My Experiences in the Vending Business
When I originally started in vending back in November of 2007, it was my goal to eventually do vending full time. My plan was to keep reinvesting all my profits in new machines and expand as quickly as possible. I was going to do all this part time while keeping my day job of course and I hoped to achieve this lofty goal in about two years. Well as you may have already guessed, this never came to pass. I’m still in the vending machine business and I’m still hoping to go full time, but I still have a long way to go.
So why haven’t I achieved my goals yet? There are actually a few reasons. One reason is that once a vending route gets to a certain point, it’s hard to grow and expand beyond this point while still working another job full time. My job allows me a lot more flexibility than most other jobs, for example, I can service some machines on my lunch break, but only so much can be accomplished in these short time frames. I’ve saturated the zip codes around my work, but now in order to grow my route I need to expand beyond this area. This puts me in a catch 22, I need to quit my job in order to expand my route, but I can’t quit my job until I expand my route.
Another thing I’ve struggled with is motivation. I’ve definitely wavered in my commitment to vending. Vending isn’t brain surgery, but it does require a concerted effort and a lot of drive in order to be successful in the long term. I realize that until I fully commitment to the premise of vending, I’m basically just a fence sitter.
So, I’m still hoping to do vending full time, but it’s going to take longer than anticipated. I’ve been in vending long enough to know that I can turn a profit doing it, so this isn’t really a concern. Eventually I’m just going to have to set a date and take the plunge.
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