is currency. And I I wanted to teach him how to have something to keep safe where he can have a responsibility to hold something important. So I recently started um I say two years ago. I would give him a toy, well, you know, a couple toys and stuff like that, because he's nine. He's nine. And I would give him a toy, some clothes, but one thing I would give him is 25 gold dollars every single time on his birthday and Christmas. 25 gold dollars. And I also um included Susan B. Anthony's, um, two dollar bills, things like that, that it can be cherished. And I said, hey, and I tell him the reason behind it and what it is, what it came from, why we have it, and I also will buy a cleaner to clean all the gold dollars to make them shiny, and tell him that hey, you're gonna do this with me, and I will explain it why we're doing it. It's like a working thing, just showing him how the work ethic, and it's just not giving. You gotta earn it. So that's what I start doing. Um, because my my business gives gold dollars all the time. It just goes so what I would do is just give him the gold dollars that I get received from my machines and just give him the gold dollars from there. We'll work on it together, clean it up. I even got it where he put it in a case and everything. Like a hundred, I got him a hundred to two hundred um coin cases, and we do that all together. Something that's cherishable and can be passed.
SPEAKER_03That is cool, man. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_01I appreciate it, man. It's just I just really, really firmly believe in in the next generation where you have to kind of make sure that they are distilled with those properties, especially working hard and not nothing given to them.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, big time.
SPEAKER_01So go ahead, excuse me.
SPEAKER_03So, real quick, there's it appears there's still room in this space for mom and pop, you know, uh vending machine operations. Because I automatically think because I, you know, my day job, I've been, you know, at American Airlines for all these years, but there's vending machines in all the break rooms, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, I didn't even know, I didn't even know your background on that, the American Airlines. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've been there for shit. I started in 1997. It's been a long time. But I go I go part-time because I have the business and I have you know, don't say it like that. Cherish that, cherish that because there's a lot of people that don't stay at jobs anymore. Nah, I know, right? I know, but it's a it's a good job, good venture, and all that stuff. Thank you, thank you. And um, so so I do see the vending machines there. Now, is that a big corporation that puts those vending machines at American Airlines and DFW Airport and all that stuff?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it it it's it's hard to get in the airports because it's already taken over by companies. I would say one now that's here, I don't even want to give a plug. I just say it's a bigger company that I'm just saying, I can give a perfect example. Um, I work ATT uh stadium as security, um, just part-time, just getting money here and there just to kind of supply certain things. And um as I work there, I went to the break room.
Big companies neglect smaller locations - two machines for 2,000 AT&T Stadium workers
SPEAKER_01And I see we have two break rooms. Keep in mind, we have almost 2,000 workers when it comes to the ATT Stadium security, ticket sales, um, you have on the side where they serve, you know, it's 2,000 employees, and all of them have to go to the same two break rooms. It's two machines in there and it's always empty.
SPEAKER_02Oh, damn, always empty.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the reason and and that's the sad part about it because these big companies, they have the big contracts because they are big companies, but they forget about the little man. They forget about the little things, like two machines to them is nothing, but they don't realize it's 2,000 employees that go to their two machines. So, what I would have done is okay, it's 2,000 employees. I would have done my research on that and then realized, okay, we can't just have two machines in here. We have to it's it's gotta be almost on an Amazon level of having three or four machines in there, sometimes five. And then we have to turn over, we have to come every week because it's an important, this is an important vendor. This is ATT Stadium. You're gonna have people all the time, it's open 365 days out of the year, every day. So, why wouldn't you take the initiative to understand that? Right, because you got the Amazons and stuff like that that make thousands of millions, hundreds of thousands every year. So it's always gonna be room for mom and pops. Always, because though they're gonna forget about the middle end and they're gonna forget about the lower end of what the revenue would be. They were gonna they're gonna chase a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, but not realizing that that twenty thousand, that fifty thousand is constant. They'll probably try trade chase one that's a hundred thousand, then the the plant gets shut down. Now you have zero. I want consistency. I don't want something that's dynamic, that's gonna come back down. Now the stock market, I can go and risk it, you know. I want to get in, then get out, but in this business, you don't do that. You gotta stay consistent and continue to get um locations that's very consistent and want you as much as you need them. So that's the thing. So that's why I just want to give you that because that's what mom and pops, that's why I will never in my situation, how I do my thing, uh my business, I will never kind of die out because one, my customer service is impeccable, two, I keep it stocked so they don't have any problems, and I also make sure the maintenance is taken care of and my emails are always answered within two days, if not the first day, to the point where if I see an email, I handle it right there. And they was like, Oh man, I didn't know that you emailed that quick. And I was like, hey, you know, you're important, that's how you got to teach it, and that's where I haven't even advertised anything. I haven't did no advertisement for my business. All it is is word of mouth and referral. And that's just because I do treat everybody right and do whatever I need to do to make sure they're happy and it's a convenience for them as much as it is a business for me.
SPEAKER_03And you know, that's that's what's funny when you see like a machine that's like even almost empty, right? Like it's it just has a few things on there. Yes, it that kind of just discourages you from buying whatever's left in there because like, oh man, it's just leftovers in there, even if it's something you want it, it's like psychological, man. I ain't buying that machine. Look at that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it and that's the and that's the whole ploy of that. That's why I never, ever, ever have holes in my machines. And if I do have holes in my machines, I consider it is I'm losing money. Because that's the one that's being bought. Anything that has holes in, that's what's being bought. Yeah, that's that's the that's the that's the th the thought process I look at. And every time I see a hole in it, um, I consider myself losing five to ten dollars. Every single hole. That's what I put in my head. Five to ten dollars. So if I have five holes, it's either twenty-five to fifty dollars that I just lost, and I can't afford to lose that.
SPEAKER_03So now with the with the technology, you could see exactly where there's holes. Like uh, is there an app on your phone, or what do you use? You can see what's going on at the vending machine.
SPEAKER_01Well, well, you can do that. Um I know uh you you and uh Mikey said it's things that you can do. Yes, the car readers that uh you have, you can set it up like that. But the the the issue I run into when I set it up like that is I can't fill the holes how I want to. Because, say, for instance, you got certain things that you want to put in there, but you don't have it, but you ordered it, you got to get it. I'm not gonna just let it sit there, a hole sit there. I'm gonna fill it with something that's uh comparable or just as liked. And once you do that, the planogram is not the same anymore. So it's hard to keep a planogram unless you really big, yeah, you're supposed to keep your planogram because you have a lot of things on deck and you buy in bulk that you know that you're not gonna run out typically. But I'm not to that point yet. So I don't have a planogram on the I have a planogram when I first start, but I don't have a planogram when everything kind of goes and things like that. I say, okay, I can do the best I can to get to that planogram, but I'm not leaving holes in the uh machine
Filling holes with comparable products when stock runs out
SPEAKER_01just because of what you just said.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01And if you always see it feel like it's everything feel, you like, oh man, I got an option, I got a slew of things that I can pick. But if you got it where it's five or six, seven holes, you're like, oh man, uh, I wish this, I wish I could see what this was. Or they already knew what it was since it's a recurring customer and they mad because it's not in there.
SPEAKER_04Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01You put something comparable or something just as good in there that they would like, you could put it in there now. And then once you get the product, you replace it again, and that's how you're supposed to do it. To me, that's me. Because I did the marketing research on what you just said. I asked them, would you prefer me not putting none there, or you want me to continue to fill it up with something that is another option? They prefer another option. I do consultations, I don't sit there and just put in what I want to put in there. That's not a business. A business thrives once you can appeal to the customer. Say, for instance, your passplits, that's what you're doing right now. You like, okay, I want to appeal to okay. They you I listen to the podcast. Like I said, I listen. So you said some of half of them don't have cars, 50% don't have cars in the passplit. So you want to provide a convenience for them where something that they can go get a snack or something like that, and because they can't drive and go get it. Like right now, if you had it in there right now, it'll be perfect because it's snowing, nobody can't go nowhere. But you got a um, I just say, you have some tuna in the machine, chicken of the sea, or something like that, where they can have a legitimate nice little meal. Or since it's uh a passplit and you got a whole kitchen, if you have electric, because you don't never know because it's snow, um they can get a cup noodles that they can cook, they can do all of that. They can do the upscale noodles, they can do you can have stuff in there that they can buy where they can still take care of themselves and have a good meal. Hot meal, you know. So yeah, you can and man, there's so many ideas that kind of popped into my head with your pass play right now. Yeah, like you can definitely put in um tea, you can put tea in there, you can put like a round of coffee since you got something that you can do. You can have a coffee. Yeah, everything. That see, it popped in my head. So we talk about that, but I'm just I just man, that's just how I look at things, man. Um I always try to help the person that want to help me and want to be inquisitive about it. Um yes, uh so if you put in that pass split, um, they and you got drinks too. You can put um, say for instance, they like Starbucks, you can put the Starbucks drinks in there, they like juice, they like sodas, energy drinks, like we talked about. It's very, it's a lot of it's a variable of things that you can put in there, but you will want to tailor towards the people that's in there.
SPEAKER_03Put some beers in there.
SPEAKER_01See, I hear that a lot. I I hear that a lot, and I'm gonna tell you how I hear it. Every time I go to one of my um, I have a diesel shop, it's a it's a diesel shop, and I have a few machines there, and every time I go in there, I supply only drinks. Um, I'm thinking about doing snacks, but it just depends. But and we gotta get that deal together. But every time I go in there, when I go in there to feel, they they be like, hey, hey, what's going on? And you know, they Mexicans, so they say Cerveças, Cervasas, Corona, Corona, you know, I was like, Yeah, yeah, uh, I can't do that, but I got I'm gonna fill it back up for you. You see Cervasas, and I didn't know what that was at first until they told me. Uh, the guy that uh I do the deal with, he was like, Yeah, they're talking about putting beer in. I was like, Yeah, I can't do that. It was funny though, but um, you know, vending is very, very intrical because you can do that at certain spaces. You know it's such a thing as a um a Moet machine, it can sell champagne.
SPEAKER_03Really? Here in the States?
SPEAKER_01Once you look it up, it's in the States. It's one here actually in Dallas. They said it's in an upscale, I would I believe, mall or hotel where they should they sell champagne, Moet champagne bottles.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that's that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01And it's like I think it's 15 to 20
Moet champagne vending machines with attendant verification
SPEAKER_01dollars, but it's worth it. It's a convenience.
SPEAKER_03You know, the the big thing would be to not be it where kids can can get it, you know. Back in the day, back back in the day, before it's just all credit cards, you know.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03Um, I remember going to I remember uh Pancho's Mexican buffet, man. I don't know if you you remember that. If you're in this area, but uh it's like a Mexican buffet place a long time ago. But they had those cigarette machines there, man. And I was I would tell my parents, and you know, I'd always pull the things, you know. You may have the the knobs that you pull for the cigarettes to fall down. Yes, yes. It wasn't we weren't a smoking family, but but I was always like, man, what's that's kids can put a dollar in there and get cigarettes? Because yes, they're not supposed to, but yeah, I mean that's that's how it was back then.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and I heard it, I heard this from a guy that was he said when I was 14 it was easy to get cigarettes. You would go to that place, what you said, put in the money, and that dial, you got a cigarettes. I don't know inside. I don't have to go inside. I'm too he said, I thought smart. I just go in there, I don't have to pay nobody to get it. I just go in there, turn that dial, get cigarettes. Some people like I they didn't look, they didn't look like that, they didn't pay attention like that. Now with cell phones and everything, everything is just filmed. So if you see a kid uh getting cigarettes, you're like, no, you can't do that. But in this case, in this case, it's the the Moet machine, they have an attendant that gives you once you pay for it, they give you a coin. They give you a coin where it only accepts certain amount of uh certain coins. Once you put that coin in there, that's when you can get it. But they will check your ID and stuff like that before that happens. Okay, that makes sense. But he also worked at I think at the hotel or the mall. He works at the mall at a certain space, like a welcome center or something, but he also provides those coins for that champagne.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Pretty cool deal. Um, I thought about doing it in my hometown. Um Little Rock and you know, Mikey know about it. Um, we man, actually, me and Mike. It was a time, you know. Um, he he knew me from his cousin is my line brother. So we used to have gatherings at my house all the time with um sorority sisters and things like that. So that's how we met him. But um also he came and we started doing different other things like um tratic things, like we would play games like Monopoly. So we would have I would have this thing called Martin parties where we watch Martin, uh the sitcom Martin, and we would play and just stay out the way, you know, just enjoy. So we would play um uh Monopoly, and that's when uh that's when Mike became a little competitive. At first he was watching, but then he started getting into it and playing with us because he thought it was, you know, it was a monopoly, it's a game, but we didn't treat it as a game. We treated it as okay, we can't have a property. Um in real life, we we treated it like we had real property in real life, but it was just for play, it was for so uh that's why how we met too and we played and just had fun every time we did it, and just gathering and and just talking business and just in general, uh a good vibe and a positive um outlook on everything. It was just good in those times. I was in college then, but uh a little bit out of remove from college, but we had some fun. We had fun. That's how I met him because I met him through my line brother. So that was fun.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that is cool. Michael's a great dude.
SPEAKER_01And then the crazy thing about it is I didn't know he stayed so close to me. I went to one of his gatherings, I think I want to say Thanksgiving or no, it was the 4th of July. And he literally lives, I say about 10 to 15 minutes away from me. 10 minutes, 15? And so I went, and once he sent me the uh location, I went, I was like, oh man, he's pretty close than I thought. So um that was that was a that was a plus because I'm here by myself. All my family's in Little Rock. I've been here for 10 years by myself. So um I wanted to, I all I did was work, work out and go home. And as you know, I had my other business too. So it was just like, okay, once I get that regulated, I need to start getting out there and talking and networking a little bit more. So that's what I'm doing, I've been doing lately.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's cool, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh man, the um, all right, so my for my pad split, like I like I mentioned on the show, it's they're both six-bedroom pad splits, right? And there's six different individuals. They, you know, one person per room. And I do have you asked me if I had the garage. So I have a full garage. Um, so so do you think a vending machine would work in that environment?
SPEAKER_01Um, it just depends on um, I think it would. It just depends on the turnover. Um how many, how many new, how many is coming in? Is it always full? Um, is it people that would be interested in it? Um from your research of how would they how are they going in there to um with food and things like that, or are they looking, they just want a place to stay, but they can just buy something quick and get out. It just depends on the research of it, you know? Um, and that's what I would uh employ you to do is to kind of do the research on that to see if they bring food with them. Do they prefer to buy it? Are they a DoorDash Society or they like cooking from home?
SPEAKER_03You get do some research, in other words.
SPEAKER_01Yes, please do the research because I don't want you. And I would say that if we was off recording or not, just to do the research so you can. I think it would be profitable. But I don't know what kind of profit you are looking for. I think that if it's an added profit for you, that's great. But if you're looking, oh, I'm trying to just put in here and make this much money, I don't think it will make as much. Because how do I say this? Um vending machines are great because you have of the people that comes in. It's the it's the it's the traffic. Say, for instance, you got six people that stay there, and I and I heard the podcast, you you don't like people coming in and out, they just want to stay, you know, sleep and get up most of the time, right?
SPEAKER_03Right. Now they they have people visiting every now and then, but it's not they're not supposed to spend the night, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so they can visit but not spend the night, depending on how many people that visit, and you just look at your traffic, and that's how you would know if a vending machine is uh good for it or not. Because if you're just having the six people staying there at this, this, this, and um I would say uh is it always full? Uh, you when did you start this again? Instead, October?
SPEAKER_03It stays pretty full. I started the first one around at the end of summer. August, September, something like that. And then the next one is around, I think it was around October. So yeah, both of them stay pretty full. I probably have, you know, every few months someone moves out, and then like maybe like a week later, someone takes that room. You know what I'm saying? So they stay pretty full.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that that's pretty cool. Um, but you got and the thing is you have a refrigerator um and a full kitchen in there for them to do things. So um, like that's what I said. It just depends on the the demographic that you have, because if they already know that, okay, I'm gonna just go buy a six-pack and just I'll be good with that six-pack of uh Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper, um, but then you have the other five don't have any, then it'll be good. But if everybody just go and get stuff and put it in the refrigerator, put their name on it, you know, it'll be hard to kind of sell because they already got everything they needed.
SPEAKER_03If that makes sense. Now, there's a lot of DoorDash happening, though. I can see on the cameras it's a lot of food deliveries happening too.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, then that's a good thing. If it's a lot of DoorDash, see, that's that
Top 10 sellers: Dr. Pepper and Peanut M&Ms lead in DFW
SPEAKER_01research that I'm saying. Yeah, the DoorDash, then yes, um, because you might can door dash some food, and then you're like, Oh, I forgot to get a drink, or well, I want something sweet, because they don't door dash sweet stuff, they do door dash the food. I didn't know that. See that, so they door dash food, they don't door dash skittles.
SPEAKER_03Um so a lot of my my tenants have been known to get the munchies, right?
SPEAKER_01See, so there we go. And uh okay, I get it. I ain't gonna say what it is, but I get it. I get it. I just say that yes, if it's a munchie thing, yes, definitely it will be good. It will be good, and you literally got to put munchies in there for it. Oh, yeah, but munchies, yeah, yeah, munchies, uh, skittles, chips, um, definitely some candy because that's what's gonna be the thing that the sweet tooth, the number one sellers in DFW are uh Dr. Pepper and Peanut MMs. That's the number one seller on any machine. And peanut MM is very popular here, very popular in Dr. Pepper. So you want you gotta know the your top ten things that you want to continue to to feel no matter what, because them your top 10 sellers, and that's what make your money. So in your in your um in your position, you'll have it in there. Excuse me, say for instance about a month, and you go and count what was purchased and things like that, that will be your top 10 sellers, and you will want to keep those in there, drinks and snacks. You'll probably have three things that's chips, three things or four things that's uh like honey buns and Danishes and things like that. That you want to keep that in there, Danishes, um, cinnamon rolls, and then you got your candy, then you got your little things that people just snack on just watching TV, which is your crackers, you know, all types of popcorn, right? Popcorn, yeah. That's what you said on the podcast. Popcorn, um trail mix.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And also another one that I think is a big seller now that's getting into it because the margins are getting better, is beef jerky. Because beef jerky with margins was kind of iffy, you would have to raise it a little bit higher because the beef that the prices in the stores are higher, and you don't want to alienate for a piece of stick or something of meat or dehydrated meat. So it's like now it's getting better. People like beef jerky, so you can put that in there and try it as well. But you want to stick to your top 10 sellers for sure, top five. But top 10, I would do top 10 just to keep those in there, and that's on the spectrum of all the things that you have in there, incumbents. So the, like I said, three chips, three snacks, three Danishes, the three sweets, and then your drinks too. So all that is is put together. So top 10, you make sure that's filled.
SPEAKER_03Cool, cool. And like cold sodas, of course, or cold um energy drinks, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's what that's all of it. You want to do that's a top 10 list of everything that you have in there.
SPEAKER_03Now then so the comp you can get like a combination of any machine that has sodas and you could put chips all in one.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's what I was gonna recommend for you. That's what the the information that I sent to you earlier. That was the dimensions for a combo machine like that.
SPEAKER_04Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01And that's what and then I was gonna send you the um the the type of machines, the the combo machines, the what type of machines that you should put in there. So, and that that combo machines will be perfect. Whether you can do you can do top and bottom combo machines where they got um non-cool snacks, and then cooling at the bottom with uh drinks, but then you also have the full-line cooling system where it cools everything. Then you can put more things in there, like lunchables. You know, you got your launchables, your your meats, and uh salami crackers and things like that.
SPEAKER_04Right, right.
SPEAKER_01But the thing is with that is it cools everything. So some people don't like a hard honey bun, a cold honey bun, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_03A hard uh they got microwaves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. Like in um, like in my hospitals, they they don't mind. But when I go to like uh an office building that doesn't have that doesn't have a microwave, they're like, I'm not gonna buy that.
SPEAKER_03Cold honey bowl.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to do it in a different way. It's all about your demographic and who you sell them to. You can't do the same thing in every uh location.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. Man, it's a lot, it's a lot to it.
SPEAKER_01That's I tried to a little bit. This is the this is just the surface things. You run into so many things, but once you figure them out, you kind of regulate it, and then now you train somebody. That's what I'm in the process of doing training somebody, and I want to train them the right way. I don't want them to go in and throw them in the uh 12-foot pool and say swim. That's not how this industry worked. Because you would literally lose money quickly. Um because it only takes one bad move or one bad situation where it's done. Now you lose one customer that was your recurring customer, they'll probably give you annually annually, which is a whole whole year, you could lose a thousand dollars from one customer. Damn. You know that it adds up, it adds up, and I go I do annuals because I want to know every year because um taxes go annually, they don't go monthly, they go annually, and some of them do go quarterly. So, but I I I do mine in annual, and I was like, okay, this is what I got annually, and I go everything annually because that is the best structure that I know. I guess that's what car readers too. That's another thing that I want to tell you. Car readers is is it if you have a machine without a car reader,
No card reader, you lose 70% of sales
SPEAKER_01that's fine, but you're losing 70%. Jeez, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's that's how much I knew nobody carries cash no more, man.
SPEAKER_01Nobody carries cash anymore, and sometimes even Apple Pays, the book, the the taps, the cards. If they don't have a car, you can use your phone. Well, what's one thing that people cannot do without these days is their phone. Yeah, so they if they could do Apple Pay or Google Google Pay and just tap, and some people even have uh prepay where they put money on there for prepaid on their cell phones, it's apps that got prepaid that you can use as well.
SPEAKER_03But not only, not only is it the convenience of you know, because everybody uses cards, but I would venture a guess because this is how I think once you're tapping, boom, boom, oh I'm gonna buy this. So you you buy a couple things because it's you don't feel it if you have a ten dollar bill on you, you're like, eh it's a little harder to spend it, you know. Yeah, and you get only 50 cent back. You like beep beep, you know, you start you start getting the multiple stuff because it's just a card, right? We're just right, right.
SPEAKER_01And and that's that's where the 70% come from. Because if you go out, if you go and say, for instance, that combo machine that I referring to with the the um any combo machine, it don't even have to be the full line, they authorize five dollars. People don't realize that when you do the car reader, authorize five dollars. So once you buy some chips, you see that and you you see that energy drink looking good. I want that energy drink, yeah. But then you're like, okay, I'm on lunch, so let me get us some Skittles too. So now, depending on pricing, let's just go generic, you just spent $3 on a um energy drink, $2 on candy, and then $150 on chips. That quick. So a little bit under $10, and that's how it rolls now. But if you had that $10 in hand with a vendor machine, you gotta put the uh and you're doing cash, you gotta put it in there, you get your drink, you get $7 back. Then you like, oh man, I got seven dollars now. Uh so but you do want them chips too, so you get the chips, and now you got oh man, now I got four, now I got five fifty. You're like, okay. I say the rest, I say the rest. I ain't gonna get the candy right now.
SPEAKER_03You don't want to lose all your money, it's gone.
SPEAKER_01It's tangible, you see it. So that's the good thing about it, but you know, it's also a good thing and a bad thing, it's a gift and a curse, which every car reader with any company, they get a piece of every transaction. Oh wow, every transaction, including you gotta pay them to even have the car reader. Damn, yeah. Um, so it's not a bad thing because you're getting 70% boost. Well, I would say 40 to 70 percent, it depends on where you're at uh geographically, but um you get um you have to pay ten dollars a month for the car reader just to have it, and that is because every car reader is a cellular device, every single one. Oh wow, it has its own cellular reception, and that's why you got to pay the ten dollars. I wonder why why am I paying you ten dollars? It's a set because you already paid for the uh the device, the device is like around uh $300 to $400 just to have a car reader, just to buy one.
SPEAKER_04Oh damn.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's a it's a long, it's so much stuff,
$300-$400 for the reader, $10/month service, 5.95% per transaction
SPEAKER_01but once you do that, you pay the ten dollars. Um then every transaction it's literally six percent. Damn. I thought you were gonna say three percent for card transactions, six percent five point nine five percent on every transaction. Damn. So so you know, six percent.
SPEAKER_03If you they're like Airbnb, man. They're taking a big chunk.
SPEAKER_01But think about it, you know, if you paying, if you're already taking the six per six cent on a dollar and you making six thousand dollars, you know, it's just it's and you only could at the at before when you only made three thousand before or two thousand before, would you do that? I would. Once you think about it, so say for instance, six thousand you made six thousand dollars instead of two thousand dollars, and let's just say they take five hundred dollars away from you, that's fifty, five hundred that you made instead of two.
SPEAKER_03So it's just that's I was gonna say this because all right, shifting gears a little bit over in South South, you know, there's vending for everything, not just snacks and drinks and stuff, of course, as you know. Over with this, these condos we always stay at in South Padre Island, they have a little bitty, a little bitty laundromat inside. It's part of the condos, right? You go and wash your clothes there and stuff. But you you I mean it has, I think it still has where you could put quarters and some of them, but it has pretty much a barcode, and you scan the you scan the I mean the QR code, right? You scan the QR code with your phone and it opens it either either you can download an app or it lets you pay using that QR code. You know what I'm saying? So you put you put like um I don't know five bucks, you process five dollars, and then you point to you type the number of the machine, and then it okay, boop, it's ready to go, and you can wash your clothes. So that don't use a card reader, but it uses like uh an app or or you could pay it directly using that QR code. I don't know if Vindam, I mean I'm sure some probably yes, it's that's what I was saying with the um um the the prepaid as an app where you can do it where it's a prepaid app. You just adding obstacles though, right?
SPEAKER_01It's called Mone X.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I believe it's money's, and you do prepaid on there, and that's where you scan it, and you'll get it still. You can still do what you need to do to get what you want without a card reader. Oh, well, that is now that is different. That is called um oh man, I forgot what it's called, but yes, you can. And um, it's a it's a little device where it's not a car reader, but it's a something, like you said, with an app where you scan it, and I literally it's in my head right now. I don't know what it's called. Uh I have to get it to you, but yes, that is the I guess the cost-efficient way of still having a car reader or access to other payments um options than a car reader. But I would say a car reader, but they still have their pricing.
SPEAKER_03That's true. You still still take a chunk, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir, but it's not as much as ten dollars and five point nine five percent.
SPEAKER_03See, with la to me, something like that works good in a laundromat because you you walk down there, you have your pile of clothes, you said you could wrestle with that for a couple minutes, no problem. But if you want a snack, you're like, Man, I ain't gonna download a damn app to buy a snack. You know, I just want to scan my card and get my snack, right?
SPEAKER_01Correct, you you don't want to have to deal with all that. It's and that's why car readers are so uh important and convenient now because it's just right there. Boop, you double click, like I I say for instance, an iPhone, you double click, you already got it on your wallet, it just says please present payment. Once you pick your thing, pick your what you want, processing, and it drops.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01Only thing that uh people hate about it is uh or dislike. Um, like I said, you get the authorization of five dollars automatically taken off, and you get only some chips that's $150, $1 or what have you. But that $5 don't fall off until a couple days, a couple days later.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01So you get five, it's a pre-authorization. Let me give you the uh comparison. Um, if you go get gas, what happens when you go get gas or with a card? Yeah, it holds it, yeah, you're right. Pre-authorization. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a pre-authorization of a dollar or what have you, five dollars, what have you, whatever that uh convenience store wants. And that it it that dollar is gonna stay on there until they see how much you spent, and then it falls off. It's the same thing. That's what I explain to my customers. When they say, Oh man, it charged me five dollars. I was like, No, sir, that's a pre-authorization. It will it will get back, it will come back to your car in a couple days, if not a day or two.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you have to explain it and be calm with it and literally get them an example because some people still don't understand it. I say, well, sir, it's it's sort of like if you go to a gas station, they do pre-authorization, that same thing. If you go to a hotel, they put holes on your car too. And theirs is very high, you know, sometimes it's $50 a day.
SPEAKER_03Rental cars, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You hold it on your card.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So for incidental. So it every everything is a hold. And the reason why it's a hold, um, because we would they we on both sides they want to make sure you have the funds. So if you have the funds and say, for instance, you it'll take that that 350, like I said with the example before, that 350 will be uh on back on your card in a couple days. But say, for instance, you did 850, then that pre-authorization will turn into 850 instead of five dollars. So it's basically just one to know, it's just a hold until they know what you spent and then they put it on there. They they post it.
SPEAKER_03Do you do the spiral? Do you still do the spiral vending machines, you know, where it where it like spirals a mouth? Now you know the biggest problem with those, right?
SPEAKER_01Of course, you've been doing yeah, it gets caught, it gets caught, man. And it's so, and and that's the thing, you gotta
Spiral vending mechanisms jam and cause vandalism
SPEAKER_01that's what I'm saying. That's another problem, that's another problem in the cell. Um, because when it gets caught, what you think? What you think people want to do?
SPEAKER_03People are pissed off and they want to bang the machine and tip it over and all that stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01Once that happens, who's at fault, to be honest with you? Say, for instance, if you didn't get your drink uh your snack and they try to push the machine to the point where it knocks everything else off. Oh shit. That's what happens all the time. So now you are losing big time because once they do that, everything is knocked off. So now people looking at it and seeing that this is knocked off, I know that's not gonna come out. I know that's not gonna come out. I know that's not gonna come out. So now you you in a detriment already with your side, so you gotta make sure your machines work, but at the same time, they shouldn't be vandalizing your machine. If you if you didn't get your snacks, okay. It's ways of you getting it. That's why I contact them immediately so that won't happen. You have to do that because if you don't, then your stuff will get vandalized. And I had a lot of things vandalized, and it wasn't even because of something getting caught, it's just because they wanted what they wanted.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01That makes sense, yeah. They want what they want, and they realize some places can't have cameras legally. Something's gonna come out, and that's what they're relying on. So it is losses in this business, but you have to calculate for them losses. For me, I calculate at least 20% of my losses. It has to be 20%. I'm talking about with everything. Um, if let's give me, I'll give you an example. When he did that, when that was real life, when a guy did that, bumped a machine, he bumped it so much that it hit the wall. This is a hospital, by the way.
SPEAKER_03Oh shit.
SPEAKER_01Rehab facility, hospital rehab facility. He bumped it to the point where he put a hole in the wall. Damn. Put a hole in the wall, but when he put the hole in the wall, me understanding uh HVAC, I wonder why it stopped working. And that's because I had to research and said, okay, the the compressor wasn't getting any air. So it was trying to suck up air to blow cold, excuse me, to blow cold air into the machine, and it didn't. So since it can't suck up cold air, the compressor broke. The whole apparatus was done. The whole cold cooling deck is done. Damn. So by him doing that one process, it cost me a thousand dollars. Damn. Because he wanted that, or if a drink gets caught, they want to shake it, and it cost me a thousand dollars. You gotta be prepared for it. And that's the thing.
SPEAKER_03So I'm like You got insurance on them?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I do. I do. I got insurance on them. Yeah, I got I got four I got four to five million dollars on them uh insurance.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that much?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03And why is that?
SPEAKER_01Just uh just accidental death
$4-5 million liability insurance for vending routes
SPEAKER_01and everything just like someone falls down on them or climbing it. Say if he pushed it and it rocked for it and it falls on him. And people don't understand this. I think it's like two or three deaths every year from vending machines. Oh yeah, just because being ignorant, just not doing what they're supposed to do, and just hey, got a little kid outside climbing on it, and little kids just inquisitive, they don't like it, something happened, and they just push it over. Five kids just push it over.
SPEAKER_04Oh, damn.
SPEAKER_01One kid just gets under the got his foot caught. Oh now you gotta get amputated type stuff. But that's just talking. But and that never happens, but it does happen. Like I said, it it happens.
SPEAKER_03It could happen, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Frequent, it could happen. So you gotta have insurance. You have to have insurance. It's literally mandatory for bigger spaces.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Like hospitals and stuff like that. It's mandatory. You have to have a COIC certificate of insurance. To have it.
SPEAKER_03Now, real quick, what about Airbnbs? Well, you think it would work in in an Airbnb? And what type of Airbnb? Like a one-bedroom Airbnb where couples are just coming in or one person or like a house Airbnb?
SPEAKER_01I would I would think um five, five-bedroom, maybe six-bedroom house where they rent for families, you can definitely put one in the garage. You put it in the garage, and um, say for instance, they just get in there. People don't feel like getting that back out and going to get something, they'd be like, oh, they got a vendor machine here. I can get a drink right now. Take a drink and just chill until, or if they there and people don't want to go out. Convenience is a convenience is one thing that is great. Why do you think DoorDash and DoorDash is thriving? Because it's so convenient, you don't have to leave your house. Well, and that goes for people that's either like what you say, people are lazy. That's what I'm saying. That's what I was just about to say. For people that's lazy or people that's busy, yeah, still the same. Yeah, people that don't want to go outside the house or do that extra mile to go get anything. Now you can door dash anything, you can door dash from Home Depot, you can DoorDash from anywhere. Oh, I need a screwdriver. Let me home, let me DoorDash that it's just so DoorDash is just so is popular. Now I know Uber trying to get into it and things like that. Um, those it's so important now because of laziness, the convenience of it, and and whoever foresaw this in the future, a smart guy. Smart guy. Because as we get older and older, and people and these kids and things like that, everybody just get lazy and lazy, and they think they want that. I want it now. Now it's gonna be to the point where you got drones dropping it down, like um Walmart do. Yeah, I have a Walmart go in there, take a drone, drop down medicine or something that's light, they're gonna want it now. I want it now. It's gonna be to the point people teleporting stuff over here. I'm just saying, but that's just it might happen, man.
SPEAKER_03Like Star Trek.
SPEAKER_01That's down the right, exactly. Star Trek. So, but um, yes, it's all about convenience. Like, yeah, if you put it in uh Airbnb, I wouldn't, if you say one to two bedrooms or three bedrooms, it wouldn't be too much. Um it wouldn't, it wouldn't make too much uh revenue because I I think it's gonna be one person out of that group that would go get it. But if you have um a six to seven, like families and stuff coming in, and um say for instance, like the World Cup is coming here. If you have them passplitz or whatever, if they if you're using it for that, or if you have Airbnb somewhere else, that would be great because they're gonna they don't want to go nowhere. They don't know where things are at. So they got that right there inside. You give them instructions on how to do it, you'll make money. For sure.
SPEAKER_03Now you mentioned putting them in the garage, but and and why is that instead of putting it like front and center in a kitchen or something?
SPEAKER_01If you put it in the kitchen, it'll be hard to get it to the kitchen.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. They're big, they're big machines.
SPEAKER_01Yes, even if the smaller ones that you're looking at, it's still hard to get it through the door frame.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow, yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_01And then you're gonna have to get it out door frame. Now you gotta look at stairs. You gotta look at how many stairs it is. Is it a porch? You gotta pick it up. It's it's so many variables. But with a garage, it's made to drive up to.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01And you just take it off, put it in the garage, you got a plug in the garage, plug it up, it's just easier.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01Say for instance, it doesn't work. How easy it is to unplug it, take all the stuff out, put it on the thing, and sell it, or whatever, or put it where you need to put it. It's so simple. You want to make this business simple, don't make it hard for yourself.
SPEAKER_03Now I was thinking too. So I do provide washers and dryers at my house, Airbnb's, you know.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03And a lot of the apartment ones, too, actually. Um I mean, they come with the units, man. I know, I know. And that's what I was thinking. Could I sell little packets of detergent and little packets of of um dryer sheets inside the vending machines?
SPEAKER_01Yes, you can do more than that. You can sell a variety of them. You can do packets. Um, you can also, like I said, you can do also other things. But can it be with the food?
SPEAKER_03It can't be in the same thing as the food one.
SPEAKER_01Um, if the packaging is good, yeah, because I I would say this, I I do hot hands in there. In my diesel shop, I do hot hands. What's it's uh things that warms your hands up,
Selling detergent packets and dryer sheets in the same machine
SPEAKER_01warms your hands up because it'd be cold outside.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like I said, it's it's it's a niche thing where you want to continue to provide what they need. Say, for instance, uh, I also put um emergency packets in there. People cold and stuff like that, they coughing, but get your emergency pack, drink it. You provide that convenience for them.
SPEAKER_04Nice.
SPEAKER_01If they say this is what we need, a liquid IVs, just whatever they need, you provide it for them. As long as it's in a good packaging and you know when it expires and things like that, and take it out, you're good.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01Good to go. You want to be different. Yes, snacks and drinks and stuff like that, that's okay, that's typical. But what can you provide that everybody else can't provide that they will want to buy?
SPEAKER_03And where do you buy your stuff at? Like Costco, Sam's, or what?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh currently I'm at Sam's right now, but then I I'm I want to keep comparable pricing. So I want I'm I'm I'm in the process of getting a Costco membership, and not just the Costco membership, it's the Business Solutions Center where you can go. It's a big place where it's for businesses.
SPEAKER_03Oh, no shit. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's out in um uh north north Texas. I think it's in around Addison Irving location, and it's it's literally called Business Solutions or Business Center, where you go in there and you can buy more in bulk. You know, you got Sam's is in bulk, but then you got more bulk. Like if you got 50, 60 machines, you can buy in bulk instead of just buying and packaging bigger packaging. So um, I'm thinking about doing that. I don't like growing too fast because then that's when stuff gets messy. When you do grow too fast, like that's why I haven't um kind of marketed because I got a degree in marketing, I know how to get this done. I have a degree in marketing, and I'm very good in finance. Um, so a financial background, so I know how to do that side. I know how to get in marketing social media and get to where I need to get, but I really feel that at that time, at the time, I just was like, I don't want to do that, grow too fast. You grow too fast, things start to it it start to deteriorate because you buying 16 machines, you put all of them in there, but you didn't realize that you got to buy product for that. Or you're gonna get a car reader. Oh, yeah, you know you're gonna have to pay a percentage on all of that. What if that machine breaks down? What if somebody pushed that joker, like I said, pushes, they they push it. Now you gotta pay a thousand dollars for a compressor or a full cooling deck. Where is that gonna come from? Somebody mess up a coil, somebody uh you need a new bill acceptor because um somebody stuck a dollar in there that kind of jammed in and it was that's another thing you gotta deal with too. Then your coin may go out, or something like electrical go out on it. You have to know what's what parameter, what you can handle. You gotta know what you can handle. Because if you get over your head, go uh it gets too hard, then now you kind of panic. You kind of panic because so now you gotta sell one of the machines. Keep in mind you gotta move them. That's a big business now. I think that's uh I think that's one of the things that I'm thinking about doing is starting to move as well. Because think about it, the mar you it doesn't margins don't matter at all. You just move and get paid. And it's only a couple people that moves in the DFW. Yes, and I know one guy that I use currently, he probably controls 65 to 70 percent of DFW. Damn, yes, yes, everybody knows him, everybody. I'm not gonna say his name, but everybody knows him. So he's booked up sometimes. It takes him a week to get you to to what you need to get done. Damn, and the reason why he do that because logistically he has to make it make sense. He can't go to and he's available, that's what I'm saying. The convenience, he he'll go all the way to McKinney, but then you got one in Wax Ahatchie, and he'll do both, but he's like, okay, if I got one in Mansfield, I'm gonna do Mansfield and Wax Ahatchie together. I'ma do McKinney and Plano and all that together. So if somebody keeps coming in and they telling him, hey, I need you to do this, this, this, he'll logistically put it where he needs to put it and then say, I can do it this day. So but he's yes, and this is no exaggeration. He is probably making um I would say about 250 to maybe 400,000 a year.
SPEAKER_03Just moving machines.
SPEAKER_01Just moving machines.
SPEAKER_03That's a good business right there.
SPEAKER_01Just moving machines, and he got a um, he got an assistant, but you know, it's it's easy for him because he's been doing it for years. So he'd been, I think he said he'd been doing it for almost 20, 30 years, so it's easy for him. He got multiple trucks and he just get it
Machine moving services: one guy controls 65-70% of DFW
SPEAKER_01done. And I said, if I'd start it, I don't want 70% because that takes up too much time. Give me about 15%, 15, maybe 20, and I take about a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of his work away, I'm good. You know, so that's how I look at it. And then that's the box, and and and it will be a box truck, and just take some of the market. I don't want all of it, I just want some of it, a piece of it. So I can continue to run how it runs. And if it gets bigger for me, yes, but I don't want to take away from him. But if it get bigger for me, that's great. Just like with the vending industry, I don't want to take all of it, I just want a piece of it. And once you get a piece of it and let it run, then you let that run, then I do this and then I do that. You're looking at a million-dollar company, um, uh million-dollar LLC or companies, uh umbrella of companies, and you're good. And you want to diversify so you don't have one egg, all your eggs in one basket.
SPEAKER_04Right, right.
SPEAKER_01So, say for instance, if my vending stuff is being bad, is going a little lower than usual, my moving business will take uh take care of that.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01I literally just purchased a literally just purchased. That's why once I get off the phone, I gotta handle handle the business. But um, yeah, so um I literally just purchased uh a party rental business, chairs, tables, um kits, all that, and and it's upscale, it's it's commercial. I want to go more commercial, not residential, but I don't mind doing residential, but commercial has a better margin and upside. So all brand new equipment, and I I try to label all mine to go in an umbrella and it works out and together. If I get a box truck with a lift gate and I do it for my party rental business or event rental business, what else can I do with that box truck? I can move machines. Okay, when I move, I can do a box truck and move move machines. What else can I do?
SPEAKER_03You can move Airbnbs.
SPEAKER_01That's true too. That's true too. I didn't even think about that, but I'm looking at the the spectrum that I have. I can I don't have to pay him no more. I can move my own machines whenever I want to, how I want to, anytime I want to. Right, and all of that is all together. So you want your your businesses to sing together, you don't want them to have solos everywhere. So you want to, and and that's I I know I'm talking a lot, like in a business wise, and it's not vending no more, but I'm just talking totality, like you want it to be in sync with all together. You know, you want to make sure that that happens so um it's beneficial to all your businesses. You want to be a complement to your business, all of them. You want everything that you do complement your business.
SPEAKER_03I heard a story a long time ago when I was a teenager working at sorry, I know we have to get off, but no, no, it's all good. Working at uh McDonald's of all places when I was a teenager, right? And it was an old manager there, and you know, he dirty old man. He just he's funny though, right? Old white dude. But he said he he um I don't know, he told me all these stories about you know him and his buddies had businesses in the past and they did like um some bars in Dallas or whatever. And he said, um, he said you didn't know you don't know it, but the the mafia runs all that stuff, the the um the pool tables, all the stuff that goes into a bar. He goes, it's called city vending. This is back then, he goes, and it's run by the mafia. And he goes, now back then, he goes, you didn't have to you didn't have to get your pool tables and your whatever shuffleboard or stuff from them. He goes, but a coincidence will happen if you bought if you put your own in there or whatever, there'd be like a bar fight broken out inside your place and they'd destroy all that stuff. Yes, you sound like yeah, that was a that was a I don't know, that was city vending. I always remembered that he goes, yeah, it was
Businesses should complement each other under one umbrella
SPEAKER_03run by the mafia. You know, that's still here, right? What's that?
SPEAKER_01City vending.
SPEAKER_03No, I don't know. Nothing. I just remember that story from back then.
SPEAKER_01It's a city vending, I didn't know that story, so it's a city vending, probably about 20 minutes away from me. Big building. Oh wow, nice big building. It looks like it's I haven't been in yet, but it's it's look nice. But you saying uh the mobile, I don't want to be in there no more. I'm good. I like my little business over. Let me take care of that. And yeah, yeah, I can have it over there. I don't want a pool table. Matter of fact, I already got a pool table. I bought it myself. I already bought myself a pool table. I'm good. I got fools ball and everything in my house. I'm good. I don't need pool table. I don't need it at all. Anything y'all got going on, just keep it over there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, man. The vending yeah, the vending industry back then. I don't know about now, but yeah, man.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting, man.
SPEAKER_03Your stuff would get messed up if you didn't buy from them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just like with um, you remember Roadhouse? I remember Roadhouse that movie, they didn't want that to happen, so they started tearing up the bars and stuff like that, fighting because you know they didn't want it to thrive, right?
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_01He had his own business, they had other things that they was doing. So when they was saying, they didn't care, they fighting every day. And and I think his name was Dalton, he tried to clean it up, uh-huh, you know, and you know, he ran into all that aka kind of mob ties. It was a mob ties, yeah. It was like, man, you better do whatever we say, or this, this, this. You can go now, and this he said, I'm not going. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna show y'all that we're gonna make this town a better place. He had to go through a lot of things, but he got it done, and that's always a good thing. It takes a one person, takes one person to kind of change the whole dynamic, and he was that one person. I guess you could say Kobe, he was the Kobe, change that dynamic, like you mentioned earlier, exactly and taking them shots to go full circle, practicing and always practicing and doing what he needs to do to get it get into the win column.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01But he never gave up, though. You know, they had some loser records while he was there. He was tired of losing. So it was one time where they thought about tracking him, but they stoke with him too. So next thing you know, they started winning championships. Yep, that's just how it works, man. You gotta stick in, you gotta stick in, put your feet in the ground and just stick with it. That's the only thing that I would tell people, just stick with it. I know you're gonna, even if you get into some debt and things like that, it's healthy debt. You know, don't be scared of debt, it's healthy debt. And once you and once you think about it, in a vending industry, you own everything. Well, me in particular, but you can also do leasing with uh big companies like Coca-Cola and stuff, but it's so many parameters and things that you gotta do with them. You gotta buy the product from them, and they're gonna put a upsell on it and things like that. You got to buy the product from them, you have to. It's an exclusivity contract. You can't go to Sam, you can't go to Costco, you can't go get the best value because they say, hey, we're giving you the machine for free. So you got to buy from us, and we're gonna do it every monthly. Say, for instance, you don't even need it. I don't even need it because I didn't sell that much this uh this month. Well, we're gonna send it to you anyway.
SPEAKER_02Oh damn.
SPEAKER_01I don't like that type of contract. I like full control on what I'm doing, right?
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_01You know, that's like saying with your passport, it's the government saying, hey, you only can have four people in there at a time unless we and we get to schedule the other two that can go in there. And they tragic and they doing terrible things. You like, no, I want to have control of all of my uh units, so that's the same thing, and I don't I don't want that. Uh and a little healthy debt is not a bad thing when you own everything, and then you just work towards paying that debt off. That's just how it is. That's how most of the um it's called leverage, you know. Like you said in your podcast last time, that's how um all the billionaires and stuff like that, that's how they do it. They leverage the things, they leverage everything, you know. Um, especially Elon Musk leverage for sure. You know, and Jeff Bezos leverage, they don't have to pay taxes because they um provide something for the world, you know, like the electricity with uh Elon Musk, and then Jeff Bezos had Amazon and he bought Whole Foods to be able to get a tax credit. So it's certain things like that. And well, with us, we ain't that big, but we have to find other things, you know, mileage and and I don't know how would that work with you? How would that work with you? Do you can you write off? I don't know how you can can you write off rooms when it's a business?
SPEAKER_03Write off rooms? What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01Like, I'm I don't know. I'm just like um or even in a tax purpose, since you're in a um real estate space, see, I don't know anything about that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it'd be like profit and loss, you know. It'd be like what what are my expenses at that house and how much of am I profiting? It would it'd be more like that profit and loss.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And okay.
SPEAKER_03So now I get to write off all the real estate stuff, you know, all the taxes and depreciation. I get to write off all that.
SPEAKER_01Right, right, okay, depreciation. That's what I was looking for. Okay.
SPEAKER_03But but the rents is just like normal rents.
SPEAKER_01So if it's a depreciation, you get to write off per house, or it's in the total.
SPEAKER_03Per house.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. Like, and that's that's that's what me. Like with what the machines I have, I have I think roughly around 40 machines. So I get to kind of um go off depreciation because they get older every year.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But also you want to be able, and and and I know I heard you talk about this on the podcast too, with um the the new. Coolers, the smart coolers. The ones where you can open a door. You pay and you can open the door. Smart coolers. Yeah, that's what they call smart coolers.
SPEAKER_03You pay and you open the door.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you could pay. I I think it was either you or Mikey was talking about it, where you can you um tap your phone and you get to open up and grab whatever you want.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the smart. Yes. Because yeah, he was talking about in the because I have at my at my job too. Uh-huh. It's a it's a whole area. It looks like a little store, and you just grab and you have the cold stuff and you grab and then you check yourself out and you pay for everything. There's no worker there, or nothing, you know, you and but have cameras pointing at everything.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. And then you said you don't want to get fired. And cause yeah, because you don't want to get fired off of uh some bag of chips.
SPEAKER_03It works at that spot, it works at places like that where people are making pretty good money and there's cameras and they don't want to get fired for a bag of chips.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, you don't want that, but at smaller places, say for instance, um at at little places that they don't care, yeah, like they don't care. You can and and it's so many ways. I'm thinking about getting into it, but I'm doing my research before I jump into that because I've seen a lot of people that kind of lost on that because of it's still new, it's a new space. Um, and I can give you an example. One person said that a guy did a prepaid card. He had five to ten dollars on there, but he grabbed twenty to thirty dollars worth of product. But who's gonna police that? And it's at the hospital, right? You'll never see that man again.
SPEAKER_04No problem.
SPEAKER_01So where can you get the money from? No, it's it's like it's certain things that you gotta think about before getting into the space. And where does it go back to? You have to be willing to lose that 20%. If it goes higher than 20%, you have a problem. You gotta, because I I I talked to a business person that said you gotta be willing to lose 20%. He had three subways. He said you had to you have to be willing to lose 20% of everything and maximize 80% of your profits.
Smart coolers increase theft risk without careful placement
SPEAKER_01That's the highest you're gonna get. Just max try to get closer to 80% of your profits as you can get and as you can get. But 20% is repair all the other stuff, you know, the things, losses, stuff like that. So that's how I kind of base my business off of my business model off of is try to maximize 80%. And if I get into the smart cooler business, that profit will go down. That that percentage will go down. Um, it'll be more in the 25% of loss.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01So that's why I'm trying to see the new technologies that's going on before I make the decision to just step over to it. So I might do one for one of my hospitals and see how it does. And if it does well, then I will be more inclined to go and trust. It's all about trust. That's what it is. If you open a machine, uh you're doing a card, okay. I trust that you're gonna take what you need, and that person is trusting that you will just take out whatever it is that they got. It's supposed to be it's a two-way street. Yeah. And if they if that street on one side, because we taking the most liability when it comes to that, because we got all these snacks in here. Imagine if he opened it up and he grabbed something, but then another person didn't pay for nothing and they grabbing stuff. So now you're like, okay, it's on camera, cool. But then you have to go through litigation and all of that. You gotta call the police, you gotta talk to the property managers and say, hey man, how are we gonna handle this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So now you have to put it in the clause of your contracts now. Any product, any loss of uh any of that nature has to come out of the hospital or whatever place that you're putting it at. And now, what does that do to you? It's not a it it's not a more of a convenience, it's not a good thing for them no more. Right. Because now they're saying, okay, we're gonna have to be liable now, and that's a that's a problem sometimes. Oh, yeah, big time. People people like vending machines that they don't have to, you don't want to, I don't want to hear from nobody. If I have a vending machine, I don't want to have to contact them, they don't have to contact me. Besides, is everything okay? Yes, besides them calling me and saying, hey, it's wonderful, we happy. Um, let's do another year, or let's do another two years. That's the only time you want to talk to them, right? Right. Anything else is gonna be a problem. Oh, somebody got it stuck, something happened to this. Why you ain't feeling it on time? This, this, this. It's always gonna be a gripe instead of a praise. Good job, this, good job that that's never gonna happen. So you don't want to hear from them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's the best thing.
SPEAKER_01Because it's nothing that I, you know what I mean. Like I if I'm doing everything I possibly can, it the contract was enough. Bam. You do what you do, what need to do, I do what I need to do, and I don't you don't have to worry about me. That's the best thing. When a company don't have you got a vendor machine in there, and they don't have to worry about you. They can handle the met they can have you can handle it through the person that lost, right? Right, whatever it was, right? And that's the good thing.
SPEAKER_03That's like uh you never hear the names of the linemen in football until they make a mistake, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. They're not positional players where the dining.
SPEAKER_03They don't get the praise.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they don't get the praise. Now he's starting to do it now because they realize these offensive linemen are opening up lanes for people. They realizing one running back was at this team and he had 1,500 yards, but then he was with this team and he only got five to six hundred yards. What's the difference? It's the lineman. So now they have to praise the lineman a little bit more and let them know that okay, this is why he was a thousand-yard rusher because of this. Yes, he's talented, but he had the same talent over here. So what happened? Perfect example, Ezekiel Elliott over here with Dallas line. Dallas always have a big line, like they always have it. He was a thousand-yard rusher a couple years in a row, but when he went to the Patriots, he was not good. Right. Patriots don't have linemen and stuff like that that really are back then. Yeah, yes, back then. Like they didn't they didn't care about that, they cared about structure, they cared about the back end of defense, and of course, you got Tom Brady, but that was that was after, I think I believe that was after Tom Brady. So um, it's the difference in this, like you have to give everybody a shine. And they they also go to Pro Bowls, too. People don't know that you have Pro Bowl linemen and all that. You have Pro Bowl for everything, so they should get the shout out. And to be honest with you, people don't know them the highest paid, one of the highest paid uh positions, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And they don't know it, protect that quarterback, yeah.
SPEAKER_01They just don't know it. Running back made it the lowest paid. Well, kickers.
SPEAKER_02Kickers, yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01Kickers are the lowest paid because they feel like they can be expendable. But as you can see with Vinatieri and all Vanderjack and all these good kickers, and the one that's for Dallas right now, they are great kickers, so they deserve to get paid. But um, he they're not expendable because they can win or lose a game. You can work all we could work hard this whole time, and then it's up to the kicker, and he can win or lose the game for you. He could be the savior, he could be the hero, or get this man off our team. We don't need him. So, but yeah, that's just how it is, man.
SPEAKER_03Cool, man. Thanks for the chat. Um, I do think this would make a great podcast. If you want to let me put, let us put it out, but you know, it's up to you.
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, uh, I can't.
SPEAKER_03I you gave us a lot of good information, great information.
SPEAKER_01Let me get um, let me get let me give, let me talk to let me talk to um myself for a second.
SPEAKER_03I'll send you a copy either way.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, I definitely wanted um, I I want to send it to my mom because she was a big integral part of this.
SPEAKER_03Cool.
SPEAKER_01Because I was to be honest with you, I was scared to jump out there because, and I'm just being honest, I'm a minority and I was working, I was a financial director. Think about I'm a minority and I'm financial director making six figures easy, but I'm parlaying to do a business that I don't know if it's gonna be, you know, it's it's gonna be what it is of six figures. And she was like, and this is a lot of information, but my mom is a police officer for 35 years. Oh wow, yes, Little Rock police officer for 35 years. She's gonna retire in another year or so. But um, and now she used my motivation too. I want to be able to, you know, and that's the reason why I work at ATT Stadium, is just when she comes down, I want to take care of whatever she wants. Like, hey mom, what you want to do? And it don't come out of my business. So that's I work hard. She knows I work hard. She the one that gotta tell me to go on vacation. I don't go on vacations. I haven't been on since this last vacation that I went. The last vacation before that was 10 years.
SPEAKER_04Damn.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't go on vacation. I work, work out, and go home. But back to her, she's very integral part because she said um she dreamt of it. She had a dream where this happened because I talked about it. I talked to her about it, and it started in Little Rock. I had one machine in Little Rock, and she the one that helped me go get it. In Little Rock. And then next thing you know, I stopped it for a second to move here to Texas and get myself acclimated and stuff like that. And then after that, she um she just dreamed me. She was like, Yeah, I had a vision that you did this, this, this, this, and this. It's all came true. But when I was at the um as a financial director, I was like, hey mom, think about doing this and this and this, because it was it was her vision in mind. And I was she was like, Do you have your six months of emergency funds? And I said, Yeah. And she said, Do you have this? Do you have that? She just asked me all these questions, and I said yes. And she was like, then I don't know why you're asking me. What are you waiting for? Like, make the decision. You know, you won't know until you do it. And that's one big thing that people don't understand. You won't know until you do it. Make the decision. And I called my uncle, but my uncle was just a second, you know how you got a second person that he's a business person, and I was like, uh, talk to him. But I knew I was gonna do it off my mom, and I end up doing it, and I'm making just as much as if I made there. And it and it's continuing to be exponential. You know, with the financial director, I was kind of capped. That's all it is, there's nowhere to go. So with this, it's exponential. You can keep going. So how many machines do you got? 42. Holy smokes. 42. I have 40, I have 49. Yeah, yeah. But I've been um selling to get um to start this other business. Um, and now I I'm trying to diversify
42 machines total, selling some to diversify into event rentals
SPEAKER_01myself. I don't want to just be in the vending industry. I want different avenues that I can make money off of.
SPEAKER_03Different streams of income, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, multiple streams of income. And I'm doing this with one of my my girlfriends, so um, she does the event thing and she knows how to do a little thing. She did on the side as well, so I thought that I can parlate it into that and we do it together. I got the business side, she got um all the creative side and able to do the balloon stuff and the rentals and stuff. I got the muscle, I can set it up, things like that. And it made so much sense, and so that's why I sold a few of them. But it's nothing to go and get uh buy a couple more, and the thing is, I would say this too, with me, I know how to fix a machine. So other people, it's like cars. A lot people don't know how to fix cars, so they go to a mechanic. People don't know how to fix machines, so they have people to come out to fix them. So when I look for machines, it's different than if somebody first starting out to look for machines because they don't know how to fix them. Say, for instance, the machine is $500, they was like, okay, Bill accepted this, this needs this, this, this. I was a new person, they'd be like, I don't want that because I don't I don't know how to do that, and I don't want to start my business off like that. Me, oh, that's a diamond in the rough. Let me grab that, fix it up, got it for $500 when it's worth $2,000.
SPEAKER_03Nice.
SPEAKER_01I did that several times. Several times. So it's just like real estate, man.
SPEAKER_03Fix your uppers, you make more money.
SPEAKER_01It literally goes hand in hand. You might think it's different, but it's literally the same because it's the same business model at the end of the day. You owning something, you providing a service, they buying it from you or renting it from you, and that's it. And you just make rinse and repeat and continue to make sure that it's um a good business that people will want to go to.
SPEAKER_03So it's a recap, you think for a newbie, their first that maybe their first best choice would be to get something turnkey so you can learn the ropes from something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you start a turnkey first, but you when you do a turnkey, you gotta know to keep the money in house, you gotta know what you're doing first. So I would um advise a person that's starting off, buy a turnkey, not too much. Don't buy one that's a route that's $12,000, $13,000. You don't want that. Yeah, you don't want that. You want to do something that's around $2,000, $3,000, something like that. Sometimes people sell for $1,500 because they just want to get off of it. You know, because they either moving, you know, or they have some hardships that they can't do anymore. Like I had I was in the middle of the process of buying a couple things, um, a couple locations. He had 18 locations, and because he had the hardship and he was selling it for a little a lower price, but I end up starting this business instead to diversify. But and then he had some older machines that I didn't want to deal with because I wanted to go into the new age with newer machines.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Because once you got older machines, now you gotta sell them off, and then you you know it's already depreciated to the point where it's not worth this much. Only to a person that's new, and I wouldn't sell to a person that's new like that unless they really want to work on it and stuff like that. So um, I didn't want to pinhole myself into that. So um, but yeah, they should do a turnkey and learn how to do everything on the machine. If I would do it, if I if I the advice I would give them, they would learn how to do everything special with a bill accept a coin mag. Um, also look at your pricing. Pricing is very big. You don't want, like I said, you don't want to alienate them, but you don't want to lose money. So you got to find that sweet spot, and it's not as
Pricing strategy: find the sweet spot between gouging and losing money
SPEAKER_01easy as people think because they will complain if it's too high, but they won't complain when it's too low. I'm just being honest, they will not deal. Oh my god. Um, um uh um and I had to deal with that. It was like an energy drink for 250. That's how it was gone, and I was like, Oh, I need to, and that was at the beginning, yeah. Yeah, so I had to realize like I gotta go look at pricing now.
SPEAKER_03That's how much you paid the store, 250.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 250. And but that's the thing at the at convenience stores, you it'll run you more than that now, and even with chips, like say, for instance, the same night last year.
SPEAKER_03Man, they've been going up like crazy, man.
SPEAKER_01It's 269. Some of them I just heard from a guy, he said now they're charging 310.
SPEAKER_04Man, that is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01And my machines, I won't go past 175, but generally it's 150, and that's it. So that's a convenience. You don't want to put 250 or $3 because it's not a convenience anymore. No, if that's the case, I'll just go to the gas station and get you know, blah blah blah blah blah. Get get me a uh sandwich, a literally a sandwich or a salad and be good. You want to keep them there. That is the benefit of, say, for instance, any any business. That's the benefit of having convenience of a vending machine. The customer, I mean, the the customer, you want the customer to be able to get something quick, even on a 30-day, I mean 30-minute, a 30-minute lunch. You want them to be able to go to your vending machine, grab chips, soda, and uh, and um something sweet, and sit down and still have 25 minutes. The other upside of the other bad part about it, you don't want them to be able to have to go out, get in a car, go to the gas station, grab something to eat. Now they got five to ten minutes. Now they're gonna be griping and say, I only got 10 minutes, I'm gonna stay to 20 more minutes because I could tell them I had to go get this, this, this. No, because and then the employer wants the person to stay on hand so they don't have to leave. So when they need them, they can just be right there. They can come back soon, quick. Say, for instance, with the with the with the ice storm right now, um, with the snow and all the uh the winter mix at the hospital, it's gold, it's perfect because they don't have to leave. So now I got cup noodles in there, crustables, cup noodles for lunch, crustables for the morning. If they want to get some chips, I got all types of drinks. I even got protein drinks in there for people that literally want to drink protein and still stay healthy. Everything is in there. I have a wide assortment just to make sure that I reach all my audience and customers. That's what you would want. So now nobody has to leave. So that's that's what a real convenience is. Oh, yeah, and that's all that's what it's all about. It's easy to do it, it's just that you gotta listen and do the research. I every time I go there, I listen to people. Hey, can you put this in there? Oh, yeah, I'll put it in there. And if it goes, it goes. If it doesn't, I take it out, and that's okay. And he's gonna be like, What happened to it? It never sold. You didn't come and get it, and I just joke with him. If he said, I'm gonna get it next time, and then he gets it next time and it gone. That's how you make the money and make the customer happy. Yeah, and that's what it's all about, man. It's all about happiness of the person, of the customer.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna try it out, man. I'm gonna try it out in one of my pad splits first and see how it goes.
SPEAKER_04Do you want to do one or two?
SPEAKER_03I just want to try here here's here's what I'm envisioning. So one of my pad splits is kind of far away from a store, you know. I'm saying Walmart is way far away from it. Okay, now they got maybe a dollar tree, but you still quite a distance. But um, whereas the other pad split closer to me, that one has like a neighborhood Walmart walking distance, you know. They could walk to a neighborhood Walmart, it's like one block away.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03So I think it would work at the at the one that don't have nothing close by. I think it would work better there, you know. I mean, it might work at both spots, you know, people are lazy, like we were talking about, but I do want to start one over there in in Arlington where I have a spot that's not really close to a store, not walking distance to a store.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So it would the convenience factor would be huge.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I definitely can help you with that. I can like I said, I'm gonna send you a couple machines that you should look into. And it'll be price-wise, it'll be good, and it'll be and it'll be compact, and it'll have everything you need to supply your six people in your um your passplits. Cool. So, and and I will do that as soon as we get off um uh researching and get it to you, and we can kind of look at it and go from there. And it'll be it'll be cost efficient too. Awesome. Because I'm trying to give you something that's five, six thousand dollars. That's not how that works. Because you are in the phase of seeing if it worked.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01So I will let you know, hey, these is around this much, and I think that'll be good for you.
SPEAKER_03What you're gonna say? I'll tell you something right now. If you want another stream of income, and this show will help you get it. If if you if you let us post this show, there's gonna be people wanting to hit you up. You can charge them a hundred dollars a phone call and then set them up and and get them help them with some advice, get them on their way. You know, saying that's another source of income. I mean, people I people would pay that to talk to you, Steven.
SPEAKER_01The funny thing is, I just thought about that this year of like um consulting and giving advice on how to start. 30-minute phone call, 100 bucks. My girlfriend said the same. My girlfriend said the same thing, and I was like, I'm not, I said I didn't think I was that person because I was giving it free at first. Like, I'm I'm talking about every time I was thinking, I literally have about 20 numbers in my phone about they saying, Oh, I want to start it. Can you help me? Can it start? I want to start it, I want to start it. What would I do about this, this, this? And I was just giving it free. And I was like, and I and I and I would talk to them for an hour or so or something like that, and then they end up not doing it at all.
SPEAKER_03None of them do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and I and I gave it to you.
SPEAKER_03So it's it's it's money for you, and check it out too. Someone that's gonna actually ask you for your advice. If they got skin in the game, if they're actually putting a hundred dollars of their hard earned money, yeah, chances are greater that they're gonna actually do something.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I agree, I agree. Uh Steven, I agree. Man, it just was I see now. I I literally at first I was just giving it free because I just like if if I was them, I would want it, but now you gotta see
Keep customers on-site with cup noodles and crustables
SPEAKER_01you, it's like working out. If you give them free advice on working out, they'd be like, Oh, it's free. I don't have to do I ain't gonna do it. I just heard them. But if you put in if I because I've been a personal trainer before, yeah, so when I told them it's gonna cost this much and I did it over a little bit, they was like, Oh, you costing that this much? Okay, but I show results, and then they will come every day instead of saying nah I can miss today because it's free. And I and I and I hate how the world kind of works like that, but hey, we get up off of uh money, we get up off of money. Well, I just $100 for this session. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna do something. And I know a guy that literally was charging, overcharging for sure, and he would give the money a portion of it back if they came for the workout.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01How smart that was, say, for instance, he said, okay, I would only charge about a hundred dollars, but I'm gonna charge two hundred dollars. And if they come every session, two hundred dollars a week or whatever, and if they come five days a week, I will give them fifty to seventy-five dollars of that back. Damn, because all he wanted was a hundred. So it started, and and people start coming and they start getting their back, and it was just a good business plan. I was like, That's that's that's smart.
SPEAKER_03Motivation, yeah.
SPEAKER_01People was coming. I mean, they came every day, and then guess what? They win twice, they got money back and they lost weight.
SPEAKER_03There you go.
SPEAKER_01Think about it, it was genius, it was genius. And I said, Man, that was back when I was in Little Royal. I was like, That was genius, yeah. Oh, because that was the motivating factor to get people in the gym. If you're gonna pay that, I'm I'm gonna guarantee you lose weight and you get money back. Cool, people love money, people love getting money back, they love money, we all love money.
SPEAKER_03So, if we actually do post this show, uh, I you know, I can put your information on the on the show notes so people could reach out to you and then and hit you up if we do post the show. Like I said, it's up to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I will let you know for sure. Um, I don't know if I said anything personal or not, you know what I'm saying? Like, did I say something that'll kind of give away certain things? Because I'm always this is me and you talking, you know, and that's what I did. And I was like, Oh, is it gonna be official or not? I just want to talk to you and help you and whatever I can do for you. You know, that's what my whole big thing was.
SPEAKER_03But um, and you can listen to it and say, hey, take that out, take that out. And I'm trying to. Oh, see, okay, yeah, cool, cool.
SPEAKER_01Um, I can yeah, I will do that. I will listen to it and go from there, Stephen. I would really do appreciate it. Hopefully, I helped you. I hope I was a benefit to your um journey on this past split and doing the vending.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you helped me in more ways than one, not just the vending machine, but like the motivation, you know, the the entrepreneur motivation too.
SPEAKER_01Man, that's that's crazy because everybody say that about me. I just I just I just say I just talk, man. I just I really believe it's enough money and enough opportunity out here for everybody. Everybody. It's and that's what I talk to Mike about. And I tell him, man, hey man, you're doing a great job. And and take all the hatred out of it, take all this. Oh, I'm hating on him, he's doing this better, he's doing this. Man, I want like-minded people around me, people that we moving forward, getting better every single time. Hey, you need help with this? Oh, I can do that. I can take, oh, have you thought about this? Let's do that, just like you just did with me. Hey, man, charge them $100 for a 30-minute phone call. I never thought about it. I I I talked about it a couple times, but I was like, uh, but now I see that you're saying it, it's I'm I'm taking it more important. You know, I'm I'm taking it in a little bit more. I'm like, okay, maybe I need to think this through a little bit more. And I appreciate you on that. Like I said, I appreciate you as well. Oh, thank you, man. Appreciate you. Hopefully, hopefully, you find me as a asset instead of a liability. I I want to be your asset, and if you you can call me about anything, and I if I can call you about anything. I'm trying to build my portfolio now because at first, I like I said, I was work, work out, go home. I was in the I was in the trenches. I was just grinding. Now it's time for me to go out. And Micah tell you that I was the outgoing person. That's why I moved from Little Rock because I knew everybody. I got the help from everybody. Everybody knows me. They know I just knew everybody. And my mom was like, You, your personality and how you do things is too small for this place, so you need to kind of move into a bigger market. And that was the reason, specific reason. So I did it, and I just I grinded for a long time. Now it's time for me to kind of flourish back out and do what I knew I need to do, networking and stuff like that. So um you encourage me to kind of do more of that, and hopefully I can kind of go hand in hand and talk to you about that as well. It can be on camera, also off-camera, but I'm not a camera person, but it is what it is. Um, I just never thought, you know what I mean? Like you never thought. How how did you think that you would go into this business of podcasting and things like that? That's what I want to know.
SPEAKER_03You know, I was I was fascinated with the with the business. I I I mean the the podcast stuff. I started one a long time ago with some buddies. We just listened, we talked about music and stuff like that, just just out of fun. And then when I met Micah at a meetup, I was doing a real estate meetup, right? That's when I barely started getting into real estate. I said, I'm gonna start doing some of these meetups. Right. And uh he showed up because he saw me on it was we were on the bigger pockets forums, and he showed up and he's like, um, he's telling us about all these, you know, he's telling us two things. One was weed stocks, that's when people started buying weed stocks.
SPEAKER_04He said, Hey, you gotta get into these weed stocks.
SPEAKER_03The other thing was this Airbnb thing he was doing out of his house. And I've I've used Airbnb to travel at that point, but I never I didn't have my own. I thought it'd be cool to have one. So of course I started talking to him. I was like, dude, you know, I just met him that day. I was like, we should do a podcast. He's like, What? He had to think about it a little bit, and he's like, Shit, all right, man. Let's yeah, let's record one. And that's I just ask you questions and then we'll get guests on and stuff. And um, because I wanted to learn more. That's why I started the podcast, so I could learn more about the thing that I that I was passionate about, you know. And just because real estate, I was listening to real estate podcasts at that point. I was like, Well, there's no Airbnb podcast, there's like one, you know. I said, I gotta start one so we can start learning how to do this thing, right?
SPEAKER_04Right, right.
SPEAKER_03And so it was more like like like
Starting the podcast to learn about the business
SPEAKER_03that, just just just so we can get the knowledge we needed by interviewing people that were actually doing it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's a good thing, man. You're doing great, man. Both of y'all are doing great. I always knew Mikey was different, you know. When he was with us, he was younger than us, and we he was just in the room and he was looking and perusing, just seeing what was going on, but he knew he had this personality that he wanted to show everybody. And once he did, everybody, you know, we fell in love with it. It was like, cool, you know, you know, just the little cousin, but you know, we treated him like the little cousin, but he's still in that room, and that's how I was at his age. I wanted to be in the room with my uncles and stuff like that. And but I didn't want to get kicked out, and I just wanted to sit there and just learn. And that's how I got an old soul because everybody, like, man, you got an old soul because I listened to them. I don't like making mistakes, I'd rather listen to them and their mistakes and learn from them. That's what life is about. I don't want to have to, oh, I'm gonna do it anyway and see what happens. Come on, man. Like, you got people that you trust and know, and they saying don't do it this way, do it this way. You just listen to them and make your own lane.
SPEAKER_03That's it.
SPEAKER_01That's all you gotta do. So, but hey man, just like you're doing now, you had your lane with your buddies, and now you started with Mike, and um, I see why he's doing a podcast with you, man, because you I see that you um you're on your game, you're on your you're on your you're on your game. I'm trying to get on my game. I'm trying to be like, yeah, I'm trying to get on my game. Uh I'm on my game with the vending, but I'm trying to get to the um real estate side too. Um, I and that's what I can pick your brain about.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we can help you with that for sure.
SPEAKER_01And I haven't talked to Mikey about it. I just wanted to support him on when I went over there that day just to say what's up and stuff like that, and just to support him, whatever he's doing. I tried to get to his meet um his meetup last week, but I had to go to a wedding. So I don't even like weddings, but I did it for my girlfriend. She loved it. So I did it. Weddings is a little different for me. Yeah, it's the shared bond thing that's you know, uh of love and things like that. I was like, man, what's my next move? I'm in there, like, what is my next move? Well, yeah, I'm gonna buy this company for my for my lady and me, and we're gonna learn some stuff and this, this, this. And that's what I was thinking about the whole time. I didn't even talk, and you know, I I can talk to people with the best of them. Um, but I was like, how am I gonna do this? Because she's not thinking that way. She's trying to have fun, which is great. But I'm thinking, like, man, if I'm putting out this money and this, this, this, how I'm gonna go about it doing this, this, this. That's just how my mind rumbles, man. It's just I'm always talking business until somebody has to stop telling me to talk about stop talking about business.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, man, you guys are doing a good job, man. And I I'm glad I'm glad and blessed that y'all um thought I was worthy of getting on the podcast and talking about what I have and the journey through.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you have to do a part two with Micah on the show, too. I know it'd be fun.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness, it'd be crazy. Mike tell you that's what he'd tell you. The same thing, that's what happened. I had it like everybody would come to my spot, everybody would have fun, and just I love like-minded people. That's just what it is, and everybody wants to help everybody build each other up instead of tearing them down, and that's what I did. And it's a lot of things. I I saved that um this one story for Mike, if we do do it, but uh it's just God told me to do um, he told me to meet all uh every walks of life that I had that I met people in my in my phone, he told me to get them together in one room and just talk and network every single aspect of my life from the bank, from being um from the fraternity, from college, from basketball, from sports, get everybody that's like-minded in one room and network and talk. And it was great, it was a wonderful thing, and it was for my birthday.
SPEAKER_03That's cool, man.
SPEAKER_01And then he just told me he I just woke up one day, he said, get everybody that you know that's like-minded, and it was a success, it's a success. And I and I and I contributed to uh God and when he told me to do it. So it's it's he he's he's right there by beside me, and I talk and move with the way he wants me to move. That's cool. I would never talk negative about nobody, I would just literally just say, Hey, this is his time right now. He he'll be okay.
SPEAKER_03Preach, preach, man.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, I just I just walked the life with a I just walked the life, that's all blessed by the best. Steven, I appreciate it, man. Do we need to do an um introduction thing just in case it happens?
SPEAKER_03And that was the amazing Matthew Thompson with uh the vending machine guru specialist, uh guru, I hate that word. Uh he's a vending machine guy. And he'll he said after the show that if you want to reach out to him, uh give him a call, and he gave his his phone number. So um, if you if you're interested in learning how to do vending machines yourself, here is his information and reach out to him, give him a call. Uh Matthew Thompson with Legacy Vending LLC. The phone number is 682-215-3939. Uh Thompson Legacyvending at gmail.com. You can reach him there too. So 682-215-3939. Hit him up and he'll he'll help you get started in your vending machine journey. Thanks for watching. Peace.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye!
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